Leisha Pickering Gets Restraining Order Against Alleged Mistress

File Photo

Former U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering's personal documents are at issue in his estranged wife's lawsuit against his mistress.

by Adam Lynch
July 17, 2009

The Hinds County Circuit Court has granted the wife of former Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering her motion to protect documents related to her divorce in Madison County Chancery Court.

Leisha Jane Pickering filed a July 14 complaint for alienation of affections against Jackson resident Elizabeth Creekmore-Byrd--a member of the affluent Creekmore family, who are founders of the Cellular South phone company--and several relatives who she claims donated to her husband while he was in Congress and who acted to cover PickeringA's alleged philandering. Leisha Pickering also filed a motion for temporary restraining order against her former attorney Bettie Ruth Johnson, so that Chip Pickering's journals and documents, obtained during the course of Pickering's divorce, may be preserved and used in the subsequent alienation of affection civil suit she filed against Creekmore-Byrd.

Chip Pickering, a father of five, was one of Congress' more conservative Republicans, voting with President George Bush nearly 98 percent of the time. He ran on a platform of family values and fiscal conservatism during his stint as a U.S. Congressman. He now serves as senior consultant for Mississippi Energy Policy Institute and a lobbyist with Capitol Resources, in Jackson--which lobbies for Cellular South. The congressman kept personal records of his alleged sexual exploits with Creekmore-Byrd, which his wife obtained and sought to use during the July divorce. Chip Pickering's lawyers filed a successful motion during a July 7 divorce court hearing in Madison County Chancery Court to remove from his wife the journals, which the court deemed improperly obtained.

The court also demanded that Leisha Pickering share none of the allegedly damning information with her new attorney, who was unidentified at the time of the July 7 hearing but is now known to be former Supreme Court Justices Chuck McRae and Oliver Diaz.

Leisha Pickering states in the motion that if the documents are turned over to Pickering's attorney, without protection, they could be destroyed.

Pickering filed the temporary restraining order in Hinds County Circuit Court, which ordered Ruth Johnson to turn over copies of all documents to Hinds County, place them under seal, and file them personally with the court. The court will hold the documents until a final order is entered in the Pickering divorce case in Madison.

Attorneys are disagreeing over Madison Chancery Court Judge Cynthia Lee Brewer's decision to lock away the relevant journals and notes that could dash the defense of a woman who allegedly stole Chip Pickering from his wife.

One Jackson attorney, speaking anonymously, called Brewer's decision troubling because of the potential violation in attorney-client privilege it represents.

"The court seemed in awe of Chip Pickering," said the attorney, "like they had decided that were going to do everything to help him out. This was blatantly wrong. This is the type of thing judicial performance jumps all over. Of their own (volition), they should jump all over this."

Local attorneys say the most egregious violation appeared to be the court's decision to deprive Leisha Pickering of relevant information that could make or break her case, and that any attorney helping Leisha Pickering would be undermined by the absence of the information.

"How could you make any arguments in court without the documents to back them up?" asked one attorney familiar with the case. "The legs would be cut out from under them."

Leisha Pickering claims in a court filing that she was represented in Madison Chancery Court matter by Ruth Johnson, though Ruth Johnson had told the court that she would no longer be representing Leisha Pickering. The situation, argue some lawyers, essentially deprived her of an attorney with an investment in the case, who may have fought harder to maintain the documents.

"First, you got the problem with the allegations, but what happened in Madison was a travesty. She was essentially there without representation. They were questioning her without her attorney," said another attorney.

Brewer told Leisha Pickering that she could be "guilty of or may be cited for some issuance of contempt," if she shared the information gleaned from the journals with another lawyer.

Pickering, who is not a lawyer, pointed out that the information could prove relevant: "... (A)ll the information I know about my husband's behavior has come through what I found out over a year ago, and I think that anyone in my situation and my position would be looking at any other--whether it's finding love letters or anything."

Brewer: "Ma'am. Ma'am, please."

Pickering: "I'm just trying to understand."

Brewer: "Ma'am, you know what you may have gleaned from the things that now must be returned. You know where you received those things, how you received those. So you will be on your honor not to discuss the contents thereof. You may discuss anything else, but you are on your honor not to discuss those things that you gleaned from the documents that must now be returned."

Mississippi College School of Law Professor Matt Steffey told the Jackson Free Press that he did not feel Judge Brewer's decision was protectionist toward Chip Pickering.

"She employed a special master to look at it and make recommendations. She followed a retired chancellor's recommendation and moved forward. … It's not the judge's fault that Pickering was between attorneys. This is not a criminal case," Steffey said. "I would want strong evidence, as yet not manifest, before I would accuse a judge of behaving unethically. The judge has to rule for either one person or another, and if the documents were improperly returned then they need to be returned."

Read the restraining order

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