Boise lawyer disbarred, supplied meth to Aryan Knights prison gang

BOISE (Idaho Statesman)

— A Boise attorney resigned her law license and pleaded guilty to a felony drug charge after providing methamphetamine to a white supremacist client in a Kuna prison, court documents and Idaho State Bar proceedings showed.

Courtney M. Peterson, formerly of Peterson Law Offices, resigned earlier this month from the Idaho State Bar in lieu of disciplinary proceedings.

Her resignation came after she was charged in Idaho’s U.S. District Court in June with felony distribution of methamphetamine.

According to the Idaho State Bar public notice, prison staff searched the cell of one of Peterson’s clients, Aryan Knights prison gang leader James Ramsey, in September 2023 and found a cellphone containing evidence that confirmed she distributed drugs to the client while he was in the maximum security prison.

Ramsey is the former leader of the Aryan Knights and was facing charges related to a racketeering scheme in which he and several co-defendants smuggled meth into Idaho Department of Corrections facilities.

All 10 defendants in the case eventually pleaded guilty, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho announced last year.

Peterson withdrew from representing Ramsey shortly after the cellphone was found at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in 2023, court records showed.

Most documents related to Peterson’s case are sealed, but judgment records showed she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, with credit for time served.

The Idaho State Bar notice said Peterson must wait five years before she is eligible to reapply for admission, at which point she will have to prove that she is no longer “unfit to practice law,” as determined by her resignation.

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