A Portsmouth prosecutor who’s repeatedly been disciplined by the Virginia State Bar and judges in the region for legal missteps is facing federal criminal charges accusing him of possessing and distributing large amounts of marijuana.
A two-count criminal information was filed Sept. 10 in U.S. District Court in Norfolk against Matthew Taylor Morris, court records show. The records also indicate the 38-year-old attorney plans to enter a guilty plea in the case on Sept. 24.
Morris resigned from his job as an assistant commonwealth’s attorney Sept. 6, four days before the charges were filed, according to a spokeswoman for the office. He was hired in August 2022, the spokeswoman said. She declined to comment further.
Morris’ attorney James Broccoletti confirmed that Morris plans to plead guilty later this month, but also declined to comment further.
Morris is accused of working with at least three others to possess and distribute large amounts of marijuana, according to the complaint. The crimes are alleged to have occurred between March 2021 and May 2022, which was before Morris began his job with the prosecutor’s office.
The complaint didn’t specify how much marijuana was involved, but indicated it was less than 50 kilograms. The document also stated that Morris and alleged co-conspirators Nicholas Capehart, Donald Rogers and Jeffrey Sines “derived substantial gross proceeds” from the illegal dealings.
The marijuana was stored at locations across Hampton Roads, including a law office Morris maintained before becoming a prosecutor, according to the complaint. The group used encrypted cellphone messaging applications to avoid detection, the document said.
Morris’ legal troubles with the Virginia State Bar and local judges date back to at least early 2022. Over a period of several months that year, his law license was suspended three times, he was caught with a gun in his briefcase at the Virginia Beach courthouse on two separate occasions, was found in civil contempt three times by judges in the region, and was barred from handling criminal cases in Virginia Beach Circuit Court by one of its judges.
Morris’ first known disciplinary incident occurred in March 2022, when he was ordered to appear at a show cause hearing in Virginia Beach Circuit Court for the two incidents in which courthouse security officers found a gun in his briefcase.
Morris told Judge Les Lilley he’d forgotten the gun was there when he went through the building’s metal detectors. Lilley found him in civil contempt, but court documents didn’t indicate whether a punishment was issued.
That same month, the Virginia State Bar suspended his law license for a week for failing to comply with a legal education requirement. It was suspended again shortly after that for unpaid bar dues.
Also in March 2022, Virginia Beach Circuit Judge Stephen Mahan banned Morris from representing clients in criminal cases there after he showed up hours late to a court hearing and made troubling statements about the reason for his tardiness and mistakes he’d made in his client’s case.
In August 2022, the bar suspended his law license again — that time for six months — for a series of threatening texts he sent to a former client. According to the bar, Morris suspected the man had filed a complaint against him.
Morris was hired by Portsmouth Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Morales in fall 2022, after those incidents had occurred.
In October of that year — shortly after he began working for Morales — Morris pleaded guilty to a civil contempt charge in Northampton Circuit Court and was fined $250, according to the Shore Daily News. In that case, he’d failed to show up for a court hearing two months earlier, when he was still workingin private practice.
While serving as a Portsmouth prosecutor, Morris continued to prosecute dozens of cases during a four-week period when his license was suspended, according to the state bar. He told bar officials he wasn’t aware of the suspension.
In March 2023 — when the bar was considering what action to take against Morris for the threatening texts he’d sent his former client — Morales submitted a character reference letter in which she described him as knowledgeable, professional and hard-working. She also wrote that she “couldn’t be more pleased” with her decision to hire him.
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
