NEW YORK - An alert hotel clerk helped police nab a fugitive lawyer facing charges that he paid for sex with two girls with the approval of their mother.
James Colliton, 42, formerly a tax attorney at the prestigious Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Friday afternoon before Justice Charles Solomon in Manhattan's state Supreme Court.
The judge ordered the defendant jailed without bail and scheduled a hearing for March 8.
Colliton was spotted by a St. Mark's Hotel clerk who recognized him from a newspaper photograph and called police, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said. Using the name "Patrick Monsey," Colliton approached the front desk Friday morning, told the clerk he wanted to stay a second night but tried to reregister under a different name, "Patrick Waters," the district attorney said.
"The clerk was alert," Morgenthau said. "He thought he (Colliton) looked like the picture on the front page of the Daily News, and he called the police."
Police arrested Colliton alone in his room shortly after 10:30 a.m.
Colliton was carrying identification in the name of "James Sullivan," and "had a bag with a lot of cash in it and a lot of American Express gift cards," Morgenthau said. He said Colliton had 30 to 40 gift cards and police said he had about $10,000 cash.
Colliton, who has a wife and five children living in Poughkeepsie in upstate New York, was originally captured last weekend in a hotel in Grimsby, Ontario, near Toronto. Morgenthau said Friday it remained unclear why he was released.
Assistant District Attorney Rachel Hochhauser said Colliton learned one day last week that the Administration for Children's Services had contacted police.
"From that day," she said, "he began a barrage of phone calls and repeated efforts to stop these girls from making his involvement (with them) known.
"He offered them money and he gave them money," Hochhauser said. "He promised them things for lying to authorities."
In the meantime, the prosecutor said, while a surrender was being arranged, Colliton fled. She said he was found hiding in Canada, but "due to a series of miscommunications, he was released."
Colliton's lawyer, Alan Abramson, said his client was innocent of the charges.
"These allegations are false," he told the judge. "Mr. Colliton never had sex of any kind with anyone under age."
Abramson refused to comment further as he left court.
Colliton could face up to seven years in prison if convicted of any of the top charges of second-degree rape, patronizing a prostitute or bribing a witness.
Morgenthau said Thursday that Colliton had in effect been renting the teenage girls from their 38-year-old mother.
The lawyer started with a 15-year-old daughter in 2000 and continued until 2004, Morgenthau said. In 2004, he said, Colliton began having sex with a second daughter, then 13, and continued until last month when the girl told child welfare workers what was going on.
The mother, whose name was withheld to protect her daughters' identities, was indicted on charges of promoting prostitution and endangering a child's welfare. She was jailed on $100,000 bail.
