A Minnesota board in charge of the lawyer discipline system said Tuesday it received a complaint against Howard O. Kieffer in February but that it probably was misdirected.
The Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility received a complaint about Kieffer seven months ago, Director Martin Cole said. The tip came from a person in Duluth, Cole said, but he would not reveal the person's identity.
Kieffer, a Duluth resident who had an office here, was arrested in Duluth on Aug. 27 on federal charges of mail fraud and impersonating a lawyer.
Cole said his file showed that the complainant was told to call the city attorney's office. He called that a "mistake," saying it should have been passed on to the county attorney's office.
"The unauthorized practice of law is a criminal offense that is prosecuted by the county attorney's office where the alleged crime occurred," Cole said.
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Cole said his office only investigates licensed attorneys in Minnesota and thus it would have been inappropriate to investigate Kieffer, who was never licensed in this state -- or, for that matter, anywhere else in the country, according to federal charging documents.
Duluth City Attorney Gunnar Johnson said no one in his office was familiar with any complaints about Kieffer. Johnson was hired by the city in June.
"If a complaint did come in, we would have referred the matter to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which handles registration of attorneys," Johnson said.
Duluth police said Tuesday they passed on investigating Kieffer in June after being tipped that he was allegedly posing as a lawyer because the case they were told about wasn't in their jurisdiction.
"It was determined that no crime had been committed in Duluth," Deputy Chief John Beyer said.
Another person who hired Kieffer told the News Tribune on Monday that he sent a letter to St. Louis County Attorney Melanie Ford in early June asking that her office investigate Kieffer's credentials. Ford's office passed it on to the Duluth Police Department, which concluded that though Kieffer lived in Duluth, the complaint came from someone who lived in another city, Beyer said.
"We had no jurisdiction in the case," Beyer said.
Beyer said the person with the complaint was told to call the Minnesota Attorney General's office and the Minnesota Bar Association.
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Attorney General spokesman Brian Bergson said Wednesday that his office did not have any complaints on file pertaining to Kieffer.
"And we wouldn't have jurisdiction to do criminal charges related to this matter," he said.
The Bar Association said complaints against lawyers are handled by the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility.
Kieffer pleaded not guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D., to two felony charges of impersonating a lawyer in at least 10 states, and his trial was set for Nov. 18.
Kieffer has not returned repeated e-mails and phone calls from the News Tribune seeking comment on the allegations against him.
