A Portsmouth prosecutor who has been repeatedly sanctioned by the Virginia State Bar and area judges for legal errors is facing federal criminal charges accusing him of possessing and distributing large amounts of marijuana.
A two-count criminal complaint was filed Sept. 10 in federal court in Norfolk against Matthew Taylor Morris, according to court records. The documents also indicate that the 38-year-old attorney plans to enter a guilty plea in the case on Sept. 24.
Morris resigned as an assistant commonwealth’s attorney on 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 collaborating with at least three others to possess and distribute large amounts of marijuana, according to the complaint. The crimes allegedly occurred between March 2021 and May 2022, before Morris began his employment with the district attorney’s office.
The complaint does not specify the amount of marijuana involved, but says it was less than 50 kilograms. The document also states that Morris and his alleged co-conspirators, Nicholas Capehart, Donald Rogers and Jeffrey Sines, “reaped substantial gross profits” from the illegal transactions.
The marijuana was stored at several locations in Hampton Roads, including a law firm Morris ran before becoming a prosecutor, the complaint said. The group used encrypted cellphone messaging apps 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, he had his law license suspended three times, was arrested with a gun in his briefcase at the Virginia Beach courthouse twice, was found in civil contempt three times by area judges 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 two incidents in which courthouse security officers found a gun in his briefcase.
Morris told Judge Les Lilley that he forgot about the gun when he went through the building’s metal detectors. Lilley found him in civil contempt, but court records do not indicate whether any punishment was imposed.
That same month, the Virginia State Bar suspended his law license for a week for failing to meet a legal education requirement. His license was suspended again shortly after for failure to pay bar dues.
Also in March 2022, Virginia Beach Circuit Judge Stephen Mahan barred Morris from representing clients in criminal cases after he showed up hours late to a court hearing and made troubling statements about why he was late and mistakes he made in his client’s case.
In August 2022, the bar association suspended his law license again — this time for six months — over a series of threatening text messages he sent to a former client. According to the bar association, Morris suspected the man had filed a complaint against him.
Morris was hired by Portsmouth Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Morales in the fall of 2022 after these incidents occurred.
In October of that year, shortly after he began working for Morales, Morris pleaded guilty to civil contempt in Northampton court and was fined $250, according to the Shore Daily News. In that case, he had failed to show up for a court hearing two months earlier, while still in his own practice.
As a Portsmouth prosecutor, Morris continued to prosecute dozens of cases during a four-week period during which his license was suspended, according to the state bar. He told bar officials he was unaware of the suspension.
In March 2023, as the bar was considering what action to take against Morris for the threatening text messages he sent to his former client, Morales submitted a letter of recommendation in which she described him as competent, professional and hardworking. She also wrote that she “could not be happier” with its decision to hire him.
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
