Former Portsmouth city councilman and lawyer Michael Mearan was ordered to house arrest during a Friday court hearing after Judge Patricia Cosgrove ruled he violated the conditions of his bond by taking on new clients.
Cosgrove said she would be within her rights to send 75-year-old Mearan back to jail for violating the order.
"This is a small community," Cosgrove said, and a lawyer charged with first-degree felonies continuing to practice law "presents a real issue."
Mearan, who in December began submitting filings for himself in the case charging him with 18 counts spanning human trafficking, racketeering and compelling and promoting prostitution, is no longer representing himself, according to court records. He was brought into the Common Pleas courtroom Friday in a wheelchair, accompanied by his two daughters and newly obtained counsel, Michael Siewert of Siewert & Gjostein Co. LPA in Columbus.
