Lawyer Rebuilds Life After Drug Conviction Cocaine Addiction Tore Apart Family, Professional Success

Ron Kappelman lived a charmed life.

He graduated at the top of Gonzaga University’s 1982 law school class, landed a job with one of Spokane’s biggest law firms and made partner by age 27.

He liked nice cars. He bought a Jaguar first, then a Lexus, then a Mercedes. He had a house on the South Hill, a boat, admiring colleagues.

And a drug problem.

In 1994, Kappelman was among 37 people arrested in a large drug sting that federal agents called Operation Doughboy.

He lost his license to practice law, and spent three months on work-release and two months in Spokane County Jail after arranging to buy cocaine from an informant.

He sold the cars and the boat and started selling espresso to support his family.

Earlier this year, Kappelman regained his attorney’s license and opened a small solo practice.

Still recovering from the disaster, Kappelman, 42, said he’s better off than before.

“I’ve had to go from the top of the heap to the bottom of the barrel over something as absurd as drugs,” he said. “I have far fewer material things than before. But I am much happier and fulfilled with my life because it’s a more balanced life.”

Kappelman’s recovery from drug and alcohol addiction has impressed people who know what he went through.

“I think Ron will be a poster figure for those who’ve survived bad experiences through determination and hard work,” said Spokane County District Court Judge Richard White.

Before the cocaine conviction, Kappelman was frequently in trial as a personal-injury defense lawyer, and White sometimes chatted with him outside court during recess.

White would ask him why he seemed so relaxed, and Kappelman told him: “I’m doing the best job I can. And I feel confident.”

Kappelman’s law school classmates remember that same confidence. Kappelman enrolled at Gonzaga University Law School in 1979 after getting a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Florida.

He earned perfect grades the first year, won a full academic scholarship, and at graduation received the Dean’s Award as the outstanding scholar in the class.

Jeff Wicks recalled seeing Kappelman showing up at class without having read the assignment. At the time, Kappelman was working as a legal intern during the day and attending school at night.

When called on, Kappelman did a better job outlining a case and summarizing key issues than students who had prepared the night before, Wicks said.

“Ron would look at the book and skim the case right there, for the first time, on his feet,” Wicks said. “I resented it, yet I was in awe of him.”

His skills impressed Bob Southwell, one of Spokane’s most successful insurance-defense attorneys. He made Kappelman his protege and gave him a full-time job with Southwell’s firm after graduation.

Two years later, in 1984, Southwell died. Instead of 40 cases, Kappelman found himself managing Southwell’s 400 active cases.

“I began working really long hours. Fifty, 60 hours a week, seven days a week,” Kappelman said.

At the same time, he said, his marriage began deteriorating. “Ultimately, my wife just wasn’t happy with her life,” he said.

Neither he nor his wife was using cocaine at the time, but both drank alcohol.

The drinking became ingrained in his life, with Kappelman frequently meeting clients after work over drinks. “Drinking was a regular, accepted routine for many attorneys, and I was no exception,” he said.

In 1992, Kappelman’s parents died in a car wreck in California. After a month away, he returned to work and found two of his law partners feuding over company business.

He sought escape from his stressful life over poker at a number of public card rooms. Kappelman’s circle of players eventually included people who were selling and using cocaine. His wife also began using cocaine, he said.

“Mostly, it gave me energy,” Kappelman said of the drug. “It would make me feel awake at a time I was exhausted a lot.”

He said he knew intellectually that getting caught could destroy his life and career. But drug use changes normal thinking, he added.

“That’s what this disease does, it creates a thought pattern of denial to perpetuate itself,” he said. “It’s hard to explain how powerless an addict is over their addiction.”

In 1994, Kappelman arranged to buy cocaine from a drug dealer named Hal Turner. He didn’t know that Turner was working as an informant to have several drug charges reduced by federal authorities.

Wearing a hidden tape recorder, Turner arranged with Kappelman to deliver cocaine on three occasions to Kappelman’s wife at their South Hill home.

Ultimately, Kappelman pleaded guilty to three counts of delivering cocaine. His wife, Joanna, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drug possession and was sentenced to 30 days of electronic home monitoring.

Although he holds himself responsible for his actions, Kappelman said he was targeted in the Operation Doughboy case because his nextdoor neighbor was Clarence “Cip” Paulsen III, a key figure in the investigation.

Paulsen was considered a kingpin cocaine dealer whose conviction got him more than 10 years in prison.

Tom Rice, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the Doughboy cases, disputed Kappelman’s claim.

“He made himself a target by associating with people selling drugs. He was charged because he bought drugs from Hal Turner,” Rice said.

Kappelman was sentenced to three months of work-release at Geiger Correctional Center, followed by three months of electronic home monitoring.

In the 18 months after the sentence, he twice tested positive for cocaine. That earned him a two-month jail sentence and an extended probation.

The threat that his next relapse would send him to prison made Kappelman focus on beating his problem.

He took an active role in several treatment programs and support groups. Much of the recovery process, he said, became a gradual recognition that seeking happiness in material things or drugs was futile.

“The big discovery is a basic one: Happiness is an inside job,” Kappelman said.

Kappelman said he’s been sober and drug-free since 1995.

After serving his jail term, Kappelman operated an espresso stand on Sunset Boulevard while his lawyer, the late Carl Maxey, asked the state Supreme Court to reverse a two-year suspension of Kappelman’s license ordered by the state bar disciplinary board.

Maxey said Kappelman’s personal problems never produced any client complaints about his work. By late 1996, Maxey argued Kappelman had not practiced law for two years and that period should count as the suspension.

In April 1997, the state Supreme Court disagreed and ordered the two-year suspension to start.

Kappelman regained his license last April and decided to reopen a one-man practice.

He’s renting an office near the county courthouse and focusing on personal injury cases and some criminal defense work.

After Kappelman divorced his wife in 1997, a court ordered that he be given primary custody of his three children, ages 13, 12 and 4.

He estimated his mistakes have cost him more than $1 million in income and assets, including $300,000 in retirement money he had to spend to support himself and his family.

“It’s been hard for me starting all over, from scratch,” he said. “But I really love this job. I enjoy helping people solve problems.”