On September 2014, I hired Mr. Bob (Robert) Keefer to represent me for a reckless driving charge, excessive speeding over 80mph, in Page County General District Court. He made some promises such as hiring someone to do the math regarding my speed and keeping me out of jail, and he failed on both.
...On the day of my trial he told me not to come to the court otherwise I will be put in jail immediately. The outcome was that I was found guilty in my absence. He did not put up a fight in the court; he did not do any legal action; not only did he not hire somebody to do the math but also he failed to request the necessary documents related to the radar or to challenge the accuracy of the radar. The only thing he did was trying to alleviate the consequences (damage control) by sending me a to-do-list including community service, defensive driving course, character reference letters, etc., all of which I fulfilled.
The day after my trial, he call me and said the state trooper showed a video of me flying by him, and the prosecutor and the judge want me back for sentencing. He said do not come back to Virginia or they will put me in jail for a year and then I will get deported. This is in contrary to our three-way telephone conversation between me, Mr. Keefer (my criminal attorney at the time), and my immigration lawyer, that I am not going to get deported due to this incidence. So it was clear that I will not get deported although I might face difficulties for renewing my visa or applying for green card in the future.
Mr. Keefer not only kept warning me about appearing in the court, he also misrepresented me. There were several issues with my arrest and my charge that he failed to recognize and address. For example, I was not mirandized immediately after my arrest and, while in custody, the trooper interrogated me for 15 minutes until he remembered to read my rights.
When I finally decided to appear in Page County General District Court to settle the case, I asked Mr. Keefer to arrange a meeting between me and the prosecutor and he agreed. But after showing up empty-handed in the court with half an hour delay, he talked me out of meeting with the prosecutor to make deal bargain. He did not bring to the court any documents related to my case. He started by making arguments, which I did not approve of, about me getting deported as a result of this reckless driving misdemeanor charge. His arguments were nonsense and his concluding statement that I will be deported was wrong and in contrary to what he was told by my immigration attorney.
Right before the sentencing, the prosecutor and the judge were complaining for not having my DMV driving records (which I had already given them to Mr. Keefer). Fortunately, I had copies of all the documents I had given to Mr. Keefer, and just before things got worse I provided the court with a copy of my driving records. In the court I also found out that Mr. Keefer did not provide the prosecutor the letter from my immigration attorney regarding the negative outcomes of a criminal charge on my student visa status and my future stay in the US. This is in contrary to what he implied in his conversations with me regarding the refusal of the prosecutor for offering me a different disposition.
In conclusion, I found Mr. Keefer to be highly UNRELIABLE, not trustworthy at all, and very little knowledge of the law. He said I will go to jail immediately after the sentencing (which is not true for general district court) and the judge might refuse to allow me release from jail on a bond, which is not true either (just to scare me off from coming back to Virginia to learn that he had done nothing for me). He said I will get deported after serving my time in jail, which is obviously not correct. He did not know that the video of me admitting to speeding about 100mph cannot be used against me because I was not read my Miranda rights after getting arrested (I told him this later).