NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The Tennessee Supreme Court has permanently disbarred Williamson County attorney Connie Reguli, finding that years of misconduct escalated into harassing a judge and helping a client and her child hide from police.
The disciplinary case involved several incidents between 2014 and 2018. The court said the most serious centered on Williamson County Juvenile Court Judge Sharon Guffee and Reguli’s actions while representing a mother in a child custody case.
Reguli and Guffee had been on opposite sides of several lawsuits before the disciplinary case. Reguli personally sued Guffee in 2009 over the handling of her daughter’s juvenile court case and later sued or represented others in cases challenging Guffee’s conduct in juvenile court.
In August 2017, as part of her work with an advocacy group critical of DCS and the juvenile justice system, Reguli arranged for a speaker to accuse Guffee of unconstitutional conduct before state lawmakers and call for her removal from office. After the judge filed an ethics complaint against her that September, Reguli escalated her public attacks on Guffee.
The court said Reguli posted the full complaint on Facebook, including Guffee’s personal cellphone number and email address, and encouraged her followers to contact the judge. Guffee then received messages she described as angry, harassing and threatening, including accusations that she was involved in child trafficking.
Reguli also helped direct a website devoted to attacking Guffee, according to the opinion. The court said the campaign left Guffee and juvenile court employees fearing for their safety.
In March 2018, Reguli organized speakers who criticized Guffee at a Williamson County Commission meeting. One speaker still had a case awaiting a decision from Guffee. The judge later recused herself, forcing another judge to rehear the case.
The second major incident happened in August 2018 and involved Reguli’s client and the woman's two children.
On Aug. 13, a judge placed the children in the custody of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services and ordered law enforcement to find them. Authorities located the woman’s son, but not her daughter.
Two days later, Reguli obtained copies of the DCS petition and protective custody order from the DeKalb County Juvenile Court. She then met her client and the child at a Lebanon hotel and showed the woman the order.
While they were together, surveillance video showed the child display something on her phone to Reguli and her mother. The court said it was later determined to be an Amber Alert issued by law enforcement.
The court said Reguli then drove her client and the child to her Brentwood home instead of contacting police or DCS. The woman disabled wireless connections on the phones she and her daughter had been using, and Reguli gave her a burner phone.
Police found the woman and her daughter at Reguli’s home the next day. Officers took the child into protective custody and arrested the mother.
Later that day, Reguli posted a Facebook video suggesting she did not know about the custody order, even though the court found she had obtained it, shown it to her client and discussed it with her.
She also called the child alert “a bunch of trash,” urged people to ignore such alerts and warned that the government was “coming for your kids.”
The mother was later convicted of custodial interference. Reguli was convicted of facilitating custodial interference and being an accessory after the fact.
The mother’s conviction was later vacated because the jury instructions omitted an element required under the custodial-interference law in effect at the time. Reguli’s convictions were then vacated because there was no underlying felony conviction to support them.
The Supreme Court said those appellate decisions did not call the underlying events into question.
A disciplinary hearing panel recommended Reguli’s disbarment in 2022. The Williamson County Circuit Court upheld that decision in January 2024, and Reguli appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court affirmed her permanent disbarment, saying Reguli used her position as an attorney to deceive the public, intimidate judges and undermine trust in the justice system.
The court said her conduct “directly poison[ed] the well of justice” and amounted to “a grave dishonor as a lawyer.”
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