Fairfax police and prosecutors and federal prosecutors in Alexandria have all refused to say who shot an unarmed Geer in the doorway of his Springfield home or why, and no ruling has been made on whether the shooting was justifiable after nearly 15 months. On Nov. 13, Grassley sent a three-page letter to both Fairfax police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. and U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente with five questions about the case and when it might be resolved. The case was referred to federal prosecutors after five months by Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh.

Fairfax County moved quickly and hired Mark B. Bierbower of Hunton & Williams, a Richmond-based firm frequently used by Fairfax as outside counsel in various legal matters. Bierbower contacted Grassley’s office on Nov. 17 and told them he was representing the county, according to both officials in Grassley’s office and Michael Lieberman, the lawyer for Geer’s family. The family filed a civil suit against Fairfax police in September after a year without any answers in the case.

Fairfax County spokesman Tony Castrilli said he could not comment on, or even confirm, the hiring of Bierbower, or say how much county taxpayers would be paying Bierbower. Fairfax Chairman Sharon Bulova did not return a message seeking comment.

Lieberman said Bierbower’s hiring “strikes me as an awful waste of funds in this case just to keep information from becoming known to the public, about what happened. If they’re hiring counsel to answer those five questions, I’m sure they’re not doing it to provide that information.”

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Although Fairfax has its own county legal department, headed by county attorney David Bobzien, Bobzien has been involved in advising the Fairfax police on how to respond to investigative inquiries from county and federal prosecutors, several people familiar with the case said, and also must oversee the county’s response to the Geer family’s civil suit. Lawyers said either situation may have caused Bobzien to feel he had a conflict of interest in responding to Grassley.

Several people close to the Fairfax board said the supervisors are taking Grassley’s inquiry into the unsolved police shooting very seriously, and Bierbower lists two of his specialties as “Congressional oversight and investigations” on his web page. He is a former president of the Bar Association of D.C., as was his father, and the two partnered to represent Environmental Protection Agency assistant administrator Rita Lavelle as she came under intense congressional scrutiny in the 1980s. Lavelle was later prosecuted and convicted of lying to Congress.

In March 2005, Fairfax Congressman Tom Davis (R) convened a hearing into steroid use in baseball. McGwire, who had set the single season home run record in 1998, hired Bierbower and later said he wanted to testify truthfully about his steroid use during his playing days. But he was not granted immunity from criminal prosecution, Davis and Bierbower later said, and so he tried to answer questions without lying.

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“My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family, or myself,” McGwire said in his opening statement. In response to pointed questions, McGwire often said, “I’m not here to talk about the past…I’m here to be positive about this subject.” His testimony was not well received publicly, and he has not been admitted to the baseball Hall of Fame.

In 2010, McGwire admitted he had used steroids while playing. Bierbower then told American Lawyer Daily that “I think [Mark] deserves credit for being honest and open, and obviously the situation is different today than it was five years ago…He wanted to tell the truth then, which was quite a risk at the time. He was aware that he could be prosecuted and that his family and friends could be the subject of criminal investigations. And now he felt it was time to get this off his chest and tell the truth.”

Grassley’s office said neither the Justice Department nor Fairfax County police had yet provided any answers to the senator’s questions.

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