Steve Singer, who will be sentenced by Criminal District Judge Frank Marullo on Monday, faces up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

In August, Marullo ruled that Reese Sims, 58, who faced felony charges for copper theft, a felony, was not indigent. Marullo removed the public defender from the case and ordered Sims to hire a private attorney.

But Marullo found out that an Orleans Parish Indigent Defender investigator was working Sims' case. He also leaned that Singer referred Sims to an attorney at the Loyola Law Clinic, Bradley Black, who agreed to represent Sims pro bono.

Singer is an assistant clinical professor at Loyola Law School and helps run the law clinic.

Singer refused comment on Thursday, but Christine Lehmann, chief defender for the Indigent Defender's Office, said Singer was only performing his duties by referring Sims to an attorney.

"We got off the case, but this was an individual who was not have the money to secure a lawyer," Lehmann said. "Steve did refer him to a member of the private bar that was willing to represent him."

Marullo told Singer Thursday that the judge was the person who decides if someone is indigent not the law clinics or the pro bono projects. But Singer did have an ethical duty to offer any assistance he could to a client being refereed to another lawyer, Lehmann said.

Sims owns a house, vehicles and dressed very nicely, Marullo said.

"In our evaluation he was absolutely indigent," Lehmann said. "The house he owns was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, his car is a 1994 Buick, and he earns $9,600 a year. That's half the annual income that presumptively entitles someone to an indigent defender."

This is Sims' first arrest, according to court records. He is due for trial in January.