Sting Operation on Vermont Criminal Defense Attorney

This article recounts a troubling occurrence, the police conducted a sting operation on a criminal defense attorney. Seems the police acted on a wiretap warrant and "pretended to be a witness for whom authorities were searching in a domestic-assault case; the lawyer was representing the suspect. The investigator asked whether he should duck police attempts to serve him with a subpoena, or, if agents found him, whether he should violate the order and skip the court date." According to the article, the attorney told her client that "if prosecution witnesses don't show up at trial, the state loses." Whether the answer is proper can be debated in law school ethics classes, but this kind of state action is terribly troubling.