PROVIDENCE — The former leader of Rhode Island's economic development agency has voluntarily dismissed a complaint against lawyers who represented the agency in the $75 million 38 Studios loan-guarantee deal, attorneys said Friday.
David Martland, a lawyer for former Economic Development Corporation executive director Keith Stokes, filed a dismissal notice this week in Superior Court. Stokes said he dismissed it because he realized it would be a distraction to the main lawsuit.
Stokes and his then-deputy at the EDC, Michael Saul, filed the original complaint last week. It alleged legal malpractice, saying that two lawyers and their firms provided Stokes and Saul poor legal advice before the EDC board approved the guarantee.
The lawsuit named Antonio Afonso Jr.
and his firm, Moses Afonso Ryan, as well as Robert Stolzman and his firm, Adler Pollock & Sheehan.
Bruce Gladstone, an attorney for Saul, said his client is going ahead with the complaint.
''I stand alone,'' he told a judge during a hearing in the 38 Studios case on Friday.