HUD Without Paul Newman

An attorney who had participated in false certification on HUD-1 statements, failed to supervise the conduct of another attorney and paralegals that he employed and used his law firm’s trust account to “fund all or part of the buyer’s contribution reflected on certain HUS-1 Statements” was disbarred by the Delaware Supreme Court.

The court’s order appends the report of its Board on Professional Responsibility, which stated

Respondent participated in a criminal act of an equity stripping scheme to defraud innocent people of their life savings and in doing so made misrepresentations to lenders causing them injury as well. Any lesser sanction would only serve to exacerbate the substantial loss those innocent people suffered.

The board noted that the attorney admitted conduct that violated federal law although he had not been convicted. His plea for a lesser sanction fell on deaf ears. (Mike Frisch)