Stealing From Church Draws Disbarment

From the April 2015 edition of the California Bar Journal

RETA SEDEAL CURTIS [#175248], 55, of Los Angeles, was disbarred Dec. 20, 2014 and ordered to comply with rule 9.20 of the California Rules of Court and pay restitution.

A State Bar Court judge found Curtis culpable of 11 counts of misconduct including misappropriating nearly a quarter of a million dollars and violating a bankruptcy court order.

Much of Curtis’ misconduct stemmed from a bankruptcy case she handled on behalf of a Baptist church beginning in May 2007. Curtis filed a superior court petition in violation of an automatic stay, failed to completely and accurately disclose her fee arrangements with the church and received fees and expenses as counsel for the church without first getting the bankruptcy court’s approval. She also failed to turn over the church’s financial records to the trustee, disobeyed a court order and failed to report sanctions to the State Bar.

In another matter, Curtis was hired to help a couple obtain a loan modification. Curtis did not do loan modifications but did bankruptcies and advised the couple that they should file for bankruptcy to strip away the lien on their property before they negotiated with the bank to modify the loan.

After a two-year court process that ultimately led to Curtis’ clients receiving a full Chapter 7 discharge of their unsecured debt, Curtis was successful in changing the status of their $30,000 second trust deed from a secured to an unsecured asset. She did not, however, obtain a loan modification on their behalf and the bank ended up foreclosing on the property. During the time Curtis worked for them, the couple paid her $23,249.38, money that represented their monthly mortgage payment. Most of that money was supposed to be kept by Curtis to help in negotiating the loan modification. Instead Curtis put the money into a general business account, rather than in her client trust account, and used the money for her own purposes.

In addition, Curtis failed to provide an appropriate accounting to the couple after they terminated her employment and failed to accurately and completely disclose her fee arrangements with the couple.

In a third matter, Curtis convinced a client to let her keep the client’s life savings in her client trust account, purportedly for safe keeping. Instead, she misappropriated $231,465.15 of the woman’s money. Curtis returned $80,000, but as of the date of the State Bar Court’s recommendation to disbar her she had not returned the remaining balance of $209,410.38.

Curtis received some mitigation for presenting evidence of her good character, having no previous discipline and entering into a pretrial stipulation with the State Bar.

She was ordered to pay $227,871.76 plus interest in restitution.

(Mike Frisch)