New Jersey Suspends Stalker Attorney For Six Months
The New Jersey Supreme Court has ordered a six-month suspension of an attorney for misconduct described in the report of the Disciplinary Review Board.
The court had issued an order to show cause after the DRB proposed a censure. The attorney then agreed to the suspension.
The DRB
Respondent was a partner in the law firm of Laddey, Clark and Ryan, LLP (LCR) in Sparta, New Jersey, from 2000 to 2014. In March 2014, CD, a former LCR employee who had worked at the law firm for a brief time in 2005, reported to the law firm that respondent had been stalking and harassing her.
LCR immediately opened an investigation into the allegations, the results of which are contained in an April i0, 2014 confidential report that is not a part of the record. As a result of its investigation, LCR directed respondent to cease all communications with CD and prohibited him from using LCR’s computers and e-mail system to communicate with her. Respondent agreed to these conditions.
LCR’s internal investigation further revealed that respondent also had sexually harassed another law firm employee WB, through a series of e-mails he had sent over the entire calendar year 2011. In those e-mails, respondent used derogatory names, such as “sweet cheeks,” when referring to WB. When interviewed by the OAE, WB stated that, although she had not reported respondent’s conduct to anyone, she believed it inappropriate.
On March 21, 2014, prior to the issuance of the LCR report, respondent resigned from the firm and commenced employment with another law firm three days later.
He self-reported to the bar on the threat that LCR would report him if he failed to do so.
According to the stipulation, respondent and CD engaged in a brief consensual sexual relationship in 2005. CD was not employed by LCR at the time. Afterward, the two remained social friends until the end of 2009, when CD indicated to respondent that she no longer wanted him to communicate with her.
When she did so, he reacted
Despite CD’s July 13, 2011 e-mail admonition, respondent continued to send her unwanted and unsolicited correspondence. A number of the e-mails asked CD to go to lunch or for drinks after work. The e-mails were variously offensive, insulting, and demeaning. They were often sexual in nature, containing references to CD as a love doll, sex toy, love kitten, sweetie pie, lover, sweetheart, darling, sweet pea, sweet cheeks, love muffin, sweet meats, love cakes, sweetness, sexy, and sexy girl.
Respondent repeatedly expressed his purported love for CD, even asking her to marry him, but alternately referred to her as “Bitch” or “Asshole.” He made offensive remarks about her supposed weight gain, and, in a December 21, 2012 e-mail stated, “All I want for Christmas is to [expletive] your brains out again.”
Respondent stipulated that he sent hundreds of e-mails to CD from 2009 to 2015…
Misconduct
Respondent admitted to sexually harassing CD and WB, two female employees of LCR. He demeaned them, particularly CD, in e-mails in which he used misogynist language and extended crude invitations to drink, dine, vacation and engage in sex with him. None of respondent’s overtures, contained in “hundreds” of emails, were welcomed, and in CD’s case, continued for years after a brief 2005 relationship. Respondent continued to send the e-mails even after CD explicitly directed communicating with her. He disregarded his law firm’s contemporaneous directive. in July 2012, that he stop communicating with CD. He disregarded the Sparta police sergeant’s 2014 admonition to cease his communications with her. He even sent CD an e-mail in 2015 from his Sandyston Township municipal e-mail account, which was available to him for official court business as that township’s municipal attorney. Thus, respondent is guilty of sexual harassment…
He also lied in the bar case.
According to the DRB, the sanction should be a censure
Either aspect of respondent’s misconduct — sexual harassment or lying to ethics authorities — would merit the imposition of a reprimand. We consider, in aggravation, that respondent engaged in a years-long campaign of harassment toward CD. He recklessly disregarded opportunities to cease his misconduct, and continued after warnings to stop from the victim, the police, and his law firm.
I must say that I am gratified that the court believes that sexual harassment and lying to ethics authorities merits a sanction north of censure. (Mike Frisch)