A Mall In Jersey

The New Jersey Supreme Court ordered a reciprocal 18-month suspension of an attorney for misconduct described in the report of the Disciplinary Review Board.

The misconduct involved a transaction with clients under indictment

Respondent engaged in serious misconduct by making numerous misrepresentations on closing documents in a $13 million commercial real estate transaction. Specifically, he (i) misrepresented in the mall mortgage that SOC had not incurred and would not incur any indebtedness other than the debt owed to UBS, when he knew that SOC had received or was about to receive substantial loans from the Tsimermans, Castle, and respondent himself; (2) misrepresented in the mall mortgage that no owner of an interest in SOC was currently under investigation for alleged criminal activity, knowing that the Tsimermans were under investigation by the New York State Attorney General; (3) misrepresented in the mall mortgage that SOC would not mortgage or encumber either the mall or any ownership interest in SOC, knowing that he was about to execute promissory notes in favor of Castle and the Tsimermans; (4) misrepresented in SOC’s amended operating agreement that SOC would not incur any other debt, knowing that SOC was receiving substantial loans from the Tsimermans, Castle, and respondent himself; (5) misrepresented in SOC’s officer’s certificate that SOC had no loans payable to any stockholder, officer, director, or member of a general or limited partner of SOC, knowing that he had personally extended a $250,000 loan to SOC and that he was a fifty-percent beneficiary of SOC’s $780,000 note payable to Castle; and (6) misrepresented in the HUD-I that the $780,000 brokerage commission was paid at settlement, knowing that it had not been paid and that he and Shapiro had instead taken a promissory note from SOC. 

He also lied in the bar investigation.