Gambling No Mitigation

The New Jersey Supreme Court issued a spate of disbarment orders last week.

One involved criminal convictions described by the Disciplinary Review Board

Respondent was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 2002 and to the New York bar in 2003. At the relevant times, he was in-house counsel to a home health care and nursing service, referred to as Company A” throughout the proceedings…

Respondent’s involvement in the fraud against Company A was “continuing and prolonged,” extending over a period of four years and involved the embezzlement of more than $2.5 million. In so doing, he was motivated by personal greed, the need to fund his gambling habit. Finally, although respondent did not necessarily use his skills as a lawyer to carry out the scheme, he used and then abused the position of trust and power that he held, as in-house counsel, to divert Company A’s funds to himself. His fraud against the U.S. Government, by failing to declare and pay income tax on his ill-gotten gains, compounds the venality of his actions.

To conclude, we determined to grant the motion for final discipline, based on respondent’s conviction of wire fraud and tax fraud, a violation of RPC 8.4(b) and (c). Because his criminal conduct stemmed from his knowing misappropriation of client funds, we recommend that he be disbarred.

The DRB noted that compulsive gambling is not treated as a mitigating factor in New Jersey.

NJ.com reported on the criminal case. (Mike Frisch)