Sugar Daddy Should Be Disbarred

July 19, 2022

A former counsel to the Motion Pictures Association was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude under a “least culpable offender” analysis and must be disbarred, according to a recent recommendation of the District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility.

The BPR -under a recent board rule – may look to undisputed facts in its review and concluded that the “graphic threats against the victim ” warranted disbarment.

Baltimore Daily Voice reported on the conviction

The former top lawyer for the Motion Picture Association of America has been sentenced to about a year in prison for sexually abusing and blackmailing a woman he met through a “sugar daddy” dating website, according to Reuters.

Steven Fabrizio, 58, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, pleaded guilty on July 30, 2021, to one count each of blackmail and third-degree sexual abuse, according to Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Robert J. Contee III, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD

…The ex-attorney was arrested in August 2019, after corresponding with a woman he met on a “sugar daddy” dating website and giving her $400 in cash in return for sex, according to federal officials and Reuters.

When the woman turned down Fabrizio’s request for another meeting the following day, authorities said. When she declined, Fabrizio texted her saying that her employer, parents, and landlord would be told about their sex-for-cash arrangement — unless she continued to submit to his demands, police said.

(Mike Frisch)

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Bar Discipline & Process