A Michigan Attorney Discipline Board Hearing Panel disbarred an attorney
Respondent and the Grievance Administrator filed a Stipulation for Consent Order of Disbarment, pursuant to MCR 9.115(F)(5), which was approved by the Attorney Grievance Commission and accepted by the hearing panel. The stipulation contained respondent’s admissions that he was convicted on September 17, 2020 of three counts of willful neglect of duty by a public officer holding public trust (a misdemeanor), in violation of MCL 750.478, and that his conviction constituted professional misconduct.
Based on respondent’s admissions and the stipulation of the parties, the panel found that respondent committed professional misconduct when he engaged in conduct that violated a criminal law of a state or of the United States, an ordinance, or tribal law pursuant to MCR 2.615, in violation of MCR 9.104(5), and engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, or violation of the criminal law, where such conduct reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer, in violation of MRPC 8.4(b).
Detroit Free Press reported
Personal laptops, travel expenses to his Arizona residence and a piece of sound equipment.
That’s what public drug and alcohol forfeiture funds covered for former Macomb County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Benjamin Liston, who pleaded guilty in an embezzlement probe Thursday.
Liston, 58, a former right-hand man of ex-Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith, pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges of willful neglect of duty by a public officer holding public trust.
Smith and two others, including another assistant prosecutor, also are charged.
As part of the plea agreement, Liston will be sentenced to 60 days in the county jail, will relinquish his law license in Michigan and will pay nearly $16,000 in restitution to the county.
He also has to cooperate in the ongoing prosecution of the embezzlement case, including — if requested —to testify truthfully about Smith, including about Smith’s March 6, 2019, email to Liston concerning the county-ordered audit of the forfeiture accounts.
No sentencing date has been scheduled for Liston, who is married to Warren’s 37th District Judge Suzanne Faunce.
Liston’s plea comes a week after the federal government said Smith agreed to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in a separate investigation of obstruction of justice for urging an associate and two assistant prosecutors to help him cover up his theft of $70,000 from his reelection fund. Smith is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in federal court.
