Doubling Down

The Alberta Law Society Hearing Committee has imposed a four-month suspension of an attorney who admitted misconduct

In October 2022, Ikechukwu Okafor, a practicing lawyer in Calgary and member of the Law Society of Alberta (LSA), forged the signatures of his clients on transaction documents, knowingly submitted forged transaction documents to the Alberta Land Titles office (LTO), and then made a further misleading statement to the LTO attesting to documents that he knew were forged. This conduct is conduct deserving of sanction.

Facts

The critical facts are set out in the SAF. In summary, Mr. Okafor was assisting clients in refinancing a property. One of the owners had been deported. The deportee had executed a Power of Attorney providing authority to another owner. Registration documents were submitted to the LTO on September 8, 2022. The documents were rejected. Rather than properly addressing the deficiencies in the documents, Mr. Okafor instead personally signed a new land transfer forging the signatures of the owners. He also swore a false Affidavit of Execution for the forged signatures and resubmitted the package to the LTO. Mr. Okafor admits that he did not witness the signatures on the Affidavit of Execution. On October 4, 2022, the package was rejected by Land Titles noting the apparent differences of the signatures of one of the owners on the documents.

Instead of proceeding properly, Mr. Okafor instead doubled down on the forgeries and false Affidavit. He tendered a misleading representation to the LTO. He made a handwritten notation on the Notice of Deficiency stating that the owner signed the document when he knew that he had forged the document. This is apparent from the evidence in the SAF.

Seriousness of misconduct

Mr. Okafor’s conduct is not akin to a lawyer who has been duped by a client into believing that a signature of another is real. Although swearing a false affidavit of execution is also conduct deserving of sanction, forgery of a signature, let alone repeated forgeries, is more serious conduct and therefore must attract more severe sanction. This was not a case where the lawyer was first misled by his client. Rather, Mr. Okafor actively and repeatedly tried to mislead others. Mr. Okafor first forged a signature, then he swore a false Affidavit of Execution respecting the forgery, then he submitted the forgery and the false affidavit to LTO, and then he reiterated the forged document in attempts to knowingly mislead the LTO.

Sanction

Having regard to the authorities above and the evidence before the Committee, and the overriding principles respecting the purpose of sanction, this conduct must be met with a suspension; a reprimand or fine is not sufficient. The Committee imposes a 4-month suspension. The suspension will commence one month after the issuance of this written decision.

(Mike Frisch)