Case Title: Eli Frank v.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 1996AP000419-D

State: wisconsin

Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Date: 1996-12-20T00:00:00Z

Document:
NOTICE 
This opinion is subject to further editing 
and modification.  The final version will 
appear in the bound volume of the official 
reports. 
 
 
No. 96-0419-D 
 
STATE OF WISCONSIN               :               
 
 
 
 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against ELI FRANK, Attorney at Law. 
FILED 
 
DEC 20, 1996 
 
Marilyn L. Graves 
Clerk of Supreme Court 
Madison, WI 
 
 
 
 
Attorney 
disciplinary 
proceeding. 
 
Attorney’s 
license 
suspended. 
PER CURIAM. We review the findings of fact and conclusion of 
law of the referee concerning the professional misconduct of 
Attorney Eli Frank that resulted in his conviction in federal 
court on a guilty plea to one felony count of conspiring to 
commit bank fraud. The referee recommended that the court 
publicly reprimand Attorney Frank for that misconduct.  
The facts that led to Attorney Frank’s criminal conviction 
were never in dispute, as evidenced by his guilty plea in federal 
court, the stipulation he entered into with the Board of 
Attorneys Professional Responsibility (Board) in this proceeding, 
and the uncontroverted testimony of the witnesses at the 
disciplinary hearing. Further, the parties agreed that Attorney 
Frank’s conduct constituted the commission of a crime that 
 
 
No.  96-0419-D 
 
 
2
adversely reflects on his honesty and trustworthiness as a 
lawyer, in violation of SCR 20:8.4(b).
1 Accordingly, we adopt the 
findings of fact and conclusion of law set forth in the referee’s 
report.  
The matter left for decision, then, is the appropriate 
discipline to impose on Attorney Frank for his professional 
misconduct. The public reprimand recommended by the referee is an 
insufficient response to the seriousness of that misconduct, 
although it reflects the referee’s careful exposition, analysis, 
and application of numerous factors that mitigate the seriousness 
of that misconduct and the severity of discipline to be imposed 
for it. In light of those mitigating factors discussed below and 
the factual posture of the case presented, we determine that the 
proper disposition of this proceeding is the suspension of 
Attorney Frank’s license to practice law for a period of 90 days.  
While a longer license suspension or even license revocation 
might be the appropriate disciplinary response to a lawyer’s 
conviction of felony conspiracy to commit bank fraud in the 
abstract, the circumstances particular to this case are such as 
to require less severe discipline. Attorney Frank’s participation 
in the fraud occurred after the fraud had been perpetrated by one 
                                                          
 
1 SCR 20:8.4 provides, in pertinent part: Misconduct 
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to: 
. . . 
(b) commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the 
lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other 
respects. 
 
 
No.  96-0419-D 
 
 
3
of his clients, and the part he took in it was passive in nature, 
consisting of his failing to act to remedy the fraud after 
learning of it and realizing he had been the unwitting recipient 
of its proceeds. Nonetheless, Attorney Frank’s professional 
misconduct is serious: after becoming aware that his professional 
position was used by a client to obtain loan funds fraudulently 
and that the client had used those funds to make partial payment 
of his law firm’s legal fees, Attorney Frank did nothing to set 
right the wrong his client had committed, acquiescing thereby in 
his and his law firm’s benefit from it. The discipline we impose 
also takes into account mitigating factors concerning Attorney 
Frank’s character and reputation and the length of time the 
procedure initiated by the parties in this proceeding has 
necessitated to reach a determination.  
Attorney Frank was admitted to the practice of law in 
Wisconsin in 1965 and practiced in Milwaukee until July 31, 1995, 
when he resigned from the law firm in which he was a partner in 
anticipation of criminal charges being filed against him in 
federal court. He has not been the subject of a prior 
disciplinary proceeding.  
Following his conviction in November, 1995, Attorney Frank 
and the Board entered into a stipulation of facts and conclusion 
of law concerning the criminal conduct and to the imposition of a 
90-day license suspension as discipline for it. The stipulation 
recited only the following facts. 
Attorney Frank and the law firm in which he then practiced 
were principal legal counsel for a real estate developer, Frank 
 
 
No.  96-0419-D 
 
 
4
Crivello, from 1990 to 1993. During that time, Mr. Crivello and 
his employes used a fraudulent scheme to obtain proceeds of a 
loan Mr. Crivello had obtained for a construction project. They 
used letterhead stationery of Attorney Frank’s law firm that 
Attorney Frank had allowed the client to keep in his offices to 
fabricate two invoices for legal services relating to the 
construction project and submitted them to the lender bank for 
payment. The invoices totaled $44,020.  
Attorney Frank was not aware of the fabricated invoices 
prior to their being submitted to the bank. At the time they were 
submitted, his law firm had performed services related to the 
client’s construction project that totaled only $3089. Attorney 
Frank was aware of the balance of services rendered in that 
matter when he received $44,020 in payment, and he credited the 
difference, $40,931, to fees owed by the client for services the 
law firm had provided in other matters.  
The parties further stipulated that the prosecutor’s office 
reported that Attorney Frank was fully cooperative with the 
government in the criminal matter and that he promptly notified 
the Board of the federal charge before it became public. Attorney 
Frank pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiring to commit 
bank fraud, and the court placed him on five years’ probation, 
ordered him to serve six months in a halfway house with work 
release privileges, perform 500 hours of community service, and 
pay restitution in the amount of $40,931, and fined him $10,000.  
We considered those limited facts in the stipulation filed 
with the Board’s complaint at the commencement of this proceeding 
 
 
No.  96-0419-D 
 
 
5
and determined that they did not support the discipline to which 
the parties had agreed. Accordingly, we rejected the stipulation 
and, pursuant to SCR 21.09(3m),
2 directed the matter to proceed 
before a referee. In the subsequent proceeding, Attorney Frank 
stipulated to the misconduct allegations set forth in the Board’s 
complaint, and the disciplinary hearing addressed for the most 
part the issue of discipline to be recommended. The referee, 
Attorney Jean DiMotto, made findings of fact based on the 
testimony of the witnesses at the hearing, including the 
following.  
When Attorney Frank was first retained by Mr. Crivello in 
the late 1980’s, he and another lawyer in his firm undertook the 
client’s small claims work. Because the firm did not have 
sufficient secretarial staff to deal with the high volume of that 
work, Mr. Crivello allowed the attorneys to use the secretaries 
in his office for it. Attorney Frank provided those secretaries 
small claims forms, stationery and other materials, including his 
firm’s letterhead stationery, for their preparation of court 
                                                          
 
2 SCR 21.09 provides, in pertinent part: Procedure. 
. . . 
(3m) The board may file with a complaint a stipulation by 
the board and the respondent attorney to the facts, conclusions 
of law and discipline to be imposed. The supreme court may 
consider the complaint and stipulation without appointing a 
referee. If the supreme court approves the stipulation, it shall 
adopt the stipulated facts and conclusions of law and impose the 
stipulated discipline. If the supreme court rejects the 
stipulation, a referee shall be appointed pursuant to sub. (4) 
and the matter shall proceed pursuant to SCR chapter 22. A 
stipulation that is rejected has no evidentiary value and is 
without prejudice to the respondent’s defense of the proceeding 
or the board’s prosecution of the complaint. 
 
 
No.  96-0419-D 
 
 
6
documents and correspondence. Attorney Frank had no reason to 
believe the stationery he had provided to Mr. Crivello’s staff 
was being misused or that any remaining stock had not been 
returned to him when he ceased to do the small claims work for 
Mr. Crivello.  
After Mr. Crivello received payment of the fabricated 
invoices from the lender, he gave Attorney Frank two checks 
written on his regular business account totaling $44,020 and told 
him to apply them to unpaid fees in an unrelated matter for which 
services already had been rendered. At the time that payment was 
made, Mr. Crivello’s total unpaid legal fees with Attorney 
Frank’s firm exceeded $600,000, and Attorney Frank had been 
insisting that he make some payment on that balance, as his 
partners had been pressuring him to obtain payment from Mr. 
Crivello.  
Each of the two checks Attorney Frank received from Mr. 
Crivello had noted on it the name of the city in which the 
construction project was located. When the law firm’s staff 
called that to his attention, Attorney Frank assumed it was an 
internal matter in Mr. Crivello’s operation and directed the 
staff to apply the payment to the account Mr. Crivello had 
specified. 
In early 1992, before the fraudulent billing had become 
known, Attorney Frank’s law firm ceased representing Mr. 
Crivello. Attorney Frank did not learn of the fraud until the 
following year, when he was contacted by a lawyer representing 
the lending banker in an unrelated court proceeding in which Mr. 
 
 
No.  96-0419-D 
 
 
7
Crivello was the principal witness against the banker. That 
attorney asked Attorney Frank for copies of documents that were 
listed in the description of services on the fabricated invoices. 
When Attorney Frank telephoned the attorney then representing Mr. 
Crivello in a pending criminal investigation to obtain permission 
to respond to that request for documents, he was told not to give 
any information to the banker’s attorney or send him any 
documents. The first Attorney Frank knew of the fraudulent 
billing was when the banker’s attorney sent him a copy of the 
fabricated invoices to supplement his request for the documents. 
After receiving a copy of those bills, Attorney Frank telephoned 
Mr. Crivello and remonstrated over the fraudulent billing.  
Attorney Frank testified at the disciplinary hearing that he 
did not know why he did nothing after learning that his law firm 
stationery had been used to obtain loan proceeds fraudulently and 
that he unknowingly had accepted those proceeds and applied them 
to Mr. Crivello’s unpaid legal bills. He asserted, however, that 
his failure to act to correct the matter was in part the result 
of having been told by Mr. Crivello’s attorney that any 
information or documents he might have regarding the matter were 
protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege.  
The referee also made findings concerning factors mitigating 
the severity of discipline Attorney Frank’s misconduct warrants. 
Among those factors are Attorney Frank’s full cooperation with 
the federal prosecutor in his criminal proceeding and with the 
Board in its disciplinary investigation, his sincere remorse for 
his failure to correct the fraud his client had committed and 
 
 
No.  96-0419-D 
 
 
8
from which he and his firm unwittingly had benefited, his stature 
in the legal community, where he has been a highly respected 
practitioner for more than 30 years, and his extensive civic and 
charitable work. Notwithstanding that Attorney Frank and the 
Board had taken the position in the disciplinary proceeding that 
a 90-day license suspension would be appropriate discipline to 
recommend 
for 
his 
professional 
misconduct, 
the 
referee 
determined, on the basis of all the circumstances, that a public 
reprimand would be sufficient to deter Attorney Frank from 
further misconduct and to protect the public.  
Having reviewed the referee’s report, the court remained 
concerned, as it had been when presented with the parties’ 
stipulation at the commencement of this proceeding, that there 
were not sufficient facts in the record on the basis of which it 
might determine the appropriate discipline to impose for Attorney 
Frank’s misconduct. Consequently, the court ordered the record 
supplemented with a copy of the transcript of the sentencing 
hearing in Attorney Frank’s criminal proceeding. That transcript 
amplified some of the mitigating factors the referee had 
considered and set forth the federal court’s concerns in 
determining the sentence imposed, but it did not add to the facts 
concerning Attorney Frank’s misconduct itself.  
We have, then, a less than thorough factual record, largely 
as the 
result of 
Attorney 
Frank’s 
guilty 
plea and his 
stipulations in this disciplinary proceeding. The facts we do 
have, however, lead us to conclude that, while his failure to 
take corrective action when he learned he had been used by a 
 
 
No.  96-0419-D 
 
 
9
client to perpetrate a fraud and had been paid with the proceeds 
of that fraud raises serious question of his honesty and 
trustworthiness as a lawyer, the circumstances under which 
Attorney Frank participated in the fraud –- the unauthorized use 
of his law firm stationery, his unwitting acceptance of 
fraudulently-obtained loan proceeds in payment of the client’s 
outstanding legal bills, his failure to take action to correct 
the fraud when he learned of it some two years later -- do not 
call for the severity of discipline that active participation or 
acquiescence in the perpetration of the fraud would have 
warranted.  
Also, the mitigating factors, in particular Attorney Frank’s 
professional reputation in the legal community during 30 years of 
practice and the extensive evidence of his personal and 
professional character that strongly suggest that his misconduct 
was an isolated lapse, indicate a disciplinary sanction less 
severe than what we would expect to impose for conduct that led 
to a lawyer’s felony conviction.  
Furthermore, Attorney Frank voluntarily ceased practicing 
law July 31, 1995, as he anticipated that federal criminal 
charges would be filed against him, and he has not practiced law 
since that time. Had the stipulation of the parties filed at the 
commencement of this proceeding on February 14, 1996 set forth 
all of the facts ultimately elicited in the proceedings before 
the referee and by our recourse to the federal sentencing 
transcript, we would have reached the determination of this 
matter and would have imposed discipline by the end of March, 
 
 
No.  96-0419-D 
 
 
10
1996. Instead, the absence of sufficient facts led to our 
rejection of that stipulation on March 7, 1996 and further 
proceedings ensued. Additional proceedings were necessary even 
after the referee’s report was filed May 28, 1996, and more time 
was consumed in obtaining a copy of the federal sentencing 
transcript for inclusion in the record and in affording the 
parties the opportunity to respond to it. Because of the long 
delay over which Attorney Frank had no control and his voluntary 
cessation of legal practice, Attorney Frank has already incurred 
significant consequences equivalent to license suspension for the 
past nine months.  
On the basis of all of the circumstances before us, 
including the nine-month license suspension equivalent, we 
determine that an additional 90-day suspension of Attorney 
Frank’s license to practice law, to commence at the issuance of 
this order, is the proper disposition of this proceeding.  
IT IS ORDERED that the license of Eli Frank to practice law 
in Wisconsin is suspended for a period of 90 days, effective the 
date of this order.  
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within 60 days of the date of 
this order Eli Frank pay to the Board of Attorneys Professional 
Responsibility the costs of this proceeding, provided that if the 
costs are not paid within the time specified and absent a showing 
to this court of his inability to pay the costs within that time, 
the license of Eli Frank to practice law in Wisconsin shall 
remain suspended until further order of the court.  
 
 
No.  96-0419-D 
 
 
11
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Eli Frank comply with the 
provisions of SCR 22.26 concerning the duties of a person whose 
license to practice law in Wisconsin has been suspended.  
 
 
No. 17092.rtf 
 
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No. 17092.rtf 
 
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1 
SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
2 
 
3 
 
Case No.: 
96-0419-D 
 
 
Complete Title 
of Case: 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary 
Proceedings Against 
Eli Frank, Attorney at Law. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST FRANK 
 
 
Opinion Filed: 
December 20, 1996 
Submitted on Briefs: 
 
Oral Argument: 
 
 
 
Source of APPEAL 
 
COURT: 
 
 
COUNTY: 
 
 
JUDGE: 
 
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
Concurred: 
 
 
Dissented: 
 
 
Not Participating:  
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
 
 
 
4 
 
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