Case Title: Lorain Cty. Bar Assn. v. Lewis

Citation: 2018-Ohio-2024

Docket Number: 2017-1419

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2018-05-30T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Lorain Cty. Bar Assn. v. Lewis, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-2024.] 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an 
advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested to 
promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 
South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other 
formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before 
the opinion is published. 
 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2018-OHIO-2024 
LORAIN COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION v. LEWIS. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Lorain Cty. Bar Assn. v. Lewis, Slip Opinion No.  
2018-Ohio-2024.] 
Attorneys—Misconduct—Violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct, 
including committing an illegal act and engaging in conduct involving 
dishonesty—Submitting a false written witness statement to police—Two-
year suspension, with six months stayed on conditions. 
(No. 2017-1419—Submitted November 21, 2017—Decided May 30, 2018.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Professional Conduct of the Supreme 
Court, No. 2016-033. 
__________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Respondent, Kenneth James Lewis, of Cleveland, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0073002, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 2000.  In 
2009, we suspended him for one year after finding that he had forged a judge’s 
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signature on a previously time-stamped judgment entry.  Medina Cty. Bar Assn. v. 
Lewis, 121 Ohio St.3d 596, 2009-Ohio-1765, 906 N.E.2d 1102. 
{¶ 2} In April 2017, relator, Lorain County Bar Association, charged Lewis 
with violating multiple professional-conduct rules for, among other things, giving 
a false written witness statement about an alcohol-related traffic incident.  Lewis 
stipulated to some, but not all, of the charged misconduct, and the matter proceeded 
to a hearing before a three-member panel of the Board of Professional Conduct.  
The panel found that Lewis engaged in the stipulated misconduct, dismissed all 
other counts against him, and recommended that we suspend him for two years, 
with the final six months stayed on conditions.  The board issued a report adopting 
the panel’s findings and recommended sanction, and neither party has objected to 
the board’s report. 
{¶ 3} Based on our review of the record, we adopt the board’s findings of 
misconduct and recommended sanction. 
Misconduct 
{¶ 4} At around 1:00 a.m. on June 8, 2016, Lewis and another attorney, 
Heather Wilsey, left a bar in Elyria, Ohio, and entered Lewis’s car.1  According to 
Lewis, they were both intoxicated and Wilsey was driving.  Wilsey lost control of 
the car, and it struck a utility pole and ended up in a tree lawn on the other side of 
the street, rendering the vehicle inoperable.  Shortly after the accident, an Elyria 
police officer observed Lewis and Wilsey walking away from the scene and stopped 
them for questioning. 
{¶ 5} At Lewis’s disciplinary hearing, two Elyria police officers testified 
that during their questioning of Lewis and Wilsey at the scene, Lewis told them that 
an unknown African American man had been driving the car at the time of the 
                                                 
1 Relator filed a separate disciplinary action against Wilsey.  But according to the board’s report—
and as substantiated by evidence in the record—the action against Wilsey was dismissed after she 
died of an apparent drug overdose during the pendency of her case. 
January Term, 2018 
 
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accident and that Lewis and Wilsey were only passengers in the vehicle.  Lewis 
testified, however, that it was Wilsey—not him—who had told the officers that 
another man had been driving the car and that he had merely confirmed her story 
by telling an officer “that it happened just like she said it did.”  Regardless, Lewis 
admitted that the following day, he submitted a false written witness statement to 
the police.  Specifically, Lewis affirmatively declared in his written statement that 
on the night of the accident, he had given his car keys to an unknown man who 
agreed to drive Lewis and Wilsey to her home, that the unknown man crashed 
Lewis’s car, that Lewis sat in the back seat and Wilsey sat in the passenger seat, 
and that the man left the scene after the accident.  According to Lewis, he made the 
false statements to protect Wilsey, with whom he had recently begun a romantic 
relationship. 
{¶ 6} The police, however, had obtained a video recording from the bar 
showing that Lewis and Wilsey had left the establishment by themselves just prior 
to the accident, with Wilsey driving.  Therefore, immediately after Lewis gave the 
false written statement at the Elyria police station, the police arrested him for 
obstructing official business, a second-degree misdemeanor.  Relator subsequently 
opened a disciplinary investigation regarding the pending charge. 
{¶ 7} On September 12, 2016—during the pendency of the Elyria case and 
this disciplinary matter—Lewis and Wilsey were involved in another alcohol-
related traffic incident, and an officer with the Brunswick Hills police department 
arrested Lewis for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol 
(“OVI”).  Four days later, on September 16, Lewis appeared in Medina Municipal 
Court and entered a no-contest plea to the OVI charge.  The court found him guilty, 
suspended his driver’s license, and imposed a fine.  Lewis did not voluntarily 
disclose his OVI conviction to relator, although relator later learned of the 
conviction from another source. 
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{¶ 8} On September 20, 2016—just four days after Lewis’s OVI conviction 
in the Medina court—he appeared in Elyria Municipal Court and entered a no-
contest plea to the charge of obstructing official business.  The court found him 
guilty and later sentenced him to 90 days in jail with 80 days suspended and 
imposed a one-year term of probation and a $750 fine.  Lewis served his ten-day 
jail sentence in November and December 2016. 
{¶ 9} Lewis stipulated and the board found that by giving the false written 
statement to the Elyria police department, he violated Prof.Cond.R. 8.4(b) 
(prohibiting a lawyer from committing an illegal act that reflects adversely on the 
lawyer’s honesty or trustworthiness), 8.4(c) (prohibiting a lawyer from engaging in 
conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation), and 8.4(d) 
(prohibiting a lawyer from engaging in conduct that is prejudicial to the 
administration of justice).  We agree with the board’s findings of misconduct. 
Sanction 
{¶ 10} When imposing sanctions for attorney misconduct, we consider 
several relevant factors, including the ethical duties that the lawyer violated, the 
aggravating and mitigating factors listed in Gov.Bar R. V(13), and the sanctions 
imposed in similar cases. 
Aggravating and mitigating factors 
{¶ 11} As aggravating factors, the board found that Lewis has a prior 
disciplinary record and that he acted with a dishonest and selfish motive.  See 
Gov.Bar R. V(13)(B)(1) and (2).  In mitigation, the board noted that Lewis 
submitted evidence establishing that he has a good reputation among his clients and 
also noted that criminal sanctions were imposed for his misconduct.  See Gov.Bar 
R. V(13)(C)(5) and (6).  The board refused to assign any aggravating or mitigating 
weight regarding Lewis’s cooperation during the disciplinary proceedings, finding 
that although he cooperated with relator regarding the Elyria incident, he should 
January Term, 2018 
 
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have been more forthcoming with relator about his OVI conviction.  See Gov.Bar 
R. V(13)(B)(5) and (C)(4). 
{¶ 12} The board also noted that Lewis took responsibility for his poor 
judgment, showed remorse, and appeared to be successfully addressing an alcohol 
addiction.  Specifically, in February 2017, he completed a five-week intensive-
outpatient-treatment program for alcohol dependency, and in May 2017, he 
completed a 12-week outpatient/aftercare program.  He also signed a contract with 
the Ohio Lawyers Assistance Program (“OLAP”) and, at the time of his disciplinary 
hearing, was active in Alcoholics Anonymous (“AA”).  The board did not find that 
Lewis’s alcohol dependency qualified as a mitigating factor under Gov.Bar R. 
V(13)(C)(7), likely because that rule requires a determination that the disorder 
contributed to his misconduct, and the board noted that there was no evidence that 
Lewis’s addiction caused him to give the false written statement to the police.  
Indeed, Lewis admitted that he had misrepresented the facts of the accident to 
protect Wilsey and that he was not intoxicated at the time he gave the false written 
statement.  Nonetheless, the board considered Lewis’s successful treatment in 
recommending its sanction. 
Applicable precedent 
{¶ 13} To support its recommended sanction, the board reviewed several 
cases imposing sanctions on attorneys with prior disciplinary records for dishonest 
conduct.  For example, the board cited Mahoning Cty. Bar Assn. v. DiMartino, 145 
Ohio St.3d 391, 2016-Ohio-536, 49 N.E.3d 1280, in which an attorney engaged in 
dishonest conduct toward a client, neglected two client matters, mishandled funds 
in his client trust account, and failed to cooperate in disciplinary investigations.  We 
had previously disciplined the attorney in three other cases, including one matter in 
which he made a false statement on a government application.  We indefinitely 
suspended him from the practice of law. 
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{¶ 14} The board also cited Warren Cty. Bar Assn. v. Marshall, 113 Ohio 
St.3d 54, 2007-Ohio-980, 862 N.E.2d 519, in which an attorney neglected two 
client matters and made a false statement to the relator during an investigation.  We 
had previously disciplined the attorney for dishonesty, neglecting client matters, 
and other misconduct only a few years earlier.  In mitigation, the board noted that 
the attorney had cooperated in the disciplinary process, but we gave little weight to 
his cooperation, based on the consideration that he had failed to appreciate the 
serious nature of his offenses.  We suspended the attorney for two years. 
{¶ 15} Similar to the attorneys in DiMartino and Marshall, Lewis has 
previously been disciplined for dishonest conduct and is the subject of another 
disciplinary action for his dishonesty.  The board found, however, that Lewis’s false 
written statement here was not as egregious as the attorneys’ misconduct in 
DiMartino and other cases in which we have imposed indefinite suspensions for 
attorneys with prior discipline.  And considering that Lewis took responsibility for 
his actions, expressed remorse, and appeared to be sustaining a period of successful 
treatment for his addiction, the board concluded that a two-year suspension, with 
the final six months stayed on conditions, is the appropriate sanction in this case. 
{¶ 16} We agree with the board’s reasoning.  “Respect for our profession is 
diminished with every deceitful act of a lawyer.  We cannot expect citizens to trust 
that lawyers are honest if we have not * * * sanctioned those who are not.”  
Disciplinary Counsel v. Fowerbaugh, 74 Ohio St.3d 187, 190, 658 N.E.2d 237 
(1995).  The board’s recommended sanction demonstrates to the bar and the public 
that deceitful conduct—even in the context of an attorney’s personal affairs—will 
not be tolerated.  However, the sanction also gives Lewis the opportunity to practice 
law again if he continues with treatment for his alcohol addiction and avoids 
additional misconduct.  Therefore, having reviewed the record and considered the 
sanctions imposed for comparable conduct, we adopt the board’s recommended 
sanction. 
January Term, 2018 
 
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Conclusion 
{¶ 17} For the reasons explained above, Kenneth James Lewis is hereby 
suspended from the practice of law for two years, with the final six months stayed 
on the conditions that he (1) comply with all terms of his OLAP contract and any 
extension of that contract, (2) continue attending AA meetings and stay in regular 
contact with his sponsor, and (3) refrain from further misconduct.  In applying for 
reinstatement, Lewis must submit evidence demonstrating that he is able to return 
to the competent, ethical, and professional practice of law.  Upon reinstatement, 
Lewis must submit to a two-year period of monitored probation in accordance with 
Gov.Bar R. V(21) to help ensure his continued abstinence from alcohol.  If Lewis 
fails to comply with a condition of the stay, the stay will be lifted and he will serve 
the entire two-year suspension.  Costs are taxed to Lewis. 
Judgment accordingly. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and O’DONNELL, KENNEDY, FISCHER, and DEWINE, JJ., 
concur. 
FRENCH, J., concurs in judgment only. 
DEGENARO, J., not participating. 
_________________ 
Wickens, Herzer, Panza, Cook & Batista Co. and Daniel A. Cook; Trigilio 
& Stephenson, P.L.L., and Richard Mellott Jr., Bar Counsel, for relator. 
Gallagher Sharp, L.L.P., Timothy T. Brick, and Kevin R. Marchaza, for 
respondent. 
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