falsity question and the hearing board made very specific finding for a full hearing on this matter were all parties were heard near the opportunity to observe carefully trustee for that trust in that and count six there is a finding that arises from the same basic investments that relates to a a client one hundred thousand dollars transaction bad back up a bit john sloan was a lawyer in your as far as i can tell from the record he must have practiced for sixty the church and the school after and during mr sloan's lifetime the properties were invested in mutual funds and very little else blue chi hannah and the respondent began a plan of developing an investment strategy here i use those words hopefully strategy developed to be though that all of this money this three point eight million dollars that have been safely parked in a american express account with mutual funds  transferred to an oil and gas exploration energy company in canada called range energy why that matters because certainly are rich is a at some point said this was a highly risky investment he knew it was a little piece of his portfolio that's the type of investment ones and we wouldn't be here are a bad communications with the st marks the sole beneficiary of the trust and respondent recognize that was his duty to protect those assets and he said in a letter to the paying principal and income to st mark's to help sustain the school there was no money to make those payments the school school relied upon and the evidence in the and the panels there's no other reason that this woman don except for hide from the school the fact that these investments didn't turn out very well  at some point the church kept asking some questions in two thousand and five there wasn't enough money at some points as well and another degraded since nine eleven is quinn since today that is nine eleven again some thirteen years after the the the stock market event and the national tragedy is that production sharing agreement and over two million of the sloan monies were provided for that vehicle range was in default of that very quickly and responded as a representing the fun in communications with range to try to fix it eventually responded hears that a lawsuit was filed in the name of his clients w i can't imagine what i would think as a lawyer if someone suit on behalf of my clients like would be happy to be a judgment but it was very clear the record the judgment was there to forestall other creditors of range and it was responded personally was involved in a forbearance degree where his clients including the trust that money through p s a p s a agreed to forbear and collection of fourteen million dollars and the if they wanted to collect their option was to take installment payments two of them for two million dollars again it seems very odd to me it appears that got there in the early two thousand he saw there was no cash in the company and the production feels were not as good as he had hoped and he got out and respond that agreed so during all this time leading up this august fifth letter where it's all clear the investments are good it's clear they own they were not only not good but the respondent knew it so those  fact but it was another yes a client who ended up investing in hundred thousand dollars being told it was interest in one hand of his was just another at risk investment and she netted i don't hundred thousand dollars twenty was charging tried actually if the review board opinion in this case was in parallel with character just the record in this case shows findings of this conduct rule violations where a panel question does it was used the breaches as part of the analysis that that resulted in the conclusion that violated that there was a  it requires that there be a rule of conduct violation and a point a four is the dishonesty charge and many times that arises in in on provides for that i think what the court has does very carefully limit what cases we might take from outside the right setting and did so by saying err c you may not bring a case if it doesn't involve the rule violation but you also say to inform and to prove which are reference other violations  the and the sanction i i think that the the hearing board recommendation of a year suspension is certainly within range we recommended two years of course at review having cut reversed findings the majority was recommending a sixty day suspension and a minority a dissenter who found some of the desires conduct the beginning it's just loan invested in range energy during his lifetime now i'd like to answer just as burke's question no i'm the question of whether or not they're the breach of fiduciary duty was based very experienced lawyer etruscan and wills felt that we should brief the application of the trustees act in this case the charitable trust act it was all put into the case into the soup and the entire case was about degraded and i there's no evidence of the value of the assets not any and that was really important to the review board determining whether the twenty five report was the se because there was no proof what the actual value even though there was a civil case going at the same time which could have reese resolved questions of valuation comes out well what about things like soul funding the trust characterizing the payments to boris's interest on and representing himself as the author of the inaccurate two thousand read my report if there was to say marks i mean do they smack more you just see it rather than incompetence or i think that i have it we had a trustee who was struggling with how to respond in the investment advisor was writing his information so he was relying  third person to help them communicate that was the evidence in the case and i think there were mistakes made but there was no dishonest intent and frankly on the twenty five report it would have to look at that but it was when i didn't do the oil wells and sharing agreements is a pretty widespread portfolio of things that yes we're speculative and mr hudson who is the chairman of the panel i think was grading his performance as a trustee and finding that you know this was an improved in private investment under the prudent trustee you know standards was it was the church of price of what exactly was happening the church actually knew along the way investigation as to the status of the trust they had their own people in the parish who were lawyers a prepared investigation contact the trustee and then he reported back in the reports and evidence in this case that mr basically they went back to the parish inside their own board and said well the trustee is actually doing what he's empowered to do in this situation and mr edmunds so but what about what about the soft money and the money dealing and this court refused to find an inference from cell feeling of dishonesty and i really believe and i think this court doesn't consistency i'm sure the administrator does too in the administration of discipline  representing right to st mark's that it's his report where if he had said by the way this is what i'm writing to you today is as a result of what soandso told me read somebody presumably c really couldn't explain something so he said may i bring the investment adviser so he came that was there at least for half our meeting where there was questions and answers now mr hanna testified at the hearing and he testified that that his statements in the twenty five report administrator that it's not accurate and so i'm using this to illustrate why those findings of of of dishonesty in that situation were against that yeah i know there's someplace or there's a merger right between maybe poor judgment or right and and whether or not it segues into dishonesty how in the judge i just want to get these three specific the interest rate i mean doesn't classifying something as an interest payment act like things are going well you know where that investment rate it could yes and in this case i'm going to tell you what the evidence was and the court will decide but that the end the evidence was that mr evans didn't know whether it was interest or not mr hannah told them what to write and gave him the amounts of the checks to send this board is never testified that she was misled and that review board said that the administrator failed to put in evidence that it was an interest so they found it on the on the clear an ask you to look at the the question of intent the manifest weight the the burdens clear convincing it gets a little i think building upon the clinic convincing burden i think the review board was absolutely spot on and making his findings except on two things and i and the tax problem that caused the delay is explained in evidence so you see that in evidence mr heaven sent seventy or seventy five thousand dollars the i r s pay state taxes for the estate they refunded sixty thousand which he then put into the trust and then sent checks with us to the school from that the i r s thing came to me so we made a mistake we want the money back and he was trying to struggle with fixing that for a long long time because when he was in a cash strapped trust  injuries he had fees from clients he put in the trust account which is expected he didn't disperse them promptly he held them from one to thirteen weeks i've looked and i have found no case where a lawyer was was disciplined for using his trust account t bills when it was his own money and that's what that's all there was and that that count should never i don't think have been charges should have been dismissed and i just reminded wonder what you mean he knows the other words with his own money  has taken it out and he was taking it out but he didn't do it promptly he delayed one of the thirteen weeks which is so to minimize and yet i think it would have been charged but even if it was a technical violation i would ask the court just to review the preamble to the rules and common one nine hundred twelve this that sometimes a rule violation shouldn't result in discipline or whether discipline should arise out of a rule violation requires looking in a lot of circumstances and including you know whether the lawyer has ever been charged for misconduct in the past and all the circumstances before the court so i would say that that it was so it wasn't proven by the manifest weight that there was any hanky panky no trustee was hurt or no client was hurt no client funds were taken and then mr adams went to the professional responsibility course given by the air to see he's upgraded his bookkeeping and so the having some concern about the fact that that mr edmunds wasn't one time a lawyer who wrote the the will and trust and that is so unfair there's not a single  very very much that the court had looked at how discipline is managed and in this this question of the sheep charging breach producer duty which is so broad and difficult to defend from a response point of view  practice case was settled and the settlement was entered into evidence under seal so this court has an in the record the exact settlement and then another trustee took over the trust and we don't know today we don't know how they've managed and how they've you know been able to to find a squeeze any cash out of those those assets there was testimony in the record and the witness was found to be not credible actually in this  case by hannah that that there were all these promises but you can take mr has testimony out of the picture there's no evidence that the trust wouldn't result in money to st marks you know now and in the future we just don't know records closed tainted this this discipline the one year maybe the scandal part of it but the feeling that they gave my client a f grade and trusteeship really colors the outcome i think the review board put it back in the fair cont and on the sixty days but in in our petition in this court and today i'm asking the court to reconsider any discipline i'm asking that that there be an order of this charge in other words a dismissal and that's why i brought up counts five and seven because the review board only had five and seven to give sixty days on those were clearly not fair or guess manifestly i think they just got overlooked in the in the big picture of whether or not  they should be handled together if there's no further questions i thank you very much just a few responses to this rigorous comment one was that there was no evidence that august two thousand and five report was false i would direct your attention to page forty six the hearing board report circumstances such as the tax return that responded filed in the year end just before at the end of all four shota to two million four hundred thousand dollar value not the three million contained in the letter corporation range that was in freefall they were trying to find cash and he was the financial advisor to the brink this meeting with the church struggling to find out what happened to the money sloan didn't invest a dime in a range energy during his life mr him says he had a conversation with mr sloan where in hearing he said defending this investment it was a good investment was diversified because this one company ranger energy at lots of different well yes so the fact that different wells in one but we would get to the same result years in fact the evidence this man at the trial at the air to see here in board it mid it was just an ordinary at risk investment so that's why it's false i responded as he did so report one would have to look at other factors in just a dollar a balance sheet a cash strapped company burdened with a judgement trying to buy out a directly don't want the anymore and i'm able to produce income to responded to pay money to this trust for the kids it's doesn't seem like it's much of a stretch  the neglect of the estate that's self inflicted damn respondent communicated the i r s he had no closing letter and he from the i r s went to the school but it's self inflicted there's no reason to distribute money that much money one should always keep enough money to pay for  didn't do other things required state accounting and things of that nature the trust account charge i would agree it is not doesn't involve conversion of money so as is less serious and some when one plays something of a shell game to have the the church think there's money what it's really yours and you borrow it you put it in your trust account it put it in the sloan charitable trust and you send it to them the panel correctly so why would you do that but for it to deceive the church into thinking you have assets that was the beginning of when there weren't enough assets three point eight million dollars and nothing liquid three years later so the respondent put himself in a position dug a hole this for had to help but responded just never stepped in and many of the activities difference it doesn't make a difference makes a difference i think in the case if respondent were benefiting from deceitful conduct it would be a more severe recommendation for assessment and he faced many negatives embarrassments in his church liability which ultimately be fell him and exposure of all th had transpired so his motive to lie to keep the church from understanding the issue if successful all the way until two thousand and eight with basses attorney got involved and hired a lawyer here you're going back to your opening argument and something that opposing counsel had indicated that you had said well if things were successful if this investment been successful we wouldn't be here you know i am and i insist a paid the response to that is not so much that they were unsuccessful your point is if he had been forthright about it being unsuccessful you wouldn't be here either either of those is by doing so it is the compromise it is not the fact is a bad investment that can happen it is that when it it played out and couldn't pay the the school for education he could no longer keep everything under wraps he was struggling to find a way his choice was a bad choice