Opinion ID: 1525615
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Respondent's Due Process Claims

Text: Respondent, throughout the hearing and since, has raised a number of due process arguments. First, Respondent argued vigorously that the Specification of Charges merely charged him with forgery (Tr. II at 640) and not that he deposited a check endorsed by someone who lacked authority to do so. Respondent argues that Bar Counsel's case against him evolved to the point that he was being tried for matters that were not within the Specification of Charges filed against him, and he, therefore, has been denied due process as a matter of law and, alternatively, justifies why he did not, have other witnesses prepared and available to testify at the time the hearing began. Tr. III at 133-38. Second, Respondent claims that he was denied due process because he was given insufficient time to present his case, particularly in light of his claim that the charges against him had shifted. We deal with each of these matters in turn. The Scope of the Charges Against Respondent  The clear import of Bar Counsel's charges against Respondent was that he was not entitled to the proceeds of the check; that someone else and another company was entitled to at least some portion, if not most, of the proceeds. The Specification of Charges uses the phrase theft. To be sure, Bar Counsel prominently alleged that forgery by Respondent was the method used to accomplish this theft and misappropriation, [16] but the forgery charge was merely a part of the charges against Respondent. As set forth in the Committee Report, the Specification of Charges against Respondent included the following factual allegations: a. Respondent reported to Williams Industries which was funding Dano and paying Respondent's attorney's fees and Respondent provided confidential written legal advice regarding the Dano litigation directly to officers of Williams Industries. BX B at 3. b. When Respondent received the check he did not notify Mr. Williams or anyone at Dano or Williams Industries. Id. at 4. c. Respondent deposited the check into a business account at Fleet National Bank Account in New Hampshire: an account in his name that did not include the words trust account or escrow account. Id. d. Mr. Williams in his capacity as Dano's president inquired periodically of Respondent from the late 1980's through June 1998 about the status of the litigation, including the proceeds of the judgment. Id. at 6. The general counsel for Williams also made regular and periodic inquiries to which Respondent gave vague, and eventually, no answers. Id. At no time did Respondent inform either person that he had received, deposited and disbursed virtually all of the $241,336.59 for his own purposes. Id. e. Because Respondent refused to inform Dano's president or anyone at Williams Industries about the status of the judgment from the District of Columbia, the present disciplinary complaint was filed. Id. at 7. f. Respondent violated various D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct because he, inter alia, engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, deceit, fraud and/or misrepresentation, committed a criminal act (theft), intentionally and/or recklessly misappropriated funds belonging to his clients/third persons, engaged in commingling, failed . . . to deliver funds to . . . third persons . . . [who] were entitled to receive [them]. Id. at 8. Respondent surely knew that he had received inquiries from representatives on behalf of the Williams' interest about the proceeds of the check and that he had evaded those inquiries. Moreover, the written record of this disciplinary proceeding (complainant's letters for example) prior to the hearing, made quite clear that others were asserting an interest in the check and that they, rather than another individual such as Mr. Byorick, had the right to control disposition of at least a portion of the check's proceeds. It should have been quite clear to Respondent that his right to the entire proceeds of that check was to be placed in issue by Bar Counsel. As stated in the Committee Report, to the extent that Respondent prepared his case on the assumption that forgery (rather than issues such as his right to retain the entire proceeds of the check) was the sole charge against him, that was a serious mistake on his part. H.C. Report at 29. [17] The Conduct of the Hearing  To the extent that Respondent has argued that he needed more time during the course of the hearing because the hearing was proceeding in a direction that was not foreshadowed in the charges against him or that he could not anticipate, for the reasons stated immediately above, the Committee rejected that contention and we do also. Similarly, we agree with the Committee's rejection of Respondent's contention that the hearing was conducted unfairly and unduly favored Bar Counsel. The Chair had informed Respondent at the pre-hearing that there would not be 4 or even 2 weeks of hearing dates as Respondent originally requested. The Chair set aside two days and said the Committee would then see if more time was necessary. Prehr'g Tr. at 12-13. Once the hearing began, Respondent seemed to be trying to unreasonably extend the proceedings with what appeared to be irrelevant questioning. See, e.g., Tr. I at 45-73,145-47; Tr. III at 51-57. Respondent provided a witness list including 70 names (without the courtesy of identifying either their affiliation or contact information), and when asked at the outset of the hearing whom he actually intended to call during the course of the hearing, initially declined to say (Tr. I at 10-12), and at the end of the first day identified only Mr. Morris. Id. at 385-89. Even on the second day of the hearing, when it was clear that his case was to be put on, Respondent had not one witness available to testify beyond his forensic expert Mr. Morris. Tr. II at 615-18; Tr. III at 163. At that point he only reluctantly identified additional witnesses he intended to put on if the hearing were to be extended (Tr. II at 616-18, 628-30, 648-51), and although the hearing was extended to a third day he had no witnesses available to put on that day. Nonetheless, the Committee allowed Respondent to make a proffer about whom would be called if the hearing were to be extended again, yet that proffer suggested that their testimony would be largely irrelevant. Tr. III at 166-70. The Chair attempted to strike a balance between allowing Respondent to present his case in the manner of his choice and moving the proceedings along to focus on factual disputes in issue. See, e.g., Tr. I at 53-60, 137, 142; Tr. III at 54-55. The Board agrees with the Chair's handling of these issues.