Opinion ID: 2297758
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Responses to Bar Counsel's Inquiries

Text: On October 2, 2009, following receipt of the Berow complaint, Bar Counsel requested a written response, which respondent provided. In her response, accompanied by numerous documents, respondent asserted her version of what had occurred, a version that largely was found by Judge Cahill not to be credible. Documents that respondent claimed that she had filed Judge Cahill found had never been filed and had been manufactured. With reference to the dispute over whether respondent had ever contacted Ms. Ong regarding the Sinai action, Judge Cahill found that respondent appeared to have made a false statement to Bar Counsel and then dug in when confronted with contrary proof. He added that [t]his is a pattern of behavior that Respondent repeated throughout these proceedings. We need not address all of the inconsistencies and apparent misstatements, but only the most important of them. Respondent claimed that she had filed a response to Sinai's motion to dismiss and, indeed, had hand-carried the response to the clerk's office. Ms. Ong denied having received such a response and the court's file and docket entries fail to show any such response. After several requests, respondent, on March 2, 2010, sent Bar Counsel a copy of a document that purported to be such a response. A cursory examination revealed that the document was merely a partial reprint of the complaint filed by respondent and not what it purported to be. Judge Cahill found that respondent fabricated the document after Bar Counsel made inquiry into her conduct. In response to Bar Counsel's inquiry regarding the fees respondent received, respondent claimed that she deposited into her escrow account a cash payment of $400 received from Ms. Berow on July 2, 2009, and a $1,000 cash payment received from her on July 16, 2009. When asked for documentation, she submitted an adulterated copy of a portion of a bank statement and a redacted copy of a bank deposit slip, and represented that they were associated with the deposits to her escrow account. All references to the identity of the account were blacked out. When Bar Counsel subpoenaed the original records from the bank, it became clear that neither the $400 nor the $1,000 had been deposited in the escrow account, but rather had been deposited into her operating account and that one of the deposits was not of cash received from Ms. Berow but a check received from another client. Judge Cahill found that respondent had fabricated the documents in an effort to persuade Bar Counsel that she had escrowed the $1,400 in cash paid by Ms. Berow. In viewing this evidence in regard to the claimed violations of MLRPC 8.1 and 8.4, Judge Cahill concluded: The Petitioner has established by clear and convincing evidence that the Respondent made false statements to Bar Counsel that she had deposited monies she received from the Berows and into her escrow account. Moreover, the evidence is clear and convincing that the Respondent altered bank deposit slips and submitted them to Bar Counsel, representing them to be of her escrow account to support her misrepresentations. Her misrepresentations to Bar Counsel were willful in that she had to purposefully obscure the bank account numbers and the account titles, which were clearly those of her operating account. With respect to the Berows' monies, the Respondent never corrected any misapprehension that Bar Counsel may have had that the redacted statements and deposit slips were those of her escrow account. As noted, on this evidence Judge Cahill found violations of MLRPC 1.1 (competence), 1.3 (diligence), 1.4(b) (explaining a matter to allow client to make informed decision), and 1.7 (conflict of interest), 1.15 and Rule 16-607 (safekeeping property and commingling funds), 8.1 (knowingly making false statement of material fact, failure to respond to lawful demand for information by Bar Counsel), and 8.4(c) and (d) (conduct involving dishonesty or misrepresentation, conduct prejudicial to administration of justice).