Opinion ID: 2266107
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Committee's Findings As to Misappropriation

Text: The facts developed before the hearing committee showed that, acting on respondent's advice, Kathleen Doig, in late August of 1990, closed an estate bank account in West Virginia in the amount of $10,979.75. A check for that sum, made payable to respondent, was sent to, and deposited by respondent in a trust account. On August 30, 1990, respondent, acting without either the knowledge or consent of his clients, withdrew $8,000 from the trust account, and deposited that sum in his office operating account. Using both his own and estate funds, he then paid a $15,000 office rent bill with a check drawn on that account. The evidence also established that, upon learning that the Internal Revenue Service had placed a levy on the trust account in late September or October, 1990, respondent withdrew additional funds from the trust account, without authorization from the Doigs, and placed those funds together with some personal funds in a strongbox. By the end of November 1990, the balance in the trust account had fallen to $5,355.02, and it remained below $10,979.75, the amount belonging to the estate, from December 3, 1990 through the end of January 1991, when the balance again rose above that amount. However, at the end of February 1991, the balance in the trust account again fell below $10,979.75 and thereafter remained below that level. Respondent testified that during that period, he kept estate funds in a strongbox and did not misappropriate them for his own use until March of 1991. Although respondent maintained that the misappropriation did not occur until February or March of 1991, the hearing committee, pointing to respondent's significant indebtedness beginning in the summer of 1990; his admitted commingling of funds in October of 1990; his use of the commingled funds for non-estate purposes immediately thereafter; and the absence of any record-keeping with respect to estate funds, rejected that claim and found that misappropriation occurred soon after the estate funds were transferred to respondent's operating account in late 1990. In short, the committee ruled that there was clear and convincing evidence of intentional misappropriation of the clients' funds in the fall of 1990, which, in the absence of legally recognized mitigation, mandated disbarment pursuant to In re Addams, 579 A.2d 190, 193 (D.C.1990) (en banc).