Court Opinion

ID: 9707168
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:04:17.692478+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:28.748884
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, Justice,
dissenting.
Unlike the Court, I do not read the record in this disciplinary proceeding as disclosing nothing more than a mere unknowing slip-up in an escrow account a la In re Hollendonner, 102 N.J. 21 (1985). Rather, the evidence clearly and convincingly demonstrates respondent’s knowing misappropriation of client funds, and hence the only appropriate discipline is disbarment. In re Wilson, 81 N.J. 451 (1979).
I
Mr. Perez’s troubles with the disciplinary authorities began when, in August 1982, he was selected for a compliance audit of his trust account, pursuant to Rule 1:21-6(c). Field visitations to respondent’s office between August 31, 1982, and December 13,1982, uncovered irregularities in respondent’s trust account, ultimately summarized in the report of the Disciplinary Review Board (DRB), as recited ante at 318-319. Respondent’s explanation of several of these irregularities surely strains credulity, particularly the Exxon-Cuozzo matter (respondent *329forgot about $4000 in cash of client funds that he had secreted in a dresser drawer of his home, and hence (1) after his house was burglarized failed to report the money as stolen, and (2) wrote a trust account check against those funds, it having slipped his mind that he had not deposited them). But my concern, as well as the majority’s, is with the Bucca-Bervan Liquors matter.
The chronology is important. The compliance audit was conducted by Samuel I. Gerard, Esq., an accountant with the Administrative office of the Courts, Division of Ethics and Professional Services (now the Office of Attorney Ethics). During the course of the audit respondent retained the services of an attorney. On March 17, 1982, Mr. Gerard submitted a voluminous affidavit, supported by various documents (can-celled checks, bank records, respondent’s records), in which he detailed the results of his audit. On the basis of the Gerard affidavit the Division of Ethics and Professional Services applied on April 20, 1983, to the DRB, pursuant to Rule 1:20 — 3(i) and Rule 1:20-4(b), for an Order temporarily suspending respondent from the practice of law..
In opposition to the motion to suspend, which the DRB denied, Perez submitted an affidavit dated April 18, 1982. In it he claimed, in effect, that he knew it was wrong to have invaded the trust account for the purpose of loaning trust monies to his friend Bucca, but that after the loan had been made, he notified the client whose money he had taken and secured his after-the-fact approval. Respondent relied on that same affidavit in his answer to the disciplinary complaint filed by the Division of Ethics and Professional Services following a District Ethics Committee member’s investigation. That affidavit formed the basis for respondent’s defense through every phase of these ethics proceedings until the remand hearing ordered by this Court — that is, the only information submitted by respondent on the Bucca-Bervan Liquors matter was contained in that April 1983 affidavit.
*330Not until February 1986, at the remand hearing before the District Ethics Committee, ordered by this Court after oral argument before us on an Order to Show Cause why respondent should not be disbarred or otherwise disciplined, did Perez come up with the version that he had used the escrow funds with his client’s full consent. More than three years after the compliance audit, three years after his eleven-page explanatory affidavit (three pages devoted to Bucca-Bervan Liquors alone), two years after the District Ethics Committee hearing, almost a year after the DRB hearings, four months after argument in this Court — then it is that Whiteman and Perez testify that in fact they had had a discussion before the Bucca-Bervan Liquors closing of April 10, 1981, in the course of which Whiteman authorized Perez’s use of his trust monies.
Because respondent’s affidavit, made in April 1983, four months after completion of the audit of his books and records, is critical to my view of the matter, I set it out in its entirety as it pertains to the Bucca-Perez Liquors matter.
In or about March of 1981, Joseph Bucca, who was a close personal friend of mine, became interested in acquiring certain real estate at Merchant Street in Newark, as well as a liquor license held by Bervan Liquors, Inc. The total transaction was in the neighborhood of $30,000 and Bucca was unable to come up with the full amount.
In or about April of that year, he approached me to see whether I could loan him the balance needed of about $3,500.
Shortly prior, I held a first purchase money mortgage on certain real estate which I had sold in Pennsylvania. The face amount of the mortgage was $25,000 to be paid in 3 years at 9.5% per annum. In March of 1981, the balance due on the mortgage was approximately $22,000. I was involved in an effort to borrow money for my own personal purposes by using that mortgage as security. I had received a tentative commitment of $20,000 from Garden State Mortgage Company, 744 Broad Street, Newark, New Jersey. I closed on the loan transaction on March 25, 1981. However, I was unable to get more than $12,000 at that time. I understood from Garden State that they were going to find another source and to refinance the deal where I would receive the additional $8,000. When Joseph Bucca came to me to borrow the money in April, I fully expected to complete the mortgage transaction and to get the additional $8,000. I therefore agreed to loan $3,500 to Bucca. Relying on my representation that he would get the money, Bucca went ahead with his transaction and on April 20, 1981 in order to complete his deal, he requested from me two checks, one in the amount of $2,963.24 to Broad National Bank *331and the other for $536.76 to the New Jersey Abstracting Co. I gave him the checks from my trust account. I fully expected that on the same day or that on the following day, I would cover the checks with my personal funds to be obtained through Garden State.
As soon as I loaned Bucca the money because he was obviously desperate for the money, I found out that the liquor license which had been owned by Bervan had been sold on that date by I.R.S. for federal taxes assessed against the corporation. Therefore, when I requested immediate repayment from Bucca of the monies when my own mortgage transaction fell through, Bucca was unable to pay me because he had to raise additional monies to pay I.R.S. to redeem the license.
I know that I should not have taken the funds from the trust account but Mr. Bucca was desperate and I had left him with no alternatives at that moment because he had expected the money from me. The monies in the trust account were those of a corporation known as 814 Parker Street, Inc. That corporation was owned by William Whiteman, another close personal friend of mine. On deposit in the account was $3,500 which had been placed there on April 8, 1981, so that it was the Whiteman money which was utilized to complete the Bucca transaction. The Whiteman real estate transaction was closed on May 1, 1981. At the closing, I received a trust check from the attorney representing the purchaser and that check was made payable directly to the 814 Parker Street, Inc. At that time, on May 5, 1981, I wrote a letter to Mr. Whiteman, who had not been present at the closing, and enclosed in that letter all of the closing documents including my trust check for the balance due to him less my attorney fee.
Prior to mailing that, I talked to Mr. Whiteman over the telephone and advised him of the situation concerning the trust account and I also advised him that I would tell him when the check which I sent to him would be good. He advised me that he understood and had no problem with my handling of the transaction.
During the intervening period between the time that the monies were given to Mr. Bucca and the payment of the check to the 814 Parker Street, Inc., I made a series of deposits to the trust account in an effort to bring it back to the level where it was in balance.
I never quite achieved a true balance for reasons which are lost to me now. During the whole period of 1981 and 1982, up to the time of the audit, there was a constant demand upon my time, just to accomplish the business of the office and to take care of personal problems which I had at home. I just did not have the time to devote to the bookkeeping.
The significance of several items in the affidavit is readily apparent:
(1) The money that respondent loaned his “close personal friend” Bucca came from trust funds. It was not respondent’s *332money — it had been held in trust since April 8, 1981, for William Whiteman, “another close personal friend * *
(2) Perez gave Bucca two checks totalling $3500 from his trust account on April 20, 1981, “fully expecting] that on the same day or that on the following day, [he] would cover the checks with * * * personal funds to be obtained through Garden State [Mortgage Company].”
(3) Because the Garden State funds did not materialize, the Whiteman trust funds were left short. Respondent therefore made “a series of deposits to the trust account in an [unsuccessful] effort to bring it back to the level where it was in balance.”
(4) On May 1, 1981, there occurred the closing of the real estate transaction for which the Whiteman $3500 had been held in trust (Whiteman’s corporation was the seller, the $3500 was the buyer’s deposit). The balance of the purchase money was paid at the closing by check payable directly to Whiteman’s corporation. Whiteman did not attend the closing. On May 5, 1981, Perez wrote Whiteman a letter enclosing the necessary documents and his trust check for the balance due him less his attorney fee.
However, the trust account was still short in respect of the $3500 that respondent had loaned Bucca. Therefore, before mailing the May Fifth letter, Perez “talked to Mr. Whiteman over the telephone and advised him of the situation concerning the trust account and * * * also advised him that [Perez] would tell him when the check which [he] sent him would be good.” It was in that conversation, obviously around May 5, 1981, the date of the letter, that Whiteman told Perez that “he understood and had no problem with [respondent’s] handling of the transaction.” (As we learn from testimony at the remand hearing, Whiteman did not negotiate respondent’s trust account check until June 29, 1981.) The affidavit is susceptible of only one meaning about when it was that Perez first obtained Whiteman’s acquiescence in his use — actually, misuse — of the *333trust funds: on or about May 5, 1981, before posting the letter to Whiteman, but about two weeks after the funds had been taken.
(5) And, finally, that Perez recognized his invasion of the Whiteman trust funds for what it was — knowing misappropriation — is put beyond any doubt by this telling sentence from his affidavit:
I know that I should not have taken the funds from the trust account but Mr. Bucca was desperate and I had left him with no alternative at that moment because he had expected the money from me. (Emphasis added.)
The point is obvious: if Whiteman had authorized in advance Perez’s use of his money, Perez would have no reason to “know that [he] should not have taken the funds from the trust account.” And if Whiteman had in fact given permission in advance, surely that critical event would have surfaced, if not in the affidavit, then somewhere in the course of the District Ethics Committee member’s investigation or the District Ethics Committee hearing or the DRB hearing or the brief filed in this Court or the argument before this Court.
Respondent’s brief filed in this Court on October 7,1985, puts the matter to rest: it readily acknowledges that permission to use Whiteman’s money was obtained after the money had been taken out of the trust account, as indeed the DRB expressly found. See ante at 320.
[T]he audit revealed that Perez had apparently misused monies from the trust account held in the name of one Whiteman, so he could honor his commitment to loan the money to another friend, a Mr. Bucca. After the fact, Perez obtained permission from Whiteman to make that loan.
[Respondent’s brief at 3 (emphasis added).]
And:
In March of 1981, a close, personal friend of respondent’s entered into a transaction for the purpose of acquiring a liquor store. In April, the friend, Bucca, approached respondent, requesting a loan of the balance. The respondent, expecting monies from other personal sources, agreed to make the loan. Relying upon the promise, Bucca went ahead with the transaction and shortly thereafter, requested respondent to make the advance as promised. Respondent gave him $3,500 from his trust account, fully expecting that on the same day, he would cover the checks upon completion of a personal business transaction. The money in the trust account, which was used for the loan to *334Bucca, was for the account of William Whiteman, another close personal friend of the respondent. The monies had been placed in the trust account in connection with a real estate transaction and upon completion of the transaction, respondent advised Whiteman of the fact that he had loaned the money to another client and Whiteman agreed to wait for payment. The money was subsequently paid to Whiteman, to his satisfaction. There was never any intention on the part of respondent to convert any of that money to his own personal benefit.
[Respondent’s brief at 6 (emphasis added).]
(The last — absence of intention to convert funds for personal benefit — is, as we all well know, entirely immaterial on the issue of misappropriation. See In re Wilson, supra, 81 N.J. at 455 n. 1.)
I consider the business developed at the remand hearing, about how, before the loan to Bucca, Whiteman authorized the use of his money held in trust, to be nothing less than a belatedly contrived utter fabrication. I do not buy it, any more than I understand how, in the face of all the foregoing, my colleagues in the majority can be left suspended in that fastidious phrenic state reserved exclusively for judges (and maybe some medieval clerics), namely, an exquisite equipoise: the Court cannot conclude that Whiteman did consent to respondent’s use of his escrowed money, but on the other hand it cannot conclude that Whiteman did not consent. See ante at 324.
Mercifully, this mild — and, I am confident, short-lived — epidemic of terminal ambivalence has passed me by. Having been spared, I have no hesitancy in recording my conclusion: the record, including the documentary exhibits, demonstrates clearly and convincingly (if need be, beyond a reasonable doubt) that respondent knowingly misappropriated trust funds.
II
Contrary to my view of the matter, the majority decides that respondent’s “most egregious infraction” was his “misuse” of the “escrow funds” he held for the buyer and seller in the Whiteman real-estate transaction; and that because we had not, *335until In re Hollendonner, supra, 102 N.J. 21, spelled out for the uninitiate the “near identity” of escrow funds and trust funds, it would be “unfair” to apply Hollendonner retroactively to respondent. Ante at 326. That represents a misreading of Hollendonner, and hence produces a misapplication of that decision.
Anton Hollendonner held in his escrow account money deposited by the buyer of real property, pending completion of the agreement with the seller, whom Hollendonner represented. 102 N.J. at 22. Unlike the contract in Perez, which provided specifically that respondent was to hold the $3500 deposit “until settlement of title,” the escrow agreement in Hollendonner was silent regarding the escrow money. Id. at 25. Before taking the escrow funds Hollendonner discussed with his client his need for money; the client authorized the withdrawal of the deposit money as Hollendonner’s fee. Id. at 26. Thus, unlike Perez, Hollendonner thought he was simply taking his own money — an advance on his fee. The vice of the arrangement was that Hollendonner (a) did not explain to his client the obligations of an escrowee, (b) did not obtain the authorization of the buyer to his use of the escrow funds, and (c) in any event did not first move the funds to his business account before using them. But it was primarily because of “the absence of clear and convincing evidence that Respondent invaded the escrow funds with knowledge that the use of those funds was improper,” id. at 29, that we took an indulgent view of Hollendonner’s conduct and imposed a one-year suspension. The contrast with Perez’s state of mind could hardly be more stark:
I know that I should not have taken the funds from the trust account * * *.
[Respondent’s affidavit at 7.]
Moreover, Hollendonner was aimed at those few lawyers who, like Anton Hollendonner but manifestly unlike John Perez, had somehow not wakened to the fact that escrow funds are trust funds. Because Hollendonner was the first time we had occasion to say that, and because we were satisfied that Hollendonner — again, unlike Perez — did not know that, we did not *336apply to Hollendonner the Wilson rule of disbarment. 102 N.J. at 28-29. Hollendonner’s misappropriation was unknowing. Perez’s was with full knowledge of the wrong.
III
I would not want this opinion to be read as any moral judgment of Perez’s conduct. We are not in the business of moralizing. And besides, I admire people who stand by their friends. But lawyers are not free to take clients’ money to help their friends.
We did not arrive easily at the conclusion — at least I did not — adopted by a unanimous Court in Wilson that
[a]n attorney, beset by financial problems, may steal to save his family, his children, his wife or his home. After the fact he may conduct so exemplary a life as to prove beyond doubt that he is as well equipped to serve the public as any judge sitting in any court. To disbar despite the circumstances that led to the misappropriation, and despite the possibility that such reformation may occur is so terribly harsh as to require the most compelling reasons to justify it. As far as we are concerned, the only reason that disbarment might be necessary is that any other result risks something even more important, the continued confidence of the public in the integrity of the bar and the judiciary.
[81 N.J. at 460 (footnotes omitted).]
We have only recently restated our resolve to stand behind the Wilson principle, pointing out that since Wilson, disbarment for knowing misappropriation has been “invariable.” In re Noonan, 102 N.J. 157, 160 (1986); see In re Lennan, 102 N.J. 518, 525 (1986). There is nothing about this “knowing misappropriation” case that should shake that resolve.
I would disbar.
POLLOCK, J., joins in this opinion.
For suspension — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices HANDLER, O’HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN — 5.
For disbarment — Justices CLIFFORD and POLLOCK — 2.