by Robert Gavin
Kimberly Anne Harp, who became a lawyer in 2000, also sent allegedly altered bank statements to an attorney watchdog committee investigating her actions, according to the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court’s Third Department, which imposed Harp’s suspension Thursday.
Harp is the second local lawyer to be suspended this month. Robert Morris Cohen, an attorney since 1972, was suspended last week after failing to respond to allegations that he failed to refund a client’s retainer fee.
The Third Department’s Attorney Grievance Committee (AGC) began investigating Harp in June 2020 after learning that a check drawn on Harp’s business account was dishonored, the decision said.
An audit of the escrow account and business accounts, her subpoenaed bank records and Harp’s sworn testimony led the committee to request that Harp be suspended.
Harp, 48, an Albany Law School graduate, did not respond to the the committee’s motion after being given two adjournment dates, leading the justices to impose the suspension, the decision said.
The ruling said evidence, including Harp’s testimony, showed she “misappropriated, for her own use, monies deposited in her attorney escrow account which were to be held in trust for the sellers in a real estate transaction.”
The decision said Harp commingled personal funds with money held in trust “in an attempt to make the sellers whole,” the decision said. “While these facts have been established, in part, by (Harp’s) own testimony, we also note that (Harp) concomitantly took measures to conceal her own misconduct by providing AGC with altered bank statements.”
Harp could not be immediately reached for comment.
Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry and Justices John Egan, Michael Lynch, Sharon Aarons and Molly Reynolds Fitzgerald imposed the suspension.
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