Gregg A. Luckman charged by Nassau County DA's office
An Appellate Division committee disbarred him a month later amid an investigation of professional misconduct. (iStock)
The Nassau County District Attorney’s office has charged a disbarred
Bellmore attorney with grand larceny, and accused him of stealing
$372,500 in escrow funds from a client, according to Newsday.
Gregg A. Luckman represented a client in the $7.4 million sale of a Manhattan apartment in June 2018.
An Appellate Division committee disbarred him a month later amid an
investigation of professional misconduct, including allegations of
misappropriation of client funds and failure to safeguard escrow funds.
He had requested his resignation as an attorney.
He agreed that no money would move from accounts he had access to,
but continued to represent that client in the deal, according to the
Nassau County District Attorney’s Office.
He took a $555,000 down payment from the purchaser, but instead of
releasing those funds to his client, he allegedly used those himself and
paid his client $175,000 from other accounts.
The 53-year-old faces up to 15 years in prison, according to the report.
Similarly, New York attorney Mitch Kossoff is under pressure for
going silent when his clients started asking about their escrow
accounts, fearing he had stolen their money. In late April, news came
that Kossoff forged his mother’s signature for $2.6 million in loans. [Newsday] — Dennis Lynch
The South Florida lawyers on the Florida Bar’s monthly discipline report
include a convicted fraudster, both name partners of one law firm and
an attorney who seems to have trouble putting things in writing.
Though the last two discipline reports from the Florida Bar included a
relatively light combined total of 19 attorneys combined, the stories
behind the disbarments and suspensions have a little more weight.
There’s at least over $1 million in
“misappropriated funds,” some of which went to Heat tickets. Lawyers
victimized by fraud and lawyers who participated in fraud. And attorneys
who took the money and, if not ran, disappeared, at least
professionally.
So, below in Part 1 are the alphabetical first 10 of the 19. The remaining nine will be in Part 2, which will post Monday.
▪ Golden
Beach attorney Jeremy Alters, admitted 1997 out of UM School of Law,
jumped in the deep end of trouble over improper transfers from Alters,
Boldt, Brown, Rash and Culmo’s trust account to the operating account.
The Bar alleged that forty-nine such
transfers occurred, totaling approximately $2,051,474.32, between
September 2009 and December 2010. The Court approved the Bar’s Petition
for Emergency Suspension and suspended Alters from the practice of law
on December 28, 2011.
The Referee found that Alters
should be reinstated because there was “no basis to conclude that Alters
had made or authorized the improper transfers, and that no clients had
been injured by the improper transfers.”
When the Florida Supreme Court
reinstated Alters in January 2012, the Bar filed another complaint
alleging Alters violated six Bar rules regarding the transfers. The
Referee opined that Alters not be further sanctioned, but that he pay
the Bar’s administrative costs ($1,250) while the Bar pays Alters’ legal
defense costs ($143,913.35).
The Bar challenged everything in the Referee’s Report but the ink and asked the State Supreme Court to disbar Alters.
The Court found the Referee
improperly excluded evidence that Alters lied about his personal tax
status and called the Referee’s Report “inadequate.” Not only did the
Court find the Referee came to “only the most basic conclusions from the
summarized testimony, and oftentimes has failed to make any findings
regarding undisputed evidence in the case,” but noted the findings of
fact were only four pages of the 71-page report.
“It is inconceivable that the
facts of such a complicated case, which has taken years to litigate and
the record of which spans thousands of pages, could be reduced to four
pages.”
The Court ultimately found that Alters misappropriated client funds and “must be disbarred.”
The Bar’s auditor testified at the final hearing
before the Referee that in addition to funds slid straight to Alters, he
used trust fund money to cover firm expenses and overdrafts and
personal expenses. Among those personal expenses: Miami Heat tickets.
▪ Orlando’s
Elizabeth Anderson, a Stetson Law School graduate admitted in 2003,
Stetson, has been suspended since Nov. 7 for trust account shortages of
$160,000, most of which were in two accounts.
A bar audit found a shortage of
$37,000 in the trust account at Seaside Bank that The Anderson Law
Group used for matters involving Stoneybrook West Master Association.
“During her sworn statement on
August 1, 2018, respondent admitted to the shortage in her Seaside trust
account and stated that she would not have been able to pay the
balances she owed to Stoneybrook without obtaining either the loan from
her parents or using funds from her retirement account.”
The Bar’s audit also revealed
that there was a shortage of at least $122,330.62 in another trust
account at Fairwinds Credit Union.
From
this account, the Bar says in its Petition for Emergency Suspension,
she used settlement funds for a client to office rent, rent, herself,
American Express, and Florida Lawyers Mutual.
▪ John
Borland of Ocala started his suspension Dec. 28, but seems like he
suspended his law career well before that. The Bar says Borland
abandoned his law practice, client files, fell behind in his Bar fees
and continuing legal education credits and then ignored Bar inquiries
about all this. The Florida Coastal School of Law had been a Bar member
since 2006.
John Borland
The Florida Bar
▪ Aldo
Busot of Coral Gables has been disbarred. In handling a suit to collect
a promissory note, Busot neglected his duties, missed deadlines and
kept his client ignorant of the case’s progression. She learned he filed
for voluntary dismissal from a friend. Busot was suspended for three
years on April 19.
When Busot didn’t submit an affidavit with the
clients, tribunals and opposing lawyers notified of his suspension and
the names and addresses of people and businesses that got a copy of his
suspension order, the Cal Berkeley School of Law graduate was found in
contempt and disbarred. He’d been a member since 1987.
▪ West
Palm Beach attorney Richard Carey, a Bar member since 2009 out of the
University of Pittsburgh’s law school, served a 10-day suspension in
December. According to Carey’s guilty plea, non-lawyers at his Pinnacle
Land and Title handled a real estate sale that involved a fraudulent
court order. Carey said he was on vacation at the time. He tried to
rectify matters upon hearing of the problem and eventually reached a
settlement with the harmed party.
▪ Miami’s
Robert Dixon’s 90-day suspension in May for mishandling his trust
account and suffering a shortage in trust funds required he produce
trust account records from July 2015 to the present. The University of
Florida School of Law graduate, a Bar member since 2006, needed to do
this by June 24. Dixon came across with records June 25 that the Bar’s
auditor found a day late and several dollars short of accuracy — checks
that had cleared listed as outstanding, deposits that had cleared listed
as not having cleared. For this failure, Dixon received a public
reprimand.
▪ John
Eagen of Tallahassee, a Florida State law school man and Bar member
since 1990, served a 30-days suspension that ended Jan. 7. Eagen
continued to represent a defendant in Volusia County in January 2017
despite being ineligible to practice law. This got revealed after he
failed to show up for a scheduled hearing and didn’t tell the judge of
his status, even as the judge asked repeatedly over the phone, “Is there
anything else you want to tell me?”
Eagen was ineligible because he was delinquent
paying $2,500 restitution from a previous Bar discipline case involving
how he charged a client.
