Attorney Agrees To Disbarment After Admitting To $1.1M Client Ripoff; Victims Promised Loan Mods, Discounted M'gage Payoffs For Pennies On The Dollar

The State Bar of California recently announced:

• A Los Angeles attorney accused of misappropriating $1.1 million from 10 clients has agreed to be disbarred, the State Bar announced [].
  
• In one of the largest misappropriation cases ever handled by the Office of Chief Trial Counsel, Vafa Allan Khoshbin [bar# 165486], 52, had promised clients he could get their first mortgages modified and their second mortgages settled for pennies on the dollar.
  
• The clients gave him money, which was deposited either to his client trust account or to his business account. But the cash disappeared before Khoshbin did any loan modification work or made any payments to banks on his clients’ behalf, according to a stipulation approved Wednesday by the State Bar Court.
  
• One couple, Sharooz and Fariba Arianpour, turned over $357,000 thinking it would be used to settle a second mortgage and a loan they held on a car wash.
  
• Koshbin will be placed on involuntarily inactive status May 5 until the California Supreme Court acts on the disbarment recommendation. Khoshbin also agreed to pay restitution plus interest of 10 percent per year.(1)
  
• In mitigation, Khoshbin was experiencing family and financial problems. Khoshbin also said he inappropriately surrendered his authority to a non-attorney who was handling finances for the firm, Debt Relief Law Center.
  
• Khoshbin, who was admitted to practice in 1993, also received a public reproval Feb. 13 for failing to follow through with a client’s lawsuit against a mortgage lender and failing to refund $5,000 in attorney fees. The case was prosecuted by Senior Trial Counsel Suzan J. Anderson.

Source: Los Angeles Attorney Admits To Misappropriating $1.1 Million.

(1) Homeowners ripped off by the dishonest conduct of a California attorney (including a failure to refund unearned legal fees) who want to recover their money can apply for possible restitution from the Client Security Fund of the State Bar of California (see also Can the Client Security Fund Help You?).

For earlier posts referencing California's Client Security Fund in the context of loan modification ripoffs, see:

• Thousands Of Distressed Homeowners Left Hanging After Attorney Abruptly Chucks Law License; Calif. State Bar Urges Victims To File Restitution Claims,
  
  
• Calif. State Bar Probers Have Hands Full With Loan Mod Ripoff Complaints; 1200 Probes Pending; Attorney Scams Begin To Drain Client Security Fund.

For similar "attorney ripoff reimbursement funds" that sometimes help cover the financial mess created by the dishonest conduct of lawyers licensed in other states and Canada, see:

• Directory Of Lawyers' Funds For Client Protection (list now includes Canadian protection funds, courtesy of the American Bar Association);
• Check the USA Client Protection Funds Map;
• Check the Canada Client Protection Funds Map.