NY Appeals Court Gives Already-Suspended Attorney Bar Boot; Orders Him To Cough Up $166K+ To 51 Screwed-Over Ex-Clients

The New York Law Journal reports:

• An appellate panel in Western New York has disbarred an already suspended Rochester attorney and ordered the lawyer to repay more than $166,984 to 51 former clients. The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, said Andrew J. Cohen, who was suspended in 2011 for misappropriating client funds had previously received eight letters of caution but had evinced "a total disregard for his fate as an attorney and his professional obligations to his former clients."(1)
  
  According to the order filed Feb. 8, Cohen loaned his wife, a full-time employee in his firm, money from his trust account that he knew belonged to a gravely ill client who died two months later. A loan document Cohen drafted required his spouse to repay the loan at a monthly rate of $1,720, but she did not make any payments, the court said.
  
  Additionally, the court said, Cohen represented both his wife and the client in connection with the loan, did not disclose the "inherent conflict of interest" and did not reveal several other relevant facts, such as: he was under investigation for converting $65,000 from an elderly client who was in ill-health; he and his spouse were subject to two federal tax liens, two state court judgments, owed tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt and lived in a house under foreclosure.
  
  Cohen, who was admitted in the Second Department in 1978, was suspended by the Fourth Department on Oct. 7, 2011 (see Matter of Cohen, 89 AD3d 142) for misappropriating client funds and entering into improper loan arrangements with clients to conceal the misappropriation. Subsequently, the Fourth Department's grievance committee filed another petition accusing Cohen of additional misappropriations prior to his suspension and seeking restitution.
  
  Cohen was ordered to appear on Dec. 4, 2012 on a final order of discipline, but the day before the slated proceeding his wife contacted the court and said her husband was medically incapable of appearing.
  
  However, the court noted, Cohen did not contact the court directly, submit any proof of medical infirmity or request an extension of time. Consequently, the court concluded that Cohen admitted the allegations. Cohen could not be reached for comment.(2)

Source: Rochester Attorney Disbarred, Ordered to Pay Restitution.

(1) Matter of Cohen, 2013 NY Slip Op 00880 (App. Div. 4th Dept. February 8, 2013) (per curiam).

(2) The Lawyers’ Fund For Client Protection Of the State of New York, whose mission, according to their website, is "to protect legal consumers from dishonest conduct in the practice of law, to preserve the integrity of the bar, to safeguard the good name of lawyers for their honesty in handling client money, to promote public confidence in the administration of justice in the Empire State," may be a last resort for these victims to recover some or all of their ripped off loot.

For information on "attorney ripoff reimbursement funds" in other states and Canada, see:

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