Another Attorney Joins Long Parade Of Bar-Ticket-Holding Suspects Accused Of Fleecing Clients; Forging Docs To Make Himself Sole Beneficiary Of Estate, Selling Dead Client's Home & Failing To Account For The Whereabouts Of The Proceeds Among Allegations

In Stamford, Connecticut, The Hour reports:

• A Stamford attorney was arrested [] at his 706 Bedford St. office on allegations that he defrauded a family’s estate trust out of thousands of dollars.(1)
  
  The Stamford Police Department (SPD) Financial Crimes unit arrested Attorney Morris Glucksman, 68, for his alleged involvement in defrauding a family out of thousands of dollars in which he was entrusted to care for an estate trust.
  
  In November 2015, the family of the estate of a deceased mother and son reported to Stamford Police a possible forgery/larceny within the trust. Upon looking into estate, family members became aware that after their mother and her son had passed away, the remaining monies and property shall go to a family trust.
  
  According to Stamford police, thousands of dollars never made it into the family’s trust and thus raised their suspicions. Police said that Attorney Glucksman was the person responsible for all documents and transactions regarding the trust and he could not provide an answer for the discrepancies of the monies.
  
  SPD Property Crime investigators discovered that Glucksman allegedly forged several signatures and utilized a forged notary stamp that made him the sole beneficiary of the trust. Police said the family had been asking for Glucksman to provide proper paperwork showing that he was the sole heir and executor since 2013.
  
  According to police, he used many stalling techniques all while spending the family’s money. Police said that investigators were able to prove that the notary stamp was altered thus leading investigators to substantiate the forgery angle of the investigation.
  
  During the course of this families ordeal Glucksman allegedly withdrew $25,000 from the deceased mothers account one day after her death. Police said he then sold many articles of sports memorabilia totaling $33,000 in cash and not putting the money into the trust.
  
  He also allegedly rented out a Stamford property owned by the trust for several years, while reportedly collecting rent and pocketing the money. According to police, Glucksman finally sold the Stamford property and currently still has not distributed any of the monies towards the trust.
  
  ***
  Glucksman was charged with Larceny 1 and Forgery 2. He was issued a $50,000 bond.

Source: Stamford attorney charged with allegedly defrauding estate out of thousands.

See, generally, Frederick Miller, "If You Can't Trust Your Lawyer .... ?", 138 Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Rev. 785 (1990) for more on the apparent, long-standing tolerance for deceit by many in the legal profession:

• This tolerance to deception is encouraged by the profession's institutional civility. Seldom is a fig called a fig, or a shyster a shyster. No, our euphemisms are wonderfully polite: "frivolous conduct," or a "lack of candor;" or "law-office failure;" or, heaven forbid, a "peculation," a "defalcation," or a "negative balance" in a law firms's trust account.
  
  There is also widespread reluctance on the part of lawyers --- again, some lawyers --- to discuss publicly, much less acknowledge, that they have colleagues who engage in deceit and unprofessional conduct.
  
  This reluctance is magnified when the brand of deceit involves the theft of client money and property, notwithstanding that most lawyers would agree that stealing from clients is the ultimate ethical transgression.

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(1) The Client Security Fund is a fund established by the rules of the Connecticut Superior Court to provide reimbursement to individuals who have lost money or property as a result of the dishonest conduct of an attorney practicing law in the State of Connecticut, in the course of the attorney-client relationship. The fund provides a remedy for clients who are unable to obtain reimbursement for their loss from any other source.

For similar "attorney ripoff reimbursement funds" that attempt to clean up the financial mess created by the dishonest conduct of lawyers licensed in other states and Canada, see:

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

Maps available courtesy of The National Client Protection Organization, Inc.

See generally:

• N.Y. fund for cheated clients wants thieving lawyers disbarred, a July, 2015 Associated Press story on this Fund reporting that the Fund's executive director, among other things, is calling for prompt referral to the local district attorney when the disciplinary committee has uncontested evidence of theft by a lawyer injuring a client or an admission of culpability;
  
  When Lawyers Steal the Escrow, a June, 2005 New York Times story describing some cases of client reimbursements ("With real estate business surging and down-payment amounts rising with home prices, the temptation for a lawyer to filch money from a bulging escrow account and later repay it with other clients' money has never been greater, said lawyers who monitor the thefts."),
  
  Thieving Lawyers Draining Client Security Funds, a December, 1991 New York Times story that gives some-real life examples of how client security funds deal with claims and the pressures the administrators of those funds may feel when left insufficiently financed as a result of the misconduct of a handful of lawyer/scoundrels.