Law Professor With Side Real Estate Practice Gets Bar Ticket Yanked For Temporarily But Improperly 'Borrowing' Funds From Contract Deposits Being Held In Escrow To Meet Personal, Business Expenses; Attorney's Issuance Of Rubber Check From Trust Account Triggers Probe

From a recent post in the Legal Profession Blog:

• A tenured member of the Rutgers Law faculty has resigned from the Bar of the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department.
  
  [from the recent order]
  
  Respondent avers his resignation is voluntary, free from coercion and duress, and he is fully aware of the implications of submitting his resignation. Respondent acknowledges that he is the subject of an investigation into allegations of misconduct in connection with his attorney escrow account based upon a dishonored check drawn from his IOLA Trust Account. Admittedly, respondent misappropriated approximately $255,000 from his IOLA Account, in connection with real estate matters, in order to meet his personal and business expenses. Respondent later replenished the funds from an operating account.
  
  
  ----------------------------------------
  
  The court described the charges in an order of interim suspension
  
  Respondent is a tenured professor at Rutgers School of Law, who also maintains a transactional law practice. In two instances, respondent withdrew IOLA funds that did not belong to him in order to meet his personal and business expenses.
  
  In one instance, in December 2013, respondent received a $220,000 contract deposit on behalf of his client, the seller in a real estate transaction, which he deposited into his IOLA account. Between January 2 and February 14, 2014, when the transaction closed, respondent repeatedly invaded the $220,000 contract deposit such that, as of February 11, 2014, his account balance had fallen to $500. Respondent replenished the funds he withdrew with funds from his two operating accounts.
  
  In the second instance, on August 5, 2014, respondent deposited a $100,000 contract deposit he received from his clients, a married couple, whom he represented in connection with their purchase of a condominium; he deposited the funds into his IOLA account. At the time, respondent was holding $10,395.96 on behalf of another client in his IOLA account. Between August 5 and August 20, 2014, when the transaction closed, respondent invaded the IOLA funds by making transfers to his business and personal accounts such that, as of August 14, 2014, his account balance had fallen to $74,495.96.
  
  On the same day as the closing, respondent replenished the funds he withdrew by transferring funds from his two operating accounts. Nonetheless, an IOLA check in the amount of $15,914.93, representing the payment of a flip tax, was dishonored due to insufficient funds; this is the dishonored check that precipitated the Committee's investigation. On September 23, 2014, respondent replaced this check with a bank cashier's check drawn against his IOLA account.
  
  Respondent's documentary responses also reveal that he commingled client funds with his personal and business funds, failed to maintain required IOLA account records, and, on one occasion, made a cash withdrawal from his IOLA account for $1,500.

For the post, see Rutgers Law Prof Admits Misappropriation, Resigns From Bar.