Foreclosure-Facing Lawyer Who Duped Unwitting Divorce Client To Stash $78K Inheritance In Attorney's Trust Account To Purportedly Protect It From Estranged Spouse's Claims, Only To Promptly Pilfer It To Pay Off Delinquent Mortgage Gets Bar Ticket Temporarily Yanked For 42 Months; State Court's Client Protection Fund Steps Up, Comes Through With Full Refund To Victim

In Beloit, Wisconsin, the Beloit Daily News reports:

• A Beloit attorney’s law license has been suspended because she reportedly took money a client had transferred to a trust fund and used the client funds to pay her own home mortgage.
  
  Mary K. Biester had her law license suspended for three years and six months, according to a ruling by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin [...]. The suspension is retroactive to Nov. 25, 2014, which is one year after a previous suspension imposed on Biester.
  
  [It] also ordered Biester to pay $8,712.86 to the Wisconsin [Office of Lawyer Regulation for the costs of this proceeding].
  
  According to documents from the Office of Lawyer Regulation, Biester was representing a client in a divorce matter in 2008. The client had inherited a large sum of money and Biester advised her client to transfer $78,000 of the inheritance into Biester’s client trust account for safekeeping.
  
  Biester said the transfer should be made to protect those funds from her husband.
  
  At the time, Biester was experiencing financial problems and her home was the subject of a foreclosure action.
  
  Biester took funds from the trust account to pay off her personal mortgage, according to the Office of Lawyer Regulation documents.
  
  There was a possibility that criminal charges might be filed agains Biester stemming back to her first disciplinary action, but in order to protect her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, proceedings were stayed in the later matter.
  
  In March of 2015, the Wisconsin Department of Justice had determined it would not criminally prosecute Biester.

Source: Local attorney has license suspended after misusing client funds.

Editor's Note: According to the ruling by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, Biester's victimized client "[s]ubsequently made a claim to the Wisconsin Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection, which awarded her a full refund of the $78,000 due to her being the victim of fraud." The court also ordered that Biester reimburse the client protection fund for said amount. See Office of Lawyer Regulation v. Biester, 2016 WI 74 (Wis. July 22, 2016).

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.