=> Lawyers are Professionals ... NOT!
- Vox Populi ©
A Riverside County attorney convicted in January of more than 30 counts of cheating and
molesting clients during a two-year period has been disbarred. LINGARAJ BAHINIPATY
[#177510], 60, of Encinitas lost his license to practice March 11, 2001, and was ordered
to comply with rule 955 of the California Rules of Court. Bahinipaty was sentenced in
February to 22 years and four months in state prison after being convicted of 31 counts of
grand theft, sexual abuse and other crimes against almost 30 former clients.
In disciplinary proceedings before the bar, the State Bar Court found that he committed 33
acts of misconduct, including misappropriating more than $40,000 of client funds and
multiple acts of moral turpitude.
In two of those matters, Bahinipaty told his clients he is a medical doctor, although he
is not licensed in California and in fact was ordered in 1998 by the state Med-ical Board
to stop representing himself as a physician. He told clients he needed to perform physical
examinations in order to determine if malpractice claims were warranted.
One of the clients hired him to handle a personal injury case already filed, a medical
malprac-tice case and a slip and fall. Initially, she was represented by another attorney
in two of the matters, but Bahinipaty falsely told her the other lawyer had insisted
Bahinipaty replace him.
While in his office for an evening meeting, Bahinipaty told his client he had to perform a
medical examination of her breasts, reiterating that he is a doctor. He fondled the woman
and took pictures.
When the slip and fall settled for $5,000, Bahinipaty or someone else signed his client’s
name on a release form and endorsed the check, both without his client’s knowledge. A
month later, after spending most of the money, he told the client the settlement offer had
been withdrawn.
Another client with a malpractice case paid a $10,000 advance fee, but Bahinipaty filed an
in pro per complaint and signed the client’s name on the form. When the defendant
answered, Bahinipaty substituted back in, but he did not appear at a deposition or respond
to discovery requests.
The client learned that Bahinipaty had been arrested on the grand theft and sexual abuse
charges, hired a new lawyer and asked for an accounting of the advance fee. Bahinipaty
responded, “It’s all gone.”
Another client hired Bahinipaty to represent him in a malpractice claim, paying almost
$15,000 in advance fees. Bahinipaty took no depositions, presented no expert testimony, as
required in malpractice cases, did not prepare a trial brief or properly question jurors
or his own witnesses.
He had settled a personal injury case for the same client and kept the $10,500 settlement,
and explained he was keeping those funds to pay the malpractice case fees. In fact, he
owed the clients $7,000. In sum, he kept $21,200 in advance fees for work he never
performed.
In other cases, Bahinipaty received and cashed settlement funds without notifying his
clients. In one matter, he falsely told a client he was holding the funds subject to
renegotiation of a hospital bill. He also wrote at least eight checks against insufficient
funds.
In recommending that Bahinipaty be disbarred, Judge Nancy Roberts Lonsdale called his
misconduct “reprehensible,” and noted it occurred in the course of his law practice and
involved deceit and overreaching.
The criminal case covered much of the same ground but involved crimes against even more
clients. Prosecutors said Bahinipaty’s problems started two decades ago in Canada, where
he once practiced medicine and was convicted of insurance fraud and molestation. The
molestation conviction later was overturned on appeal.
He also got into trouble in San Diego, where he was found in contempt by a federal judge
for forging documents.
“This is a pattern that has followed him from country to state to county,” said Judge
James Hawkins, who presided over Bahinipaty’s trial. In imposing the stiff sentence,
Hawkins said he could find no circumstances warranting probation or a lighter sentence.
Instead, he criticized Bahinipaty for violating a position of trust and committing
sophisticated crimes against vulnerable people.
Bahinipaty, who defended himself at trial, said some of his former clients who testified
against him lied on the witness stand. While acknowledging, “I’m no angel,” he admitted he
did not always return client phone calls. However, he denied molesting any clients,
insisting he examined them for medical reasons. He was acquitted of five of the 37 counts
charged.
--
"Either the world will be ruled according to the ideas of our
modern democracy, or the world will be dominated according
to the natural law of force; in the latter case the people of
brute force will be victorious."
G.W. Bush or Adolf Hitler ?
- Vox Populi ©
A Sacramento attorney who pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to sell fake artwork on
eBay, including works purportedly by Richard Diebenkorn and Alberto Giacometti, has
resigned from the State Bar. The Supreme Court accepted the resignation of KENNETH A.
WALTON [#192272], 34, on Feb. 8, 2002, and ordered him to comply with rule 955 of the
California Rules of Court.
Walton pleaded guilty in federal court a year ago to four counts of mail fraud and three
counts of wire fraud involving submission of phony bids, known as “shill bids,” to
artificially drive up prices on canvases he and his cohorts claimed were painted by
well-known modern artists.
After hauling in what the indictment charged was $450,000 from more than 500 auctions,
Walton and the others got caught when he listed a piece that purportedly was painted by
Diebenkorn, considered one of America’s greatest 20th Century artists. One of his
paintings sold at Sotheby’s in 1998 for $3.9 million.
Although Walton never expressly said the artist was responsible for the predominantly
orange, red and green canvas, he claimed he bought it at a garage sale in Berkeley, where
Diebenkorn had lived. It was a similar style to the artist’s work and bore his trademark
initials “RD” and the year “52” in the bottom right corner.
The offering, which began at 25 cents, set off an international buying frenzy and the
bidding ultimately skyrocketed to $135,805, offered by a Dutch software executive.
Walton, whose online handle was “golfpoorly,” wrote, “I got this big abstract art painting
at a garage sale in Berkeley . . . back in my bachelor days. Then I got married, and my
wife has never let me keep it in the house. She says it looks like it was done by a
nutcase.” He also said his child punctured a hole in the painting with his Big Wheel
tricycle.
He later admitted he is single, has no children and forged Diebenkorn’s initials. He and a
friend found the painting in an antique store in the Los Angeles County town of
Littlerock.
EBay killed the deal after discovering Walton had placed a phony “shill” bid of $4,500
under a different user name.
Investigators determined Walton and the other two men actually placed 52 shill bids on the
fake Diebenkorn. Such shill bidding is prohibited both on eBay and by traditional auction
houses.
After a 10-month investigation, the three men were charged with 16 counts of wire and mail
fraud. They were accused of creating 47 phony online identities, such as
“big-fat-mamba-jamba,” “thriftstorebob,” and “bububuy,” and placed $300,000 in phony bids
on hundreds of their own auctions between October 1998 and May 2000.
The indictment said the three bought a wide variety of items that appeared to have been
created by such well-known artists as Edward Hopper, Percy Gray, Clyfford Still and
Giacometti and marketed them on eBay. According to the charges, Walton and another man
even created user IDs with the names “Giacometti” and “Still” in an effort to make it
appear “a family member of the famous artists was bidding in the auctions of those
paintings.”
The two men also created an e-mail account for Gerald Stone, a fictitious expert on the
art of Still, according to the indictment. “Stone” sent an e-mail message to the winning
bidder for the fake Still painting, congratulating the buyer for recognizing an “excellent
example” of the artist’s work.
An Illinois man who placed a high bid of more than $33,000 for a painting he believed was
done by Still canceled the deal after Walton, who flew to Chicago with the painting,
failed to provide the correct provenance papers to prove its authenticity. The painting
eventually was sold to a Virginia computer programmer who borrowed $30,000 against his
401(k) plan to pay for the phony piece.
Walton agreed to pay $60,000 in restitution to eBay users who thought they had bought
paintings by modern artists.
When Walton entered his guilty plea, he acknowledged he knew his actions were unlawful.
His attorney, Harold Rosenthal, said Walton cooperated with the investigation. “He’s a
good guy, and this is a dumb, juvenile thing that got out of hand,” he said. “It makes me
want to hit him over the head.”
dave
"- Vox Populi Š" wrote:
>
> Lawyer disbarred after theft, sex abuse convictions
A pedophile like you must shed real tears for your fellow deviant Voxie.