A Manhattan-based business and entertainment lawyer has been disbarred after using a criminal client’s money, transferred to pay a sentencing fine, for personal expenses, and then later apparently lying to a disciplinary referee about why she’d missed a liability hearing—claiming she’d been hospitalized.

Melissa P. Bernier has been disbarred by an Appellate Division, First Department panel, which in a detailed opinion cited the court-appointed referee as having found her misconduct to be “aggravated” by her taking on the criminal client’s case when she had “very limited experience in criminal law.”