A veteran criminal defense and general practice lawyer in Manhattan was immediately suspended from practicing law on Tuesday, pending possible further discipline, after a New York appeals court said she’d “repeatedly invaded” a potential real-estate purchaser’s down payment kept in her attorney escrow account.

Pamela D. Hayes was suspended by the Appellate Division, First Department court in Manhattan after it found that bank records, deposition testimony and written submissions to a state attorney grievance committee constituted “undisputed evidence that she converted and/or misappropriated the down payment, warranting her immediate suspension from the practice of law.”