A lawyer under suspension in the Southern District for taking $250,000 from a client that was intended to be held for a restitution payment has been found to have violated two additional disciplinary rules in the case. Ivan S. Fisher was suspended in January for violating two disciplinary rules for taking money from client Ebrahim Rafaeil (NYLJ, Jan. 25). But the Southern District’s 10-judge Committee on Grievances withheld passing judgment on other charges relating to the conversion of the funds and the failure to deposit them in escrow.
Now, the committee has accepted the report and recommendation of Magistrate Judge Henry Pitman that Fisher’s claim the money was a loan from his client was “ludicrous” and his finding that Fisher violated two disciplinary rules: DR 9-102, for the failure to put the money into escrow, and DR 1-102, for engaging in dishonesty or misrepresentation. “Simply put,” the committee said in In the Matter of Ivan Stephen Fisher, M-2-238, “Respondent stole his client’s money and never repaid it.” Judge Louis Stanton (See Profile) dissented on DR 1-102, saying “the evidence of venal intent does not rise to the clear and convincing standard required to support a finding of dishonesty, fraud, deceit or manipulation.”
