A COURT-appointed attorney who told his client he would receive better representation if he would pay him $10,000 has been suspended from practicing in the Southern District for one year.

Gino Josh Singer was suspended by the seven-judge Committee on Grievances of the Southern District, which said in a disciplinary ruling: “A lawyer entrusted with the high duty of representing an indigent person under the Criminal Justice Act Plan may not pervert that trust for private gain.”