A New Jersey lawyer has been disbarred for holding money a client wanted to keep away from his divorcing spouse and then dipping into it for personal use, though ethics authorities were sharply divided about the nature and severity of the offense.

Though the Disciplinary Review Board would have only suspended Neil Malvone for three years, the state Supreme Court voted 4-3 to disbar him, finding he “knowingly misappropriated marital funds in which the client and his spouse had an interest.”