LAWYER IMMEDIATELY BUT TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED; IS EVIDENCE OF ONE THEFT JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG?
From: New York attorney Gary E. Rosenberg (personal injury and accident attorney and lawyer; serving Brooklyn Queens Bronx; Queens accident lawyer)
Matter of Jerrold A. Weinstein
First Dept.
Admitted to Bar: 1989
Discipline imposed: Immediate, although interim (temporary) suspension of law license pending completion of investigation (Decision issued January 8, 2010)
This story is like the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Lawyer Weinstein settled his client's car accident case for $15,000. The client signed papers sent to her by the lawyer to complete the settlement, and returned the papers to the lawyer.
Now the decision doesn't say this, but we accident lawyers know that when an accident case settles the insurance company, at the time it sends its settlement check, by law must always send a short letter directly to the lawyer's client stating that it has mailed the settlement check to the lawyer. This rule is in force for a simple reason: so the client knows money is coming, and to discourage that rare attorney with larceny in his or her heart from stealing.
This did not help the client here. Lawyer Weinstein was ordered to produce his bank records and did so. The records show the $15,000 settlement money deposited into his lawyer escrow bank account and that he took a $5,000 (a) fee. Despite the lawyer's claim that he gave the client $10,000, his bank records did not show that. The records did show that he paid rent and utility bills and mixed the escrow money in with his personal money; huge "no, noes."
Once a lawyer is found taking client's money, he's immediately shut down by license suspension - as happened here. This is to protect the public from harm by preventing the lawyer from using his license to steal any further. But unstated is the notion that if the lawyer has been caught this time, it's likely not his first time stealing and he probably robbed accident settlement money from other clients (usually the most helpless or hurt or easy to steal from), and the full extent of his thieving ways has yet to be determined.
Stay tuned Dear Readers, we haven't seen the last of the damage and injury caused by lawyer Weinstein. Piled on top of the physical injury visited upon his client/accident victims - the most important of which are the clients he ripped off - and the least important of which carries pain nevertheless - giving plaintiffs' personal injury attorneys yet another "black eye."
