In re O'Neill

• Decision Date: 16 June 2022
• Docket Number: 20-BG-673
• Citation: 276 A.3d 492
• Parties: IN RE Lawrence D. O'NEILL, Respondent. A Suspended Member of the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (Bar Registration No. 265702)
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

276 A.3d 492

IN RE Lawrence D. O'NEILL, Respondent.

A Suspended Member of the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (Bar Registration No. 265702)

20-BG-673

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued March 30, 2022

Decided June 16, 2022

Lawrence D. O'Neill, pro se.

Julia L. Porter, Deputy Disciplinary Counsel, with whom Hamilton P. Fox, III, Disciplinary Counsel, and Myles V. Lynk, Senior Assistant Disciplinary Counsel, were on the brief, for the Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

Before Blackburne-Rigsby, Chief Judge, Easterly, Associate Judge, and Fisher, Senior Judge.

Easterly, Associate Judge:

In 2016, after selling his ownership interest of an Irish company, Adriano Fusco entrusted the proceeds to his Ireland-based, D.C.-barred attorney, Lawrence O'Neill. Mr. O'Neill subsequently failed to transfer to Mr. Fusco all the funds his client was due and told numerous falsehoods for years about the whereabouts of these funds. Based on these factual findings, the Hearing Committee concluded that Mr. O'Neill had intentionally misappropriated client funds, committed criminal acts of theft and wire fraud, and engaged in flagrant dishonesty in violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The Hearing Committee recommended disbarment, not only relying on the presumption of disbarment for intentional misappropriation but also referencing Mr. O'Neill’s flagrant dishonesty as an independent basis for this sanction. The Board on Professional Responsibility agreed and adopted in full the Hearing Committee's report and sanction recommendation.

On appeal to this court, Mr. O'Neill ignores the Hearing Committee's factual findings and provides an alternate account of events that is untethered to the record and inconsistent with his prior accounts and admissions. He then makes three legal arguments: (1) "the D.C. Bar has no jurisdiction" to discipline him in relation to his nonlegal business matters in Ireland; (2) he cannot have violated certain Rules of Professional Conduct—specifically, Rules 1.5 and 1.16(d)—that he asserts apply to attorney-client relations, when he was acting only as Mr. Fusco's business advisor; and (3) he cannot have violated Rules 8.4(b) and (c) because he never intended to permanently deprive Mr. Fusco of his funds, remains committed to returning them, and did not engage in any criminal activity.

Mr. O'Neill’s jurisdictional argument is irreconcilable with the plain text of the Rules of Professional Conduct. In return for the privilege of D.C. Bar membership, all members agree to conform their conduct to the Rules of Professional Conduct "regardless of where [that] conduct occurs."

D.C. R. Prof. Conduct 8.5(a). His arguments that he was not acting as a lawyer and did not act with the purpose to steal Mr. Fusco's money cannot be reconciled with the Hearing Committee's findings of fact, adopted by the Board, and supported by substantial evidence. Likewise, his assurance to this court at oral argument that he was on the cusp of paying Mr. Fusco what he owed is unconvincing in light of the countless similar but false representations he has made. Accordingly, Mr. O'Neill fails to persuade us that he did not violate any Rules of Professional Conduct.

Both the Hearing Committee and the Board recommend that we disbar Mr. O'Neill. We agree that his intentional misappropriation of Mr. Fusco's funds alone justifies disbarment. We further agree that his dishonesty is an independent reason why he cannot remain a member of the D.C. Bar. Over the years Mr. O'Neill has told innumerable untruths to Mr. Fusco, Mark Walsh (the solicitor who attempted to help Mr. Fusco reclaim his funds in Irish court), the High Court of Ireland, the Hearing Committee, and the Board regarding whether he had transferred the funds to his client, why he had not done so, and where the funds were. Mr. O'Neill has admitted at various points that his representations were untrue, and then turned around and told new falsehoods. If his dishonesty does not qualify as flagrant, then nothing does. To allow him to remain a member of our bar in light of his demonstrated indifference to truth-telling would demean bar membership.

I. Factual and Procedural History

Preliminarily, we note that we rely on the Hearing Committee's findings of fact, which the Board adopted. Before this court, Mr. O'Neill could have attempted to challenge these factual findings as "unsupported by substantial evidence of record." D.C. Bar R. XI § 9(h)(1); accord In re Cleaver-Bascombe , 892 A.2d 396, 401 (D.C. 2006). He did not. Instead, Mr. O'Neill simply ignored the Hearing Committee's factual findings and substituted his own, self-serving narrative. In the absence of a legitimate argument that the Hearing Committee's factual findings were in error, we consider such an argument waived. Comford v. United States , 947 A.2d 1181, 1188 (D.C. 2008) ("Issues adverted to in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort at developed argumentation, are deemed waived." (brackets omitted)).

Mr. O'Neill was admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia in 1979. By 2016, Mr. O'Neill was living in Ireland, where he was not licensed to practice law. Mr. O'Neill held himself out as a "partner" at O'Neill & Company, International Legal Advisors. The firm's letterhead noted that he was "admitted in Maryland, the District of Columbia and before the Supreme Court of the United States" and his signature block included the title of "Esq[uire]" and identified him as an "Attorney at Law." Nowhere did Mr. O'Neill clarify that he was not a licensed solicitor and thus not authorized to practice law in Ireland.

In June of 2016, Mr. O'Neill was hired by Mr. Fusco to represent him in negotiations to extricate him from joint ownership of an Irish company. Mr. O'Neill had previously represented Mr. Fusco's brother in a different matter and had provided him with an engagement letter containing terms of his legal representation, including his hourly fee. Although Mr. Fusco anticipated that Mr. O'Neill would provide him with a similar engagement letter, Mr. O'Neill did not. Nevertheless, Mr. O'Neill provided Mr. Fusco with legal advice about how to proceed. It was decided that Mr. Fusco and his partner would each bid to buy each other out in a process governed by Irish law. In his dealings with the other solicitors involved in the negotiation, Mr. O'Neill referred to Mr. Fusco as his client, made reference to putting funds in an IOLTA account,¹ and at one point informed other counsel that it would be "negligence" or "malpractice" for him to recommend that Mr. Fusco take a certain course of action.

Mr. Fusco's partner bought Mr. Fusco's share of the company for €325,000. In his capacity as Mr. Fusco's lawyer, Mr. O'Neill received the funds and initially deposited them in his account at Ulster Bank. In the weeks that followed, Mr. O'Neill distributed some of these funds at Mr. Fusco's direction. But he did not account for the remainder, approximately €170,000.² The record allows these funds to be traced for some period of time—some went to an overdrawn business checking account, some went to a personal bank account he shared with his wife, some went to an IOLTA account in New York—but ultimately the funds in the Ulster account (and the New York IOLTA account) were depleted. It is unclear where the money is now.

Mr. O'Neill gave Mr. Fusco multiple reasons for why he did not send Mr. Fusco his money, none of which were true. In sequence:

• Mr. O'Neill initially said that he had already wired Mr. Fusco the money from the New York IOLTA account (when, in fact, it held only $50.84) and emailed Mr. Fusco fake bank records to back up this story;

• Mr. O'Neill told Mr. Fusco that his bank put the transfer on hold because Mr. Fusco's brother's name was on a "United Nations terrorist watch list" and he induced Mr. Fusco to sign an affidavit disclaiming any relationship with a terrorist using his brother's name;

• Mr. O'Neill again said he had sent the funds or was about to send them and provided Mr. Fusco's solicitor, Mr. Walsh, with fabricated records of wire transfers;

• Mr. O'Neill said he could not pay Mr. Fusco because his New York bank was limiting his withdrawals from his IOLTA account but promised to pay him no later than November 28, 2016, and, when that date passed, no later than December 12, 2016;

• Mr. O'Neill admitted that he had "not been entirely forthcoming" and told Mr. Fusco a new (untrue, seeinfra at 498-99) story, namely that he had "through inattention and negligence ... temporarily lost control" of his funds to a business acquaintance, Vijay Kumar Raja, and he attached an affidavit purportedly from Mr. Raja acknowledging that the funds had been sent to him in error and promising to repay Mr. O'Neill.

In the meantime, Mr. Fusco sued Mr. O'Neill in Ireland and, on November 25, 2016, obtained a judgment ordering Mr. O'Neill to pay him €169,271 by November 28, 2016. But instead of paying Mr. Fusco, Mr. O'Neill continued to spout falsehoods, not only to Mr. Fusco but also to the High Court of Ireland, for example, representing (falsely) that he had obtained a loan from Chase Bank to repay Mr. Fusco. More promises to pay or representations that he had repaid the money followed—complete with more fabricated bank records and, in one instance, a check (written on his wife's bank account) that bounced. Although Mr. O'Neill had promised the court he would not leave the country, he flew to New York at the end of January 2017. The court subsequently found him in contempt for failing to comply with its order to repay Mr. Fusco, sentenced him in absentia to twenty-eight days of incarceration, and directed him to pay Mr. Fusco's legal fees.

Mr. Fusco pursued Mr. O'Neill to the United States and filed a complaint with an Attorney Grievance Committee in New York; the Committee forwarded the complaint to the D.C. Bar. In April of 2018, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel for the D.C. Bar opened an investigation...