Ohio Judge Disbarred Over Dealings with Convicted Client
An Ohio judge’s effort to help a former client skirt money-laundering laws and purchase a commercial building from him has ended his legal career.
Judge Jeffrey Hoskins of the Highland County Court of Common Pleas was permanently disbarred last week by the Ohio Supreme Court for what it described in a written opinion (PDF) as “numerous improper acts incompatible with his duties as a judge and a lawyer, including attempting to conceal a possible conflict of interest and to benefit secretly from the illegally acquired funds of a known felon.”
The beginning of the end for Hoskins was a $25,000 loan he made to a former client and convicted con man, David Bliss, and his wife almost a decade ago, reports the Columbus Dispatch.
Repaid with a rubber check, Hoskins apparently tried in 2005 to recoup the money, and a substantial additional profit, by helping Bliss use money that the judge thought his former client had stashed from a credit card scam to purchase at an inflated price a commercial building in which Hoskins had an ownership interest, according to the newspaper and the court’s opinion. Unfortunately for Hoskins, Bliss reportedly came to a meeting to discuss the purchase wearing a wire.
“Respondent tried to sell Bliss the building for $890,000, $595,000 more than the bank’s appraised value, hoping thereby to (1) profit from the illegally obtained proceeds and solve his own financial problems and (2) recoup $25,000 in loans that he had made to either Bliss or Bliss’s wife,” the court writes. “He planned to structure the purchase in such a way as to evade criminal charges for money laundering.”
More details of Hoskins’ dealings with Bliss are discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post.
A lawyer for the judge contended that he had made some mistakes, but shouldn’t be disbarred. However, the court said in its opinion that it had no choice but to do so.
Noting that Hoskins’ misconduct had spanned a 10-year period, much of it while he was a judge, it said the “persistent, serious, and varied nature of respondent’s malfeasance establish that only the full measure of our disciplinary authority can protect the public and restore the integrity of the judiciary and the bar, particularly given the principle that judges must be held to the highest standards of integrity and ethical conduct.”
