Crooked Atty Refuses to Stop Practicing

[TenantNet]

COURT IN OB-SESSION
CROOKED ATT'Y REFUSES TO STOP PRACTICING
By JOHN DOYLE
NY Post
January 5, 2009

Practice doesn't necessarily make perfect. An elderly Manhattan lawyer, banished from the legal profession for stealing from clients, could spend his golden years in prison - because he refuses to stay out of the city's courthouses.

At an age when most career attorneys have taken to the golf course, all 81- year-old Bertram Brown wants to do is work, something he is now alleged to have done three times under an alias since his disbarment.

"There is an issue of a man who just doesn't want to stop," said the lawyer's lawyer, Darmin Bachu. "He wants to continue being a lawyer. He won't give it up." Brown, a Columbia Law grad and an attorney for nearly a half-century, surrendered to Brooklyn prosecutors last week for allegedly using a phony name to represent a client in a housing-court case.

He's been without a license since April 2006, when he was disbarred for stealing $54,000 from a Queens man who had hired him to stop the foreclosure on his Ozone Park home. "He treated you like gold," said the client, William Ryan, 53, who was referred to Brown by a neighborhood real-estate agent. "He was like a nice, sweet old man. And he screwed me."

Brown was also charged with stealing more than $20,000 from one of Ryan's neighbors, whom he represented in the sale of her Ozone Park home, authorities said. He eventually pleaded guilty to theft and was slapped with five years' probation and ordered to pay $32,400 in restitution. Ryan still hasn't received a dime - and it's not because Brown doesn't have money coming in.

He was caught in January 2007 representing a client in The Bronx while using the name and credentials of a former associate, then again in Queens in September using the same alias. Both times, he was punished only with probation. In the most recent case, he was caught representing a Brooklyn landlord in a suit brought against him by a tenant. One of the clients in the prior cases, who asked not to be identified, gave Brown decent reviews. "I think the man knew what he was doing," said the client. "He got one side to agree to drop the suit. I think he was effective."

But, successful or not, he's an offender with a quickly growing rap sheet, and because of his record, he's looking at mandatory jail time on the Brooklyn case if he's convicted of another felony.

"It's a heartbreaking situation," said Bachu. "He is sick, and he is frail, and there is the issue of his mental competency. I don't think incarceration is a solution to any of these problems." Bachu added that his client, a widower, suffers from colon cancer but nonetheless took on the unlicensed work he did with incredible gusto. "He's kind, generous and professional," he said.

Ryan, meanwhile, has no sympathy for Brown. "The guy in the street, he robs a bank and he goes to jail," he said. "An elderly man steals money, it's a white-collar crime and he gets nothing. I would love to see him strung up by the nearest flagpole and hung out to dry."

john.doyle@nypost.com
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01052009/ne ... 147242.htm