Disbarment Urged for Lawyer Who Billed Fake Clients
Henry Gottlieb
New Jersey Law Journal

The New Jersey Disciplinary Review Board is recommending disbarment for a lawyer who manufactured fake billings for nonexistent clients, first at Fox Rothschild and then at Margolis Edelstein.

The board found that Kenneth Denti, 51, violated ethics rules against fraud by drawing a salary while pretending he had done $350,000 worth of work.

He also submitted phony expense accounts and had sex with a matrimonial client while she was trying to reconcile with her husband, creating a conflict of interest, the board added.

A special master had recommended an 18-month suspension because there was no finding of criminality or knowing misappropriation.

But in an opinion made public on Friday, the DRB asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to lift Denti’s law license because he “engaged in an insidious plot that, coupled with his obvious untruthful testimony, shows a deficiency of character that compels disbarment.”

Here’s what happened, according to the DRB.

Denti, a former New Jersey deputy attorney general, had a matrimonial, zoning and land use practice when he arrived at Fox Rothschild in Princeton as a contract partner in January 2005 with a salary of about $200,000.

He brought work with him, or so Fox Rothschild thought when it saw the time sheets he entered for clients listing services rendered. Work on one matrimonial matter exceeded $100,000, according to the time sheets.

But the firm became suspicious when he submitted no invoices for payment.

An internal investigation led by lawyers in Fox Rothschild’s main office in Philadelphia showed the cases didn’t exist. Many of the clients had been Denti’s at Duane Morris in Cherry Hill but stuck with that firm when he left.

After 14 months at Fox Rothschild, Denti was told to leave, and the firm filed a grievance with the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics in September 2006. But the grievance was confidential, and Margolis Edelstein, which hired him for its Westmont office, had no way of knowing he had left Fox Rothschild under a cloud.

Fox Rothschild’s counsel, Thomas Paradise, who works in the firm’s Philadelphia office and led the internal inquiry into Denti, declines to comment. But ethics rules in New Jersey that permit grievants to make their complaints public do not require them to do so, and Pennsylvania’s rules require grievants to keep their complaints confidential.

Denti brought an alleged book of business to Margolis Edelstein’s Westmont office. But when the firm confronted him as the Fox Rothschild partners had, he resigned in August 2007. Margolis Edelstein filed a grievance later that year and learned it wasn’t the first firm to do so.

“He submitted fictitious time sheets for more than two and one-half years, encompassing more than $350,000 in fees,” a violation of Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(c), the stricture against fraud and misrepresentation. “His motive was financial self-interest — he wanted to continue his employment and his receipt of compensation.”

He also was found guilty of submitting phony expense accounts and the board found that his sexual relationship with a client conflicted with her interest in reconciling with her husband.

Both Denti and the woman denied during testimony that they had sex, asserting that seemingly steamy e-mails between them were merely playful jokes just to blow off steam.

Denti, who represented himself, could not be reached for comment. Directory assistance had no number for the address listed for him in the Lawyers’ Diary and Manual .

He testimony during the ethics proceedings suggested that he had done work for the clients but hadn’t kept good records.

The DRB didn’t buy it and rejected the 18-month suspension recommended by Special Master Milton Gelzer, a retired Superior Court judge.

It noted that the Supreme Court has disbarred attorneys who defrauded their law firms on the theory that there is no ethical distinction between bilking a client and bilking a firm.

“Although respondent’s conduct did not constitute criminal theft and although he was not charged with knowing misappropriation of law firm funds, he carried out a longstanding and pervasive scheme of defrauding two law firms of which he had been a partner,” the DRB said.

Power Marketing for Attorneys

Lawyer Arrested For Putting Camera Under Woman’s Desk
Posted By - Kendra Mackey

Cobb County, GA — A Cobb County attorney was arrested Friday afternoon for allegedly placing a video camera under a female co-worker’s desk.

Police say the woman, an employee of Merritt & Tenny Law Firm, located at 200 Galleria Parkway, discovered the camera underneath her work desk earlier this week. She immediately notified Cobb County police.

With the assistance of the Cobb County Police Department’s High Tech Crime Squad, detectives with the Crimes Against Persons Unit secured a warrant for 57-year old James Frederick Tenney, a partner at the law firm.

Tenney was booked into the Cobb County jail and charged with 3-counts of Unlawful Surveillance. He posted a $10,000 bond and was released.

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After reading this story at 11Alive.com, I saw the following comment:

“He’s likely to be acquitted. She was at work with no expectation of privacy and her employer has every right to place surveillance equipment, and can monitor everything an employee does (including read private emails sent on company equipment), without the employee’s consent.

He can argue the employer is not responsible if the employee wears skirts that are not long enough for modesty when sitting (it’s her choice not to wear slacks or longer skirts, not his). What happens when she sits down in a chair (without a desk), public restaurant, or a meeting? Does her skirt suddenly cover more? If not then he isn’t responsible for what the camera records.

All this super sleez has to do is come up with a plausible reason to explain why the camera was placed under her desk (i.e. she was accused of stealing and putting things in her purse under the desk where normal room surveillance can’t see) and he’s probably home free.”

What do you think? Speak on it.

By Edward Marshall, Journal Staff Writer
A former Martinsburg attorney was arrested in Virginia Wednesday afternoon by officers in Henrico County, Va., in connection to a series of arsons and bomb threats that occurred in Martinsburg in 2007 and 2008, police said Thursday.

Ashley R. Shreve, 28, currently an attorney in Richmond, was arrested without incident in Richmond after Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department investigators obtained warrants for Shreve’s arrest and coordinated her arrest with investigators in Henrico County.

Lt. B.F. Hall, of the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department’s Criminal Investigations Division, obtained warrants charging Shreve with one count of second-degree arson, attempted arson and terroristic threats. Shreve previously lived in the Spring Mills area.

“We’re not really going to go into motive. We’re not going to release that information right now,” Hall said.

The arrest brings a conclusion to a nearly three-year investigation, which began in September 2007 after a suspected arson occurred at the law firm of McNeer, Highland, McMunn and Vernor at 275 Aikens Center in Martinsburg. Investigators learned that the fire intentionally was set to a box of files in an office belonging to one of the firm’s legal assistants.

Shreve was employed as an attorney at the law office, police said, but it wasn’t until later in the investigation that she became a suspect.

The law firm, as well as other nearby businesses, received bomb threats over the course of the next several months. Investigators with the Sheriff’s Department also received two letters in the mail taunting them for not making an arrest in the arson. Investigators were able to recover evidence from the original arson and from the subsequent bomb threats.

In April 2008, investigators were again called to the law firm for a reported attempted arson. Hall and then Chief Deputy Kenneth “Kenny” Lemaster Jr., who now is Berkeley County’s sheriff, responded to the law firm and conducted the investigation.

“At the beginning of it we didn’t know it, was actually internal. It took a little bit of investigation to determine that it was possibly internal,” Lemaster said.

Hall later was notified by the West Virginia State Police forensic lab that a DNA sample had been obtained from an envelope used to send a bomb threat.

After Hall learned that Shreve had moved to the Richmond area after the April 2008 attempted arson, he contacted Henrico County investigators and received assistance in obtaining a search warrant for Shreve’s DNA. The DNA obtained from Shreve was sent to the West Virginia State Police forensic lab to compare to evidence from the bomb threat envelope. Hall was notified in December that the DNA samples were a match.

Shreve is currently being held in the Henrico County jail while awaiting extradition back to Berkeley County. She is expected to be returned to West Virginia early next week.

“We’re glad that we could bring closure to the victims in this case, the victims being the lawyers and the clerks out at the law firm,” Hall said. “They were basically terrorized for a year or more.”

For more details regarding this case: Journal-news.net.

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DeWitt lawyer sentenced for not filing tax returns
By Jim O’Hara
The Post-Standard

DeWitt lawyer Bonnie Strunk was sentenced this morning to a three-year conditional discharge for failing to file tax returns for 2008.

That plead deal to a felony charge of fourth-degree criminal tax fraud satisfied other charges that Strunk stole the identity of her former law partner’s husband to open up a credit card account.

Strunk today maintained she was innocent of any wrongdoing involving those allegations but agreed to pay restitution in the credit card case.

She also claimed she was the victim of “malicious, fraudulent and criminal conduct” by Faith and Robert Seidenberg. Faith Seidenberg is Strunk’s former law partner. Dr. Robert Seidenberg is her psychiatrist husband and the victim in the identity-theft case.

Strunk and the Seidenbergs have made local news for decades as crusaders for civil liberties. The local chapter of the Civil Liberties Union has named an award for Faith Seidenberg. Her husband was the first male president of a local chapter of the National Organization for Women. Strunk, a one-time candidate for district attorney, has championed gay rights.

The prosecution contended Strunk used Dr. Seidenberg’s identity to open up a Capitol One MasterCard account and then stole about $17,000 by using the account to pay veterinary bills in Georgia, PayPal accounts in California and for airline tickets on JetBlue Airways.

The prosecution filed the felony tax fraud charge after efforts to work out a plea deal in the identity theft case fell through. The prosecution contended Strunk failed to file personal tax returns in April 2009 and that she had a tax liability of about $11,777 for 2008.

For more details regarding this story, visit Syracuse.com.

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DirtyLAWndry reader - “Fey” - just sent this interesting tidbit about her former boss:

“I used to be a contract attorney at Dechert until 2009 when I was laid off. I worked under a senior staff attorney for almost ten years doing mostly document review and a few other projects. I thought my work was good as I always received glowing reviews from my boss. Whenever she had side projects that needed attention, I would do that work for her. I should mention that I am an older adult and I was doing contract work to supplement my income. In terms of practical legal experience, I have more experience than this senior staff attorney and she would sometimes ask me to do things that she herself did not understand. So, I thought I was a valued employee even though I didn’t work directly for the firm. There were times when the firm was recruiting for a staff attorney position and I noticed she would try to talk me out of taking the position. I had no interest in taking the position, but she didn’t know that. I think she felt threatened because some of the partners were starting to take note of my work. I also knew many of the associates from my younger days when I used to practice more.

Anyway, when I got laid off, I went searching for another document review position. I was interviewed and was pretty much guaranteed the position. All I needed was employment verification. Now, this wasn’t the usual employment verification form. This form had requests for information that only someone who worked with me could provide. So, my temp agency filled out what they could and sent the form to my boss for her input. Well, she ignored the form. I had also listed her as a professional reference because working at Dechert all that time was my sole means of income. One day, I received a phone call from the company I wanted to work for saying that they needed an additional reference because my boss wouldn’t agree to be a reference or even verify that I worked as a temp at Dechert.

What’s crazy to me is that my boss did say that I could use her as a reference. So, I thought surely there must be some mistake. I really needed this job so I called other contract workers that worked with me and apparently she did the same thing to them stating that it was policy. Well, I had also called another senior staff attorney hoping that he would remember me from working on those side projects with the both of them over the years. He returned my call, and after explaining the situation to him, he contacted the company on my behalf and I was able to get the job. So, I guess it wasn’t a policy issue after all. It was just that senior staff attorney trying to kick us contract attorneys while we’re already down.

To make matters worse, I just found out that my boss was put in charge of rehiring for the project we all worked on. I noticed that she didn’t rehire anyone with more experience than her nor any minorities (women, black or dark-skinned Indians, Americans, Hispanics, or Asians). So, if you were white, male, and just out of law school, you were rehired. But, if you were white, male, and she felt threatened that you may have an actual shot at becoming a full-time employee then you weren’t even on her radar. Needless to say, she hasn’t contacted me regarding my former position, which paid more than my current gig.”

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Also, if you’re a solo practitioner or entrepreneur, I’d love to feature you on the Entrepreneur page (http://entrepreneurs.dirtylawndry.com/) of this site. For more information about this opportunity, please visit the Entrepreneur page.