Ga. Lawyer Gets 2-Year Suspension After Sending Sex Video to Undercover Officer He Thought Was 16
In an attorney discipline case that explores the boundaries of when private sexual misconduct renders a lawyer unfit to practice, and for how long, a Georgia practitioner says he was blindsided by a state supreme court decision this week to suspend him for two years after a misdemeanor conviction for sending lewd images to an undercover officer and attempting to interfere with the custody of a 16-year-old girl.
Robbie Levin says he took a plea in the criminal case after being assured that the conviction would not preclude him from continuing to practice law, because it would not be considered a crime of moral turpitude, says the Fulton County Daily Report in an article reprinted by New York Lawyer (reg. req.).
His lawyer argued in court filings that Levin’s conduct—messaging the16-year-old daughter of a friend on Facebook, with her mother’s permission, and then sending a sex video to an undercover officer he thought was the the teen, after the officer asked for photos that showed “more”—was not a breach of trust because it occurred in “the context of personal morality having no connection to the fitness to practice law.”
Likewise, the defense argued, there was no breach of trust because no fiduciary or lawyer-client relationship was at involved.
