Legal Ethics
Nev. Lawyer With Gambling ‘Disability’ Who Stole $400K is Suspended for 5 Years
Posted Feb 20, 2009, 04:51 pm CST
By Martha Neil
Rejecting a disbarment recommendation, the Nevada Supreme Court has suspended for five years a 53-year-old Las Vegas attorney who admittedly stole nearly $400,000 from clients to support a gambling habit.
Finding that mitigating factors outweighed aggravating circumstances, the court found that Douglas Crawford's good character, reputation, remorse and "mental disabilities of depression and gambling addiction" weighed in favor of the suspension, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Las Vegas Sun.
The suspension took effect on Wednesday. To be readmitted, Crawford must continue his gambling addiction recovery efforts and make restitution to clients, among other conditions.
The Southern Nevada Disciplinary Board reportedly based its disbarment recommendation, in part, on Crawford's multiple offenses (he made a conditional guilty plea in this case to 65 violations, mostly related to misappropriation of funds) and what the panel described as his selfish motive for his misconduct.
Given his testimony that he was driven to his misconduct by the pressures of practicing law, there was also a risk that he might re-offend, the board wrote in an April opinion. "The panel finds nothing upon which they can rest a guarantee that if Mr. Crawford were allowed to practice law again the same practice would not cause him to suffer the same degree of stress and react in the same manner to that stress."
Michael Warhola, who represented Crawford, could not be reached by the Review-Journal for comment.