Attorney convicted of theft is disbarred by state supreme court
The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday permanently disbarred an attorney who had previously been convicted of theft after stealing more than $225,000 from an estate that he administered. (Photo by Rawf8/Getty Images)
The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday permanently disbarred an attorney who had previously been convicted of theft after stealing more than $225,000 from an estate that he administered.
Lawyer Nathan Harvey of Ohio pleaded guilty to theft by deception in July 2024. At the time, he had ben practicing law for about two years. The Ohio Supreme Court’s Board of Professional Conduct found that Harvey violated several ethical rules and recommended that he be indefinitely suspended, according to a story by Court News Ohio and information provided by the Ohio Supreme Court.
Harvey was attending law school and working as legal assistant for attorney Britt Wiseman when Wiseman arranged for Harvey to work as the administrator of an estate. Not long after opening a bank account for the estate, Harvey began stealing from it. Wiseman later discovered the theft and reported Harvey’s actions to disciplinary authorities, according to the Ohio Supreme Court.
A criminal investigation revealed that Harvey had written 32 checks totaling $203,260 from the estate and made 53 autopayments out of the estate, culminating in more than $225,000 missing from the account, according to Court News Ohio.
The state supreme court noted that Harvey had previously worked as a full-time and auxiliary deputy sheriff at the Gallia County sheriff’s office in Gallipolis, Ohio.
Writing for the majority, Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy stated that the situation was a “disturbing case of first impression.”
The Ohio Supreme Court, Kennedy wrote, had never before seen a case in which a law student “put into action a theft scheme to misappropriate client funds for two years and eight months and did not get caught until” after he was admitted to practice law.
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