A Westerville lawyer has been suspended by the Ohio Supreme Court for having a sexual affair with a client and failing to file her bankruptcy case, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Robert Leon received a one-year suspension of his law license, with six months stayed, in a 5-2 decision issued yesterday . The justices found that Leon accepted $1,850 in cash for legal fees and costs to file a 2015 bankruptcy case on a couple’s behalf, but did not deposit the money in a client trust account and never filed the action. After exchanging texts of a sexual nature that sometimes numbered up to 100 a day, the lawyer began a months-long consensual sexual affair with the woman who, with her husband, had retained Leon. Due to Leon’s failure to file the bankruptcy case, the Urbana couple’s home was foreclosed upon and one of their cars was repossessed, the court said in its ruling. Read more.
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As public officials push his rental properties into foreclosure, an Ohio landlord with nearly $1 million in back taxes will find no sanctuary in bankruptcy court, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Judge Alan M. Koschik of the Northern District of Ohio tossed out Gary L. Thomas’ request for bankruptcy protection Monday. The landlord lives in Wadsworth but rents almost exclusively to lower-income tenants in Akron. Several of his paying tenants complain that the homes they rent are falling apart, with them inside. Since last summer, public officials have gone after 22 companies Thomas uses to manage or hold more than 100 properties. He tried to save 27 of the properties from a sheriff’s sale in October by pushing four of his companies into bankruptcy. Together, there’s $461,374 in back taxes on those 27 properties — about a third of all properties in the tax foreclosure case.