Some stories about attorney misconduct just beg the question, how could this guy be such a yutz and make it past the bar exam?  From the Hartford Courant via the ABA Journal, this is one such story.

The case against [Robert Karanian, 56] grew out of a claim by Daniel Chiulli, a client, that the attorney had told him he would get a suspended sentence in a drug case pending in Superior Court in New Britain if he gave $12,000 to a charity. Chiulli, now 41, gave the money to Karanian, but there was no mention of it at Chiulli’s sentencing and no record of it in the court file.

According to the arrest affidavit for Karanian, the attorney did not give the money to charity but deposited some of it in his personal checking account and a portion into an account of his law firm. In addition to the $12,000, Chiulli paid Karanian $7,500 to represent him in the case.

So let me see if I can piece this together.  The client has an extra $12,000.  The lawyer wanted an extra $12,000.  So the lawyer told the client that if he gave it to charity, he would get him a suspected suspended (h/t to J-dog for pointing out that my slip was showing) sentence, but kept the money instead.

Now a lawyer cannot guarantee an outcome or take a contingent fee in a criminal case.  But where does this whole charity thing come in?  Why employ this involved subterfuge when this is all about glomming an extra $12k from a drug dealer?

I have to assume that Karanian already had a promise of a suspended sentence before he hatched this scheme, since doing all this and then not producing the guaranteed sentence would have been a certain problem.  But if your purpose is to try to get some extra cash out of a client, even if its almost double the amount you charged the client for representation in the first place, why go through this elaborate charity hoax?

The client obviously wanted the suspended sentence very badly, $12k badly.  So did Karanian figure that he would cough up the cash if it was for a suspended sentence but go to charity, versus the suspended sentence and go in Karanian’s pocket?  Was he a particularly charitable drug dealer, willing to break the law provided there was some charitable benefit to it?

Since the $12k was supposed to go to charity, it obviously wasn’t the old “buy the judge or prosecutor” scam that some scoundrel lawyers use to shift wealth away from clients.  So the client’s complaint was not that he was scammed out of $12k, but that his cash didn’t go to the charity as Karanian said it would, but to Karanian himself.

Isn’t it bad enough that everything about what transpired between Karanian and Chiulli stinks.  Does it have to be pathologically stupid as well.  For God’s sake, man, if you are going to engage in flagrantly unethical behavior, at least avoid being a moron while doing so.

Mind you, the jury at Karanian’s trial acquitted him of the theft of the $12,000, but convicted for bribing and tampering with the witness against him, Chiulli, who had recorded the conversations.  The jury returned a note saying that they found Chiulli’s uncorroborated testimony not credible.  I find the whole thing incredible.