State Bar of Nevada wants to disbar lawyer charged with stealing millions from clients

A State Bar of Nevada disciplinary panel on Thursday recommended disbarring jailed probate lawyer Robert Graham over the alleged theft of millions of dollars from clients.

At an hour-long hearing, Assistant Bar Counsel Janeen Isaacson laid out the case to take away Graham’s license, alleging he stole more than $17 million from clients over at least a decade, all in a selfish bid to feed his ego.

“Robert C. Graham wanted to live the life he thought he deserved,” Isaacson told the state bar panel. “He wanted nice houses, nice cars but most of all he wanted to be looked at and revered as the successful, important man he thought he was. That image, that facade mattered more to him than the clients who needed him.”

The $17 million figure Isaacson cited tops the more than the $15 million in thefts prosecutors alleged in January after they obtained an indictment against Graham for looting trust funds in three of his cases.

Prosecutors have said they expect to file additional criminal charges against him.

Grand jury transcripts allege that Graham funneled an average of $187,000 a month in client funds into an operating account to run his law practice and pay bills, including $244,000 in taxes to the IRS and hundreds of thousands of dollars in television advertising.

Graham, 52, who is in custody on $5 million bail, did not appear at the state bar hearing or contest it. He was represented by attorney P. Sterling Kerr, who did not challenge the evidence presented by Isaacson.

The three-member disciplinary panel, chaired by attorney Luke Puschnig, also recommended Graham pay $17.2 million in restitution to his former clients and a $1 million fine to the state bar’s client security fund.

Isaacson, who at one point choked up when discussing some of Graham’s victims, had sought both amounts.

Louise Watson, a paralegal and investigator for the bar, testified that Graham sold homes without the knowledge of clients and pocketed the money. She also said he regularly loaned money from one trust to another when funds were needed to pay clients.

Puschnig described the Graham case as “overwhelming” because of its many victims and the extent of Graham’s indiscretions. The panel members took fewer than 15 minutes to reach their unanimous decision behind closed doors.

They concluded that Graham violated seven of the bar’s professional rules of conduct, including lying to clients and not properly safekeeping their property.

The state bar recommendation will be forwarded to the Nevada Supreme Court for action.

The bar filed a complaint against Graham on Dec. 8, just days after he abruptly closed his Summerlin law office and abandoned more than 100 cases. His license was temporarily suspended in December.

Graham, who maintains his probate and estate law practice was a 20-year business failure, has been charged in the theft of $2.1 million from clients in three of his cases between 2013 and 2016.

He faces a Sept. 5 trial before District Judge Kerry Earley on three felony counts each of theft and exploitation of an older or vulnerable person and two gross misdemeanor counts of destroying evidence.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564. Follow @JGermanRJ on Twitter.