Attorney accused of bad checks

Las Vegas lawyer Jeanne Winkler, who was suspended in March amid allegations that she misappropriated more than $200,000 from her attorney-client trust account, is now facing a felony bad-check charge.

The Nevada Supreme Court temporarily suspended Winkler pending the resolution of formal disciplinary proceedings.

The following month, the district attorney's office filed a criminal complaint that accuses her of bouncing four checks.

Winkler, 40, is scheduled to appear July 8 for an arraignment in Las Vegas Justice Court.

Attempts to reach Winkler for comment were unsuccessful, but she submitted an affidavit to the State Bar of Nevada in which she admitted that she misappropriated money from her attorney-client trust account from early 2007 through the end of January 2008.

"As of January 27, 2008, my trust account balance should have been $216,167.05, but there was only approximately $3,000 in the account at that time," Winkler wrote.

According to the affidavit, Winkler transferred money from her trust account to fund an investment and to pay for "ongoing expenses" related to her firm, such as payroll checks, utilities and rent.

"In November 2007, I began experiencing serious financial difficulty and 'robbing Peter to pay Paul.' I had paychecks bounce and with the exception of two (2) of those checks, I covered each one promptly," Winkler wrote. "However, numerous other checks bounced in order to cover the payroll checks."

Attorney Louis Schneider, who is listed as a victim in Winkler's bad-check case, said he and attorney Tracey Itts contacted the Bar in December after they found a letter on the copy machine at Winkler's law offices. The letter had been sent from the Bar to Winkler and asked her to explain why her trust account was overdrawn.

Lawyers often put money from clients and third parties in trust accounts for safekeeping. For instance, lawyers may ask clients to give them an advance on their fees or litigation expenses and then bill against this advance. Such advances must be kept in a trust account, separate from the lawyer's funds.

In personal injury cases, settlements are typically placed in a lawyer's trust account before being disbursed. In divorce cases, a lawyer may be asked by a judge to sell the couple's real estate and place the proceeds in a trust account until the judge makes a final decision on the division of property.

Schneider, who joined Winkler's firm in September and was poised to become her partner on Jan. 1, said her trust account should have held $50,000 from his clients and $50,000 from Itts' clients.

Schneider said he and Itts initially placed an anonymous call to the Bar's ethics hot line, but they were informed that if they failed to report the missing money, they could be held liable for any money taken from the account in the future.

Schneider said he and Itts went to the Bar's offices within the hour and reported their belief that at least $100,000 was missing from Winkler's trust account. Itts could not be reached for comment.

Winkler submitted her affidavit to the Bar in February.

Schneider said others in the legal community initially had a hard time understanding why he had filed a grievance against a fellow attorney.

"Jeanne's a likeable person, and she had a lot of friends, and I don't like being involved in this disaster," he said. "And a lot of people got hurt."

Schneider said he relied on the teachings of his father, a retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, in deciding to come forward.

"He has always told me you do the right thing, even if you stand alone," Schneider said.

Schneider had about 20 clients whose money disappeared from the trust account. He said he has compensated all of them.

"On flat-fee cases I completed their cases, and on hourly cases I gave them credit for the missing money, because it was the right thing to do," he said. "So I essentially worked for free for three months cleaning up those cases."

Schneider, a single father, said he began practicing law in 2005 as a second career. He previously owned a commercial leasing and finance company in Lake Tahoe.

"I sold that company to go to law school, because I have always wanted to be an attorney, and I was not going to risk losing my license to practice law, or embarrass my son or my father," Schneider said.

He said he had known Winkler about a year before he joined her firm and liked the hardworking lawyer, who is the mother of two young children.

Schneider said he had not seen Winkler's affidavit and was surprised when he learned about its contents from the Review-Journal.

According to the affidavit, Winkler became involved in an investment opportunity in December 2006 "that was expected to yield large returns in a very short period."

"It was represented to me that the program was a governmental program that funded humanitarian efforts throughout the world and was based, in part, on World War I (WWI) bonds," Winkler wrote.

According to the affidavit, Winkler was told "that a gentleman working directly for the President of the United States was involved in administrating the program."

"The returns that were promised were such that I would have been able to help many people, not to mention myself, and would have allowed me to expand my firm to cover additional areas of law and service my clients," she wrote.

Winkler, who had been licensed to practice law in Nevada since October 1999, primarily handled cases in Family Court.

However, she received publicity last year when she represented Thomas Cecrle in a criminal matter. Cecrle, a felon, is Family Court Judge Steven Jones' former brother-in-law. Campaign finance reports show a history of debt between the two men.

Winkler represented Cecrle at a hearing in February 2007 when District Judge Elizabeth Halverson sentenced the defendant to 90 days in jail and two years of probation in a drug case.

At the hearing, Winkler argued for a delay in the start of Cecrle's sentence. She said he needed time to complete a business deal that would provide him with the money he owed investors.

A bench warrant for Cecrle's arrest was issued later that month when he failed to report to the Clark County Detention Center to begin serving his sentence.

As part of an effort to withdraw Cecrle's guilty plea, Winkler submitted an affidavit that stated she had failed to advise Cecrle that he could receive jail time for his crime.

Cecrle was arrested after spending 16 days on the lam and faced a new drug case. In August, District Judge David Barker sentenced the defendant to six months in jail.

Over the years, Cecrle has been a defendant in numerous lawsuits stemming from allegations of unpaid loans and questionable business practices.

In March 2006, Winkler represented Cecrle in a Family Court hearing for his failure to pay more than $30,000 in back child support. Winkler said that Cecrle would be able to make good on the money owed because of a pending business deal. In a bench conference with Hearing Master Sylvia Beller, which was captured on courtroom video, Winkler provided the details.

"My understanding is that he is in negotiations with the government itself, up to the president, which has a very high level of security so it can't be disclosed publicly," Winkler said to Beller. "Suffice it to say, I'm aware of it, I've been helping him out with this and I'm basically willing to step forward with this."

Two former clients have sued Winkler in recent months.

According to a civil complaint filed in December by Debra Hood, Winkler began soliciting her for a loan in February 2007.

"At the time of Winkler's request, plaintiff was apprehensive about her divorce action, which Winkler had been handling since October 2005," the lawsuit states. "Plaintiff was concerned that if she said 'no' to Winkler's request, it could adversely affect her divorce by causing Winkler to withdraw as her attorney. Given this uneven bargaining power, plaintiff agreed to the transaction."

According to the document, Hood loaned Winkler $115,000, and Winkler promised to pay Hood $3,000 a month in principal and interest.

Hood terminated Winkler as her attorney in October, and the lawyer made her last $3,000 payment to Hood that month, the lawsuit alleges. According to the document, Winkler owes her former client nearly $104,000 in principal.

Another former client, Juanita Thompson, sued Winkler in February. According to the complaint, Thompson retained Winkler in April 2006 to represent her in a divorce case.

The lawsuit claims Winkler was given a "substantial amount of funds" to hold in trust for Thompson and her ex-husband. Initially, Winkler was given more than $1 million in trust money from the sale of the couple's home, according to the document.

"Winkler was supposed to hold said funds in a separate, interest-bearing trust account," the complaint alleges. "Winkler also was given a retainer and other personal property of the couple."

Winkler made allowed disbursements of the trust money at times, but she still owes Thompson more than $30,000, according to the lawsuit.

According to State Bar of Nevada records, the organization has received five grievances from Winkler's clients requesting assistance in retrieving their retainers so that they can find new counsel.

Winkler continues to wait for the payout on her investment, according to the affidavit she submitted to the Bar. Each month, she wrote, investors were told that the program requirements had been met and that it "was set to pay out very shortly."

"Needless to say, the payout has not yet occurred, even though we are being told it is imminent," Winkler wrote. "Nevertheless, the damage has been done."

Chief Deputy District Attorney Bernie Zadrowski, who is prosecuting Winkler's bad-check case, said such cases are routinely dismissed for defendants who pay back their victims.

"Of course, it's not guaranteed," he said.

The prosecutor said Winkler paid back about $1,160 to Palace Station for a single bounced check in her criminal case but specifically asked that none of the money be given to Schneider, who is listed as the victim of three bad checks totaling about $10,600.

"In this case, she's made it known to us that she is disputing the debt with Louis Schneider," Zadrowski said.

He said jail records show that Winkler was booked May 16 and released on her own recognizance the same day.

Contact reporter Carri Geer Thevenot at cgeer@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.