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Clifton Graves Jr. lost his law license for nine years and pleaded guilty to failing to pay income taxes — in what the Democratic mayoral candidate called “inexcusable” lapses.
Details of those legal troubles emerged from a review of public records of candidates participating in the Sept. 13 four-way Democratic mayoral primary. Graves and two other challengers are taking on nine-term incumbent Mayor John DeStefano in the primary.
The review showed that Graves had his license to practice law suspended for nine years because of failure to pay an annual fee that ranged from $37.50 to $75. His license was reinstated last September after he paid the money.
And the review revealed that Graves received a one-year suspended sentence in 2004 for failure to file state tax returns. The charge was a misdemeanor; he paid the money and fine and did not have to spend any time in jail.
“It’s inexcusable what I did,” Graves said in a candid interview at his Whalley Avenue campaign headquarters. “I acknowledge that.”
Change Of Address
The state judicial website shows that Graves had his license suspended on April 23, 2001. It was reinstated On Sept. 10, 2010.
The site lists four entries, but they all relate to one matter: Graves’ failure to make an annual payment, required of all attorneys, into a “client security fund.”
According to Chris Blanchard, a staff attorney with the judicial branch, the fund pays for victims of theft or embezzlement by their attorneys. In 2001, all attorneys were supposed to pay $75 into the fund; in 2004, the rules changed to allow attorneys (like Graves) not actively practicing law to pay just half the total fee. The total fee rose to $110 (or $55 for non-practicing attorneys) in 2005.
Graves said he never knew that he owed the fee, because the letters informing him were sent to a Winston-Salem, N.C., address and not forwarded. He moved there from New Haven in 1993, he said.
Before moving to North Carolina, he had served as an attorney in the New Haven corporation counsel’s office and at the housing authority. He moved back to New Haven from North Carolina in 1995. He no longer actively practiced law. Instead he worked as an administrator and teacher at Southern Connecticut State University and Gateway Community College.
In those jobs he received a notice saying he was exempt from paying a separate professional tax, because he was a full-time state employee, he said. So he falsely assumed he didn’t have to pay the other, client security fund fee, he said.
He shouldn’t have made that assumption, Graves said. And he should have done “due diligence” to actively make sure the state bar association had his correct new address listed; then he would have learned about losing his license.
“I didn’t follow through like I should have,” he said.
Blanchard said the state automatically submits the names of attorneys each year who haven’t paid the security fee, and their licenses are revoked until they pay up.
Graves learned about his past due bill after agreeing to represent an acquaintance for free. He knew the man from his days at the housing authority, he said. “I was trying to help a guy who had no money with a simple divorce.”
The man’s wife’s lawyer looked up Graves’ record and discovered the license suspension. That lawyer filed a grievance with the state.
The Statewide Grievance Committee formally reprimanded Graves on Oct. 1, 2010. It noted his failure to make the client security payments. It noted that Graves did send a check for the $558 to the security fund in 2008; however that check bounced. He eventually settled the bill in 2010.
Click here to read the reprimand letter.
“It did take longer” to pay than expected, Graves said in the interview with the Independent Tuesday. He said he had left SCSU at the time and was going through a “difficult divorce.”
“It was a difficult time,” he said.
The reprimand letter also noted that Graves made a second appearance with a client in 2009, before the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. Graves responded that he was again helping a friend for free; he also thought he was offering the friend advice and accompaniment to a hearing but not formally acting as an attorney.
“This reviewing committee concludes by clear and convincing evidence that the Respondent engaged in unethical conduct by failing to pay the past due amount to the Client Security Fund and by representing a Client knowing his license to practice law was suspended,” read the decision, written by Attorney David I. Channing.
“While sympathetic to the Respondent’s personal circumstances and good intentions to pay the past due amount, this is the second time that the Respondent has engaged in the conduct of representing a client before fulfilling his obligations to maintain his license and contribute to the Client Security Fund. Two years passed after the Respondent’s email to Attorney Blanchard indicating that he would honor the check and the Respondent failed to make any further attempt to arrange payment with the Client Security Fund. Only upon the filing of another grievance was the issue addressed by the Respondent.”
Tax Trouble
In the other matter, Graves pleaded guilty on Dec. 20, 2004, to the misdemeanor charge of violating state income tax regulations. In addition to a one-year suspended sentence, he received two years’ probation.
According to an affidavit prepared by Robert Valente of the Special Investigations Section of the state Department of Revenue Services, Graves failed to file state income tax returns 1998, 1999, and 2000.
Click here to read the affidavit.
Graves owed a total of $4,276 to the state. As part of his plea, he agreed to pay it back in $200 monthly increments.
Graves said he makes no excuses for failing to file those returns.
“Truthfully I was going through some personal family and personal crises,” he said. “Both my parents were ill. I had just been diagnosed with diabetes; that was traumatic. It was a combination of those factors … even though it’s inexcusable what I did. There were personal stresses I had to deal with at that time.”