CHARLESTON – A Wheeling attorney has been charged with three counts of violating the rules of conduct for attorneys.
On June 18, the state Lawyer Disciplinary Board issued a Statement of Charges against Paul J. Harris, a Wheeling attorney with more than 35 years of experience.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” Healy Baumgardner, a former Fox News analyst and adviser to Presidents Donald Trump and George W. Bush who was involved in one of the matters at the heart of the Harris charges, told The West Virginia Record.
Baumgardner
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According to the first count, attorney Elgine H. McArdle represented Baumgardner in an Ohio County divorce proceeding.
In a letter sent to the Office of Lawyer Disciplinary Counsel dated March 27, 2017, McArdle expressed concern about how Harris and his firm allegedly mishandled more than $600,000 that was to be placed into an irrevocable family trust to benefit Baumgardner and her now ex-husband Emil Nardone. Instead, McArdle says Harris placed the money into his IOLTA (Interest on Lawyer Trust Account) account and testified he used the funds for his “fees.”
In his response to the ODC letter notifying him of the complaint, Harris denied any violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct and provided an affidavit from Nardone saying he signed off on every transaction related to fees.
Harris, who was admitted to the bar in 1987, had represented the couple previously after they were targeted in a 2012 federal investigation about billing practices of Nardone’s chiropractic clinic. He also sued The Health Plan of the Upper Ohio Valley on behalf of Nardone in 2013 for alleged withholding of reimbursements to his clinic for services.
In July 2013, the LDB statement says Harris created two irrevocable trust agreements. Both were named The Nardone Family Trust. One made Nardone the sole beneficiary, and the other made both he and Baumgardner beneficiaries. In the 2016 divorce, it was alleged Nardone and Harris, who did not represent Nardone in the divorce, conspired to divert more than $600,000 in marital assets to avoid equitable distribution to Baumgardner.
McArdle also said Harris opened a bank account in Baumgardner’s name without her knowledge and deposited nearly $93,000 in it. He then wrote himself a check for $92,000 and deposited it into his IOLTA account, the statement charges.
In addition, it says the couple’s home was sold in 2014, and Nardone wrote a check for $235,000 to Harris’ law office. Harris deposited that check into his IOLTA account and designated it for his fees, according to the statement. It says Nardone and Harris did something similar with a $115,000 check in 2013, and it claims Nardone liquidated stock accounts in 2015 to allow he and Harris to do something similar with a check for $200,000.
In 2017, Harris filed a petition for declaratory judgment to have the trust with both parties as beneficiaries dissolved following the divorce, claiming Baumgardner’s rights to the trust ended upon the divorce.
In late 2018, attorney Mike Kelly was representing Baumgardner in the matter and filed a motion to disqualify Harris because he drafted both trusts and was listed as a trustee for them. The court granted that motion. The trust case was settled in 2021 and, in 2022, the court granted a motion appointing a new trustee.
According to the second count, Rocky A. Tingler filed an ethics complaint against Harris in 2021 alleging he paid Harris $50,000 in 2017 to represent him in a federal criminal case. Tingler says Harris never appeared on his behalf, didn’t appear at any hearings and didn’t consult with him about the case.
After Tingler pled guilty to one count of false statement on a tax return and one count of failure to pay over employment taxes and was sentenced to six months in prison, he says he terminated Harris’ representation and asked for a complete copy of his file, a detailed invoice of work performed on his behalf and a return of the balance of the $50,000.
When Harris finally provided the file to Tingler’s new attorney, according to the statement of charges, Tingler said “there was nothing in (Harris’s) invoice that related to services rendered in Mr. Tingler’s federal criminal case, other than legal and case law research.” It also included billing for conferences with Tingler that allegedly did not occur, according to the statement of charges.
Harris eventually provided a refund of just over $5,000 and “threatened to sue Attorney (Dean) Summers personally if he proceeded with filing a case” against Harris, according to the statement.
Harris also denied wrongdoing to the ODC when it mailed him a letter about Tingler’s complaint against him.
According to the third count, Thomas M. Carr filed an ethics complaint against Harris in June 2022. It said Carr sold three properties in Iowa for more than $600,000 after his wife died in November 2020. The proceeds from those sales were wired to Harris, who represented Carr in a variety of legal matters.
Carr said Harris had him wire $300,000 to retain him as counsel in November 2020. Carr said 2Harris also received a check for $200,000 from a mine subsidence claim. Carr says his homeowner’s insurance coverage was dropped in 2022 because Harris held the mine subsidence check funds and didn’t allow Carr to have his home repaired. In total, Carr said Harris couldn’t account for more than $1.2 million of the family’s money.
The statement also notes Harris has been the subject of two previous admonishments by the LDB in 1995 and by the state Supreme Court in 2001.
Lawyer Disciplinary Board I.D. numbers 17-03-136 (McArdle), 21-01-230 (Tingler) and 22-02-240 (Carr)