Edward Fagan, left, at his April 2007 disciplinary hearing in Hackensack with his two attorneys, Michael Ambrosio, center, and Clark Alpert. Photo by Robert Wiener
February 07, 2008
Edward Fagan, a Morris Plains attorney who represented Holocaust survivors in multimillion-dollar claims against the Swiss government, is one step closer to being disbarred in New Jersey.
Concluding that “clear and convincing evidence establishes” that Fagan knowingly misappropriated some $400,000 of his clients’ funds, retired Superior Court Judge Arthur Minuskin recommended the attorney be stripped of his license to practice law.
In a 21-page report made public Jan. 30, Minuskin upheld charges by the state’s Office of Attorney Ethics. The office charges that Fagan had misused monies he obtained for two clients, survivor Estelle Sapir and Gizella Weisshaus, whose cousin perished in the Shoa.
Fagan had represented both women in litigation against Swiss banks that had been holding Jewish assets confiscated by the Nazis during World War II.
Minuskin, who came out of retirement to investigate the charges against Fagan, ruled the attorney “lied by claiming he had unlimited authority” to spend the women’s funds.
Fagan achieved prominence in Jewish and legal circles when he sued the Swiss banks on behalf of Holocaust survivors in 1996 and won a $1.25 billion settlement two years later. In 2000, then U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Stuart E. Eizenstat included Fagan in a list of lawyers deserving “special recognition” for their “dedication and commitment to the victims” in pursuing Holocaust reparation cases.
After an April 2007 hearing at the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, Fagan’s lead counsel, Michael Ambrosio, told NJJN his client “was authorized to use this money.” The only problem was, he said, “he didn’t document it in a way that would avoid any questions.”
But John McGill III, deputy counsel in the Office of Attorney Ethics, said Fagan should not “get a pass for pursuing a noble cause.”
Reacting to Minuskin’s recommendations, McGill said the report was “fair and supported by the evidence in the record. The Office of Attorney Ethics recommended his disbarment.”
Ambrosio, a professor at Seton Hall Law School who specializes in legal ethics and malpractice, told NJJN he found the report “not surprising. It is one phase of the proceeding. This is a recommendation, but there will be a review of the record by the disciplinary review board. They make a recommendation to the State Supreme Court, and it is the Supreme Court alone which decides these cases.
“We are going to make Mr. Fagan’s argument, and hopefully we will get a better conclusion. You hope the judge likes your argument, but this happens.”
Ambrosio declined to make his client available for comment.