Shoa attorney misses court’s deadline

by Enid Weiss
NJJN Bureau Chief/Trenton

AMorris Plains lawyer known for his role in Holocaust reparation lawsuits faces possible disbarment over a New Jersey ethics complaint, even as he pursues a class action lawsuit on behalf of tsunami victims.

The Jan. 4 ethics complaint charged Edward Fagan with misappropriating approximately $400,000 held in trust for survivors and their heirs he represented in Holocaust reparations claims. He failed to respond to the complaint by a March 4 deadline. Defaulting, or not formally responding to the complaint, could result in disbarment for Fagan.

Burt Neuborne, one of three main attorneys behind a landmark $1.25 billion Holocaust reparations settlement with Swiss banks, who recently spoke in New Brunswick on an unrelated matter, was asked about Fagan.

“I can’t say anything about Edward Fagan. I worked with him all those years,” Neuborne said and praised Fagan and his legal expertise. “He received $700,000 for five years of work and did a tremendous amount of work.”

Neuborne also added, “If the allegations are true, there isn’t anything bad enough you can do” to punish him for taking advantage of Holocaust survivors.

On Monday, March 7, the office of John McGill III, deputy ethics counsel with the Supreme Court of New Jersey’s Office of Attorney Ethics in Trenton, was notified that Fagan has hired attorney Kim Ringler to represent him in the ethics proceeding.

Ringler has been granted an extention until April 1 to file a formal answer to the complaint, according to McGill.

Originally given a Feb. 28 deadline to respond to the ethics complaint, Fagan was given a few extra days to respond due to inclement weather, according to McGill. Fagan has not sent in a written response to the complaint, said McGill.

According to a notice sent by McGill’s office to Fagan, “The failure to file a timely answer will constitute an admission of the charges contained in the complaint.”

Normally a review board would act to disbar an attorney defaulting on a complaint.

Fagan did not respond to NJ Jewish News’ attempts to contact him. However, he did respond in an e-mail, via Austrian attorneys he is working with on another matter, to questions posed by a reporter with a webzine in Austria.

“I take the issue very seriously and I will defend it vigorously,” Fagan wrote, according to Profil reporter Martin Staudinger. “I am sorry that the investigators did not see fit to contact and interview the witnesses who would confirm that no monies were taken from clients but this will all come out in the ongoing process. I am also sorry that the investigators knowingly violated the terms of a strict confidentiality agreement with regard to one of the issues. They knew that neither they nor I am allowed to discuss or publish certain aspects which appeared in the complaint and which were then widely reported. I could not respond otherwise I would have been in violation of the agreement. All of these facts will come out in the coming months.”

The complaint charged Fagan with using funds from one account to pay bills accrued on other accounts, as well as disbursing funds from client trust accounts and depositing the money into his business account or writing trust fund checks payable to cash. Fagan allegedly wrongfully withdrew money from the $82,000 estate of Jack Oestreicher and from a $500,000 settlement received on behalf of client Estelle Sapir.

Oestreicher’s estate administrator and cousin, Gizella Weisshaus, is a Holocaust survivor. Fagan represented Weisshaus against Union Bank of Switzerland and won her an award, which is not part of the current complaint. McGill could not say whether Oestreicher was a survivor nor how the court office came to investigate Fagan. If the case reaches a hearing, McGill said he would present additional evidence of Fagan’s unethical conduct.

Fagan attended the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University and was admitted to the NJ Bar in 1980.

This is not the first time Fagan has been charged with ethics violations. He was reprimanded by the state, upheld on June 18, 2002, by a State Supreme Court order, for misrepresenting the date a motion was filed and indicating a false court appearance in a written notice to a client.

And on Oct. 22, 2003, the disciplinary review board issued a letter admonishing Fagan for failing to adequately keep the client informed of the status of a case and failed to cooperate with Supreme Court disciplinary authorities.

In 1999, clients told NJJN Fagan had failed to return their phone calls questioning the status of their cases. In that 1999 article, Fagan told NJJN that he hadn’t mishandled clients’ money but had merely taken his fee, saying he had “made no bones that at the end of the day I was going to take my pay.” He also had said he moved offices and never received many of his clients’ messages, and was overwhelmed after taking on more clients than originally anticipated.

Meanwhile Fagan has made headlines after joining with two Austrian attorneys, filing a suit against resort companies and government agencies on behalf of Austrian tsunami victims. The suit was filed in United States district court on March 4 by Fagan and Austrian attorneys Gerhard Podovsovnik and Herwig Hasslacher, according to the attorney’s Web site tsunamivictimsgroup.com.

Fagan said their goal was to see governments enact “internationally recognized” early warning systems and for resorts to act to evacuate guests upon such warnings.

Fagan stated he would donate his attorney’s fee in the tsunami case to the Tsunami Victims Group’s Humanitarian Fund.

Enid Weiss can be reached at enid@njjewishnews.com.