Disciplined attorneys in Modesto area

The following was gleaned from California State Bar case documents. The Modesto Bee attempted to contact all disciplined attorneys for comment; most declined or could not be located.

Stanislaus County

David Franklin Brown, 67, Modesto

Disbarred in 2013

For a $5,000 fee, Brown sent a letter on behalf of his client, then refused to return his phone calls or meet with him and kept the money, according to State Bar records.

Brown had been suspended in 2011 for 11 acts of misconduct, including lying to a client about efforts to collect $150,000 owed to the man in divorce proceedings. Another time, Brown started a foreclosure defense case, then “abandoned his law practice and left California,” leaving his client stranded.

Tore Bjorn Dahlin, 61, Modesto

Disbarred in 2012

Dahlin was convicted of six acts of misconduct, including misappropriating $74,000 of his clients’ money and violating a court order.

Prosecutors said Dahlin made eight improper withdrawals from a money market account that should have been set up as a client trust account in a divorce case. He told The Bee he made all payments on time and said the charges were distorted, but continuing to defend himself could have cost $80,000.

Steven Roy Davis, 53, Modesto

Disbarred in 2011

Davis admitted 15 acts of misconduct in six matters, including failure to perform competent service, failure to refund unearned fees and not communicating with clients.

Among other things, Davis admitted to billing a client $1,000 for work on a divorce case, which the client was forced to complete himself when Davis did not do paperwork,. Another time, Davis did not refund a $3,500 advance in a paternity case. He told the mother and grandmother that a trial was postponed because he was ill, but the trial proceeded without their participation.

In other cases, Davis did not file a bankruptcy petition needed to save a client’s home from foreclosure; did not sue a real estate agent for another client; and did not complete work on another family law matter.

Julie Cathleen Dodge, 49, Modesto

Active law license; publicly reproved in 2010

According to police records, Dodge was pulled over by a police officer for driving erratically. She refused to give a breath sample and agreed to submit to a blood test. At the jail’s testing center, an officer found marijuana in her pocket and her blood alcohol concentration measured 0.26 percent – more than three times the legal limit for driving in California. She was convicted of drunken driving and possessing less than an ounce of marijuana.

William Arthur Miller, 70, Hughson

Not eligible to practice law; disbarment pending

Miller admitted to numerous lies and acts of misconduct when suspended in March 2014.

Miller had represented one of five defendants charged with killing four people in Salida in 1990. Miller told a judge in 2012 that a mental health expert would testify that a client was not competent to stand trial and twice asked for postponements, saying the expert was not available. All were untrue, according to State Bar prosecutors who now seek to disbar Miller.

Maribel Nieto, 43, Ceres

Disbarred in 2010

Nieto was convicted of 15 acts of misconduct, including failing to perform competent service, not communicating with clients, not obeying court orders, not cooperating with bar investigators and practicing law while her license was suspended.

According to the State Bar records, Nieto initiated a personal injury case for a client but did nothing else for nearly four years and did not tell the client that the case had concluded. In other cases, she missed multiple appointments and court appearances and her lapses caused some lawsuits to be dismissed.

Jagdip Singh Sekhon, 48, Salida

Incarcerated; not eligible to practice law after 2012 suspension

Sekhon initially was disciplined in 2004 for misconduct in seven immigration matters while practicing in San Francisco. Errors included not informing a client that a judge had ordered his deportation and not telling clients that their requests for political asylum had been denied.

In 2010, Sekhon was suspended after being sent to prison for fraud for submitting phony documents to win asylum for clients, and coaching them to give untruthful testimony. His 2012 suspension was imposed for violating terms of bar discipline because he didn’t submit probation reports while incarcerated, despite promises to do so. He is in federal prison in Atwater, scheduled for release in June 2017.

The State Bar could not explain Sekhon’s affiliation with a Salida address and The Bee could not determine whether he ever practiced locally. Although he is a convicted felon, the State Bar has not sought his disbarment but may do so when his appeals are exhausted, bar spokeswoman Laura Ernde said.

Richard Carroll Sinclair, 66, Oakdale

Active law license; multiple disciplinary charges pending in two cases

Sinclair was publicly reproved in May 2014 for taking $3,000 to work on a home mortgage loan modification, failing to “provide any services of value” and refusing to refund the money until after the client complained to the State Bar.

Bar prosecutors brought additional charges in July and October. The first accuses Sinclair of violating a court order and failing to report to the bar that a judge had sanctioned him. The second claims he “engaged in a fraudulent real estate scheme,” committing 28 acts of misconduct related to a townhome complex he and investors built in Turlock. The counts include lying at trial and altering a trial exhibit.

In response documents, Sinclair denies all charges, saying in one, “I did not commit wrongs which would subject me to disbarment.” He listed as mitigating factors his divorce and relearning to walk after four surgeries.

Frederick Willard “Rick” Smith Jr., 61, Oakdale

Active law license

In March 2014, Smith was placed on two years’ probation for having obtained from a client in 2004 a $250,000 loan with terms unfair to the Escalon woman, who died in 2010 at age 83. Her nieces sued him to collect unpaid money, and a 2012 settlement proposal included a proviso that they not complain about him to the State Bar.

Smith told The Bee that his client was a sophisticated businesswoman who signed a document affirming loan terms, but it was destroyed in a shop fire where he stored records. The proviso about complaining to the State Bar was inserted not by him, he said, but by an attorney representing the nieces.

David Michael Spieker, 57, Modesto

Active law license

One-year suspension in June 2013 for misconduct in five loan-modification matters, including failing to perform competent service and not returning unearned fees.

In 2009, Spieker was hired by two men running Home Loan Auditors, Century Alliance Group and Century Law Center until they fired him four months later. According to the State Bar, his involvement contributed to nonlawyers engaging in the unauthorized practice of law; five clients paid a combined $23,995 but received “no legal services of value” and Spieker abandoned legal files when he left. He was ordered to pay $28,995 in restitution.

A November 2013 court document said Spieker was then engaged in “substitute teaching work.”

John Wesley Villines, 43, Modesto

Disbarred in 2013 for failing to comply with terms of 2012 discipline

Villines admitted to 13 counts of misconduct in modifying loans, including failure to refund unearned fees or account for client funds, illegally collecting advance fees and failing to perform competent service.

According to the State Bar, Villines accepted $9,890 from one client, did not file a lawsuit on his behalf and the client lost his home in foreclosure. A year before his disbarment, The Bee reported that Villines’ law license had been suspended for legal blunders, yet he continued saying in advertisements: “I have been a lawyer … for almost 15 years.”

Ramina Amy Yousefi, 38, Turlock

Disbarred in March 2014

Yousefi was charged with misappropriating $1,000 of client money and failing to provide an accounting to the client.

Merced County

Sean Patrick Howard, 49, Atwater

Active law license

Howard was publicly reproved in 2011 after misdemeanor criminal convictions of disturbing the peace and public intoxication.

Matthew Poage Shelton, deceased, Santa Clara County

Shelton, a prosecutor in Merced County, resigned in 2011 after his supervisors learned of a nearly year-old warrant for his arrest, for speeding and driving with a suspended license.

With a Modesto address in 2012, he was suspended for 30 days for having practiced for a time in 2008 without a valid law license. In 2013, his law license in Nevada also was suspended for 30 days because he had failed to report the California discipline to the Nevada State Bar.

By 2014, Shelton had moved to Santa Clara County and died in December at age 47 after a struggle with diabetes, according to an obituary in Arkansas, where he had spent time in his youth.

Tuolumne County

Clint E. Parish, 43, Sonora

Active law license

Parish was publicly reproved in February for making false statements when running for judge in Yolo County, where he was a prosecutor, in 2012. He had accused his opponent, a sitting judge, of corporate fraud and bribery. Parish told The Bee that his error was unintentional. He now is in private practice in Sonora.

San Joaquin County

Marc Jules Bourget, 65, Stockton

Active law license

Bourget was suspended for 60 days in 2012 after admitting to seven counts of misconduct, including not doing much to help a woman who paid him to help address the purchase of a defective car. In another case, according to the State Bar, his client earned no interest from $117,484 received in a disputed property sale because Bourget put the money in a certificate of deposit he owned instead of in a client trust account, and he disobeyed court orders regarding the money.

Richard Charles Harper, deceased, Tracy

In 2011, Harper admitted 12 counts of misconduct in four cases, including writing bad checks from a client trust account, not refunding unearned fees and failing to file a temporary restraining order against his client’s business partner. Documents say he had a “mental health issue … and severe financial problems and extreme difficulties in his personal life.” Seven months later, he died of cardiac arrest at age 58, according to the San Joaquin County Coroner’s Office.

Frank Benjamin Inglis, 65, formerly of Stockton

Not eligible to practice law

In October, Inglis was suspended for two years after admitting failure to comply with probation terms in two discipline cases. He had been publicly reproved in 2012 for failing to perform with competence and was suspended in 2013 for violating probation terms. Records say he now is in Sequim, Wash.

Kenneth Lee Kiddy, 65, Stockton

Disbarred in 2012 after multiple disciplinary proceedings

Charges included incompetence, lying to a client, failing to refund unearned fees, improperly withdrawing from a case and disobeying a court order.

David Ronald LeBeouf, 61, Stockton

Active law license

LeBeouf was publicly reproved in 2011 for failing to cooperate with a disciplinary investigation. He had been accused of threatening to sue a client who filed a State Bar complaint against LeBeouf.

Scott Garrett Lyon, 45, Manteca

Active law license

Lyon was suspended for 60 days in April 2014 after admitting that he ceased communicating with a client needing bankruptcy help who paid him $1,000.

Roger Allen Moore, 54, Stockton

Active law license

Moore was suspended for 30 days in March 2014 after admitting failure to perform with competence in a 2008 case and failing to cooperate with a bar investigation.

Garold Lee Neely, 63, Stockton

Disbarred in 2011

Neely was disbarred for demonstrating a “contemptuous attitude” by refusing to comply with terms of prior discipline. In 2007, he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery after punching his passenger while driving, a woman with whom he lived, giving her a bloody nose. Neely also was convicted in 2005 of hurting his girlfriend.

Harold Vincent Sullivan II, 74, Stockton

Disbarred in 2011

Sullivan was convicted of misdemeanor conspiracy to obstruct justice after being accused of paying a legal service $5,000 a month to market his practice to the Russian community in Los Angeles. Previously Sullivan had been disciplined for harming at least nine clients from 1988 to 2000.

Robert Michael Williams, 68, Stockton

Not eligible to practice law

Williams was suspended in 2010 for 18 months for failing to promptly return unearned fees after being disciplined in other matters over several years. The State Bar had sought disbarment, but a hearing judge opted for less severe punishment.

Jenny Wong, 34, Manteca

Not eligible to practice law

Wong was suspended in late 2013 for one year after violating terms of disciplinary probation. She had been suspended in 2012 after admitting that she shared fees with a nonlawyer, accepted advance fees for loan modifications and failed to perform services with competence for three clients.

Calaveras County

Scott Gregory Baker, 48, San Andreas

Disbarred in 2010

Baker was hired by a woman with power of attorney for an elderly man suffering from Parkinson’s disease. According to the State Bar, Baker never filed a lawsuit, would not return his client’s phone calls, did not return her money and “closed his office and vanished.”

James Martin Coose, 60, Angels Camp

Disbarred in 2011

In various discipline dating to 2005, Coose, who also had addresses in Costa Mesa and Texas, was punished for practicing law with a suspended license, sharing fees with a nonlawyer, failing to return unearned fees, collecting an illegal fee and violating probation terms.

This story was originally published May 23, 2015 at 8:42 PM with the headline "Disciplined attorneys in Modesto area."