Wilson Reid Ogg, Esquire | NOMINATED

Cal­i­for­nia. Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Wil­son Reid Ogg, Esquire [#100001], age 80, of Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia has been nom­i­nated by the State Bar of Cal­i­for­nia for induc­tion into the Evil Esquire Bar Asso­ci­a­tion as an inter­minable member.

Ogg dis­barred June 19, 2008, and ordered to make resti­tu­tion and com­ply with rule 9.20 of the Cal­i­for­nia Rules of Court after the State Bar Court found Wil­son had mis­ap­pro­pri­ated client’s funds.

Here’s the text of the Cal­Bar’s nom­i­na­tion as pub­lished in the Cal­i­for­nia Bar Journal:

In a default pro­ceed­ing, the State Bar Court found that Ogg mis­ap­pro­pri­ated $25,000 he held in trust as the escrow agent for the sale of his clients’ mobile home. The buyer gave Ogg $97,000 to hold in trust.

When the sale of the home was final­ized, Ogg gave the sell­ers a check for $57,684.19 as their share of the pro­ceeds. Because a con­trac­tor had filed a breach of con­tract law­suit against the sell­ers, Ogg kept $25,000 for dis­tri­b­u­tion to the pre­vail­ing party.

The con­trac­tor obtained a restrain­ing order pro­hibit­ing Ogg from dis­burs­ing the money in his escrow account to the sell­ers except for the pur­poses of pay­ing the con­trac­tor. How­ever, when the order was issued, Ogg’s account was over­drawn by $223.

The sell­ers won a judg­ment and a court ordered Ogg to dis­burse the funds in his escrow account to them. He claimed his employ­ees had embez­zled the money.

The sell­ers then filed a breach of con­tract law­suit against Ogg, seek­ing the $25,000 plus inter­est. He defaulted and did not pay a court judg­ment for $30,192.68

The State Bar Court found that Ogg mis­ap­pro­pri­ated his clients’ money, com­mit­ting an act of moral turpi­tude, and he vio­lated trust account rules.

Dur­ing the course of the mobile home case, the Depart­ment of Cor­po­ra­tions sued Ogg for oper­at­ing an escrow agency with­out a license and won a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion pro­hibit­ing him from act­ing as an escrow agent. He signed a dec­la­ra­tion that falsely stated that all escrows that were han­dled by his law office had been trans­ferred and can­celled and that there were no more open escrows. In fact, he was still act­ing as the escrow agent on the sale of the mobile home.

The bar court found that his mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions involved moral turpitude.

Although Ogg prac­ticed law for 37 years with­out any dis­ci­pline, the court rec­om­mended his dis­bar­ment, cit­ing the Supreme Court’s repeated find­ings that mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of trust funds is a griev­ous vio­la­tion and that even an inso­lated instance is grounds for dis­bar­ment. Ogg was ordered to pay resti­tu­tion of $30,192.68 plus inter­est to the mobile home sellers.

Not sur­pris­ing Wil­son went 37 years with­out the Cal­Bar­FOONS dis­ci­plin­ing him.

What’s he up to now? Is he tak­ing a dirt nap yet? Has he made resti­tu­tion to his vic­tim clients?