Attorney illegally took mom’s money, board says

A disciplinary board is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to permanently disbar a Columbus lawyer for improperly using his client trust account to launder more than $700,000 withdrawn from the assets of his elderly mother in the years before her death.

The Ohio Board of Professional Conduct also found that Kinsley Nyce concocted “a complete sham” to explain some of the transactions and dishonestly tried to conceal his conduct while displaying contempt for the disciplinary process and showing no remorse.

The charges against Nyce, 65, accuse him and his brother, Roger, of improperly using his office trust account and the dormant bank account of an estate to disperse money taken from their mother after she gave her sons the power of attorney over her affairs.

Barbara Nyce had more than $700,000 in assets before entering the first of two Vermont nursing homes in 2013, but owed the facilities about $205,000 by the time she died in 2015, the complaint states. Her sons also sold themselves their mother’s home for $10, the complaint says.

On one day in mid-2013, the Nyce brothers transferred $584,619 from their mother’s bank account, with $200,000 placed in the bank account of a closed estate, $200,000 placed in a certificate of deposit in Kinsley Nyce’s name and $177,172 used to buy a condominium in the name of Kinsley Nyce’s wife, the complaint says.

The nursing homes that were owed money for Mrs. Nyce’s care are suing the Nyce brothers and their mother’s estate in federal court in Vermont in alleging the fraudulent transfer of her assets.

The board also accuses Nyce of failing to notify clients that he did not carry professional malpractice insurance.

Nyce will be permitted to make arguments with the Ohio Supreme Court arguing against the loss of his law license.

Nyce owned the minorleague Columbus Xoggz professional soccer team in the mid-1990s and formerly served as lawyer for Central Ohio Crime Stoppers.

He also was village solicitor for the tiny town — and notorious speed trap — New Rome in western Franklin County in the early 2000s before he was fired. He became a critic of the town and its officials before the village with fewer than 150 residents was dissolved in 2004.