Lawyer disbarred for mishandling mother’s money
A Columbus lawyer has been permanently disbarred by the Ohio Supreme Court for using his client trust account to launder more than $700,000 taken from the assets of his elderly mother.
The justices voted 4-3 on Wednesday to revoke the law license of Kinsley Nyce, who also was found to have failed to notify clients that he lacked legal malpractice insurance.
Justices Judith French, Sharon Kennedy and William M. O’Neill dissented, saying they would have indefinitely suspended Nyce’s license.
The Ohio Board of Professional Conduct found recommended permanent disbarment after hearing the case filed by the Columbus Bar Association. The board found Nyce concocted “a complete sham ... in a vain effort to sanitize and legitimize his improper use” of his trust account to handle his mother’s assets prior to her death.
The charges against Nyce, 65, accused him and his brother of improperly using his office trust account and the dormant bank account of an estate to disperse money taken from their mother after they gained 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 mid2013, 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 owed money for Mrs. Nyce’s care before her death are suing the Nyce brothers and their mother’s estate in federal court in Vermont in alleging the fraudulent transfer of her assets.
Nyce claimed that some of the transactions involved him providing funds to nine people as directed by his mother, although he refused to identify them, saying they were not legal clients.
Nyce owned the minorleague Columbus Xoggz professional soccer team in the mid-1990s and formerly served as lawyer for Central Ohio Crime Stoppers and the now-defunct speed-trap town of New Rome.