Evaluation ordered for CT lawyer disbarred over remarks to judge
MIDDLETOWN — A judge ordered a mental health evaluation for a disbarred attorney who failed to show up for a May court date to address her disbarment and use of client funds.
Middletown Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher disbarred former Hamden attorney Nickola Cunha, 54, of Wallingford, earlier this year after she filed a motion requesting that a family court judge be removed from a pending divorce case because he “showed bias in favor of Jewish litigants and the disabled,” court documents said.
Cunha then repeatedly failed to take the steps required by Moukawsher to settle her affairs with several clients, officials said. Her resistance to provide information to an appointed trustee led her to be brought to court in shackles Monday following a weekend in the custody of the state Department of Correction, the judge pointed out.
Cunha's lawyer, Norm Pattis, claimed in a hearing Monday afternoon that his client is suffering from a mental health condition that has interfered with her ability to execute the judge's orders.
Pattis said he and her family members believe that her mental health is the reason Cunha has not complied with court orders. Pattis also said allegations that his Cunha improperly withdrew client funds could turn into first-degree larceny charges so she would plead the Fifth Amendment if she were asked any questions during Monday's hearing.
Moukawsher said the case was forcing him to weigh Cunha's liberty verses the property of her clients.
He then gave Pattis 15 days to come up with a plan to have Cunha evaluated. In the meantime, the work of the trustee assigned to sort out the affairs of Cunha's clients has been stalled with at least one client providing a statement, indicating she believed Cunha improperly took $78,000 from a settlement.
A judicial marshal acting on a capias warrant issued by the judge took Cunha into custody at a Wallingford restaurant Friday evening with the help of local police, Wallingford Police Sgt. Stephen Jaques said. Cunha was dining with her husband Louis when police and the marshal arrived, Jaques said. Louis Cunha attempted to prevent his wife from being taken into custody and grabbed the arm of a police officer, Jaques said.
He was charged with interfering with an officer and released on a $5,000 surety bond. The judicial marshal took custody of his wife. Pattis said she was held by the state Department of Corrections until Monday morning.
Nickola Cunha was allowed to leave with her family following her court appearance.
Cunha was slated to appear before Moukawasher in mid-May to provide a trustee with a list of client addresses and phone numbers and to deal with client funds that officials claimed she had inappropriately kept, court documents said. Cunha failed to show up, prompting the judge to issue a capias warrant, ordering state marshals to take her into custody to guarantee her appearance in court.
The deadline for the capias warrant was extended several times, court documents show, before Moukawsher ordered Cunha taken into custody on May 18.
The state's Chief Disciplinary Counsel Brian Staines submitted documents on June 1, claiming Cunha had inappropriately taken $78,000 from an accident settlement for a client after she had already withheld her $96,000 fee for handling the case.
Staines also said in the documents that Cuhna originally told the judge she took $30,000 from the client's accident settlement to pay for previous pro bono work, but “failed to clarify throughout the hearing that the actual amount she took was $78,000.”
“She had no authority from the client to take this money,” Staines wrote in the filing.
Cunha was disbarred in January after Moukawsher ruled she had made “empty and malicious claims,” alleging another judge was engaged in a Judaism-based conspiracy and protected child sexual abuse as part of her representation of a Glastonbury woman engaged in a dissolution of marriage case.
In late April, as part of the ruling, Moukawsher ordered Cunha to turn over her clients' contact information, along with active and pending files to a court-appointed trustee. The judge noted at the time that a recent withdrawal of $30,000 from a client's account may have been illegal and required an audit.
Cunha turned over the information for three clients on May 13, according to the trustee who was appointed by the court after her disbarment. But Cunha failed to supply complete information for several other clients, court documents said. The trustee is also looking for financial information for some clients and what Cunha did with their retainers, court documents said.