Lawyer Is Suspended as Conduct Is Criticized

By TRYMAINE LEE
Published: New York Times January 5, 2008

A Brooklyn lawyer has been suspended from practicing as a state panel investigates her handling of the estate of John L. Phillips Jr. — the so-called kung fu judge and the owner of the Slave Theater in Bedford-Stuyvesant — while she was acting as his legal guardian.

John L. Phillips Jr., 82, was declared mentally incompetent.
The lawyer, Emani P. Taylor, had been accused of improperly enriching herself from the Phillips estate. Mr. Phillips, 82, now retired and with diabetes and mild Alzheimer’s symptoms, according to relatives, owned numerous properties in Brooklyn, including the Slave and another theater, and once considered a run for Brooklyn district attorney.
The retired judge, who got his kung fu nickname because he was once a 10th-degree black belt, and who left the bench in 1994 at the mandatory retirement age of 70, has seen many of his real estate possessions and much of his personal fortune depleted by those who were supposed to protect it. What remains, including the Slave, may have to be sold to pay off taxes.
In a decision last week, a panel in the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division called for Ms. Taylor’s immediate suspension pending further investigation, saying she had refused to cooperate with a court investigation into allegations of professional misconduct as Mr. Phillips’s guardian. The panel also found that Ms. Taylor “intentionally converted guardianship funds.”
It said she should be suspended because she “immediately threatens the public interest.”
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office, which investigated Ms. Taylor, referred the case to the disciplinary committee on ethical grounds after finding no criminal wrongdoing. Ms. Taylor had been accused of improperly paying herself more than $300,000 from Mr. Phillips’s accounts from 2003 to 2006.
Ms. Taylor declined to be interviewed for this article. In November, she said that she indeed took money from Mr. Phillips’s account, but that it was reasonable compensation for services. “I received a guardianship account that was bankrupt,” Ms. Taylor said. “At the point I was finally able to have the funds to pay persons, I rightfully believe that I was one of those persons.”
She said the money, totaling about $327,000, was used to pay family members, friends and herself for duties they performed for the care of Mr. Phillips and the upkeep of his estate.
Still, the panel said there was “uncontested evidence of misconduct.” It also stated that it gave Ms. Taylor several opportunities to answer questions about the allegations, but that she was “unresponsive.”
The investigation began last fall after Justice Michael L. Pesce, who was overseeing the guardianship at the time, placed Ms. Taylor in contempt of court for not handing over a detailed, final accounting of her tenure. During earlier hearings in Supreme Court in Brooklyn, it became known to the court that Ms. Taylor had written several checks to herself, her family and others from Mr. Phillips’s account.
Justice Pesce has since recused himself. He is facing review by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct for his role in the Phillips guardianship case.
Ms. Taylor was the fourth guardian assigned to look out for Mr. Phillips and his personal and financial well-being. The previous three guardians had each been accused of various improprieties.
Mr. Phillips, who never married or had children, built up his estate — estimated by relatives and a current guardian to once have been $10 million — by buying commercial and residential property in Bedford-Stuyvesant, including the Slave, which became a center of black activism in Brooklyn in the late 1980s and early ’90s.
In 2001, Mr. Phillips announced a plan to challenge the incumbent, Charles J. Hynes, in the race for Brooklyn district attorney. He was soon declared mentally incompetent — a result of an investigation started by Mr. Hynes that some believe was politically motivated — and court-appointed guardians were placed in control of his affairs.
James H. Cahill Jr., Mr. Phillips’s current property guardian, who succeeded Ms. Taylor in 2006, said that none of the previous four guardians paid any of the judge’s taxes for the seven years they were in control of his affairs, placing his current tax burden and fines at more than $2 million.
And hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sale of some of Mr. Phillips’s properties have gone unaccounted for, the disciplinary panel said in its decision. The panel noted the sale of three apartment buildings by Ms. Taylor that brought a profit after liens and taxes of about $700,000, which it said was still unaccounted for. Also, years’ worth of rent rolls have never been produced, and neither have several years’ worth of Mr. Phillips’s pension checks, according to court documents.
Mr. Phillips is now nearly broke, relatives have said, and in an assisted-living community in Park Slope.
Clarence Hardy, a close friend and confidant of Mr. Phillips’s, said of Ms. Taylor’s suspension: “It’s somewhat of a good thing.”
He continued: “It was bittersweet with her. She did some good and got some of his property back, but she also did him real bad. I hate to come down on the sister, but she put Mr. Phillips in a bad situation.”
Mr. Cahill, the current guardian, has placed one of Mr. Phillips’s two theaters, the Black Lady at 750 Nostrand Avenue, up for sale to satisfy some of the tax debt. He said the Slave Theater, at 1215 Fulton Street, would also be sold if he could not bring down the debt.
Friends and supporters of Mr. Phillips and the Slave Theater have fought the sales.