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BANGOR – The Lewiston attorney who represented the owner of a Bangor strip club in her lawsuits against the city has been forbidden to practice law in Maine.
Charles Williams III, 30, did not appear at a hearing in Bangor on Monday and Tuesday before Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Paul Rudman.
Williams was not represented, either, but was notified of the hearing, J. Scott Davis, counsel for the Board of Overseers of the Bar, said Friday. The state board handles complaints about lawyers.
Complaints are filed with the Board of Overseers of the Bar in Augusta, then a trial is held before one of the judges who sit on the state’s high court.
Williams represented Diane Cormier, the owner of Diva’s Inc., in her bitter five-year legal battle with Bangor officials. Cormier still has an appeal pending with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, filed by Williams. According to court documents, he was terminated from the case in July.
A year ago, Williams was suspended from practicing law in Maine while complaints against him were investigated. Rudman heard evidence in 18 of the 28 complaints lodged against Williams.
“That number of complaints is pretty unprecedented,” Davis said Friday.
The most serious charge against Williams was from a Minot woman who hired him for a child custody matter. The woman claimed she had sex with Williams on several occasions in his office and at her home because she felt that she could not refuse his advances.
“The record indicates that Mr. Williams failed to communicate with his clients, missed appointments both with his clients and with the courts and failed to respond to telephone messages from his clients, opposing counsel and the courts,” Rudman wrote in his three-page decision. “The testimony from one former client established on three separate occasions that Mr. Williams forced her to engage in an unwanted sexual act.”
According to Rudman’s decision, Williams violated 11 bar rules and established a pattern of client neglect, excessive fees, incompetency and unauthorized disclosure of confidential information.
Rudman also noted that the Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection had paid a total of more than $24,000 on 10 claims to reimburse Williams’ former clients.
Williams, who now lives in Norwood, Mass., has 10 days to appeal Rudman’s decision to the full Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
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