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ATTORNEY disciplinary
proceeding. Attorney's license
suspended.
¶1 PER CURIAM. We review a report
filed by referee James G. Curtis,
recommending that this court suspend the
Wisconsin law license of Attorney Naomi Dawn
Isaacson for one year for professional
misconduct consisting of engaging in a
pattern of bad faith litigation, including
making false and harassing statements toward
judges and others involved in litigation,
and then failing to cooperate with the
Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR). The
referee further recommended that Attorney
Isaacson pay the full costs of this
proceeding, which are $6,634.96 as of
December 23, 2014.
¶2 No appeal has been filed, so we
review this matter pursuant to Supreme Court
Rule (SCR) 22.17(2). We adopt the referee's
findings of fact and conclusions of law and
agree that a one-year suspension is
sufficient discipline for Attorney
Isaacson's misconduct. We further agree
that Attorney Isaacson should pay the full
costs of this disciplinary proceeding.
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¶3 Attorney Isaacson was admitted to
the practice of law in Minnesota in May
1999. She was admitted to the practice of
law in Wisconsin in September 2000. Her
Wisconsin law license has been suspended
since May 2011 for noncooperation with the
OLR's investigation. She was also suspended
for nonpayment of Wisconsin State Bar dues
and failure to provide trust account
certification, effective October 2012, and
for failure to comply with mandatory
continuing legal education requirements,
effective June 2014. Her license remains
suspended.
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¶4 On March 5, 2014, the OLR filed a
complaint against Attorney Isaacson alleging
four counts of professional misconduct.
James Curtis was appointed referee.
Attorney Isaacson never filed an answer and
did not appear in the action. The OLR filed
a motion for default judgment on August 6,
2014. The record reflects that, despite
multiple and extensive efforts to provide
Attorney Isaacson with notice of the default
hearing, all efforts to contact Attorney
Isaacson were unsuccessful.
¶5 The referee found that Attorney
Isaacson was properly served with an
authenticated copy of the complaint and
order to answer pursuant to the provisions
of SCR 22.13(1), ruled that all of the
allegations of the complaint were deemed
established to the standard of clear,
satisfactory, and convincing evidence, and
granted the OLR's motion for default
judgment on October 20, 2014. On November
24, 2014, the referee filed a report and
recommendation addressing sanctions.
¶6 The disciplinary complaint alleges
violations of both the Wisconsin Rules of
Professional Conduct for Attorneys and the
Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct
(MRPC).
¶7 First, we note that Attorney
Isaacson is not alleged to have acted as an
attorney in this disciplinary proceeding.
Rather, she is a licensed Wisconsin attorney
who engaged in misconduct while serving in
the capacity as an officer or managing
member of a corporate entity and its
subsidiaries. Specifically, Attorney
Isaacson was the Chief Executive Officer of
Dr. R. C. Samanta Roy Institute of Science
and Technology, Inc., known as "SIST,"
together with its wholly owned subsidiaries
and limited liability companies. The
complaint identifies several somewhat
interrelated litigation proceedings in which
Attorney Isaacson participated. She
prepared and signed affidavits,
declarations, or responses in these matters
which were filed on her behalf. The core of
the complaint is that Attorney Isaacson's
statements in these documents had no
apparent purpose other than to harass
judicial officers, public officials,
opposing counsel, and others based on race,
creed, and religion.
¶8 As the referee observed, it is
difficult to summarize the verbose and
grandiose allegations leveled by Attorney
Isaacson against the courts generally,
specific judges, other counsel, appointed
officers, and third parties. The OLR's
complaint contains over 70 paragraphs
providing detailed context for and quoting
from specific sworn and verified statements
she made in court filings. A few examples
must suffice to convey the nature of
Attorney Isaacson's statements.
¶9 Some of the entities with which
Attorney Isaacson is affiliated were
involved in a public amusement go—cart track
business in Shawano, Wisconsin. In the mid—
2000s, creditors of the go—cart track
business alleged default and brought claims
against various corporate entities. In
2009, USAO and SIST filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy
Court for the District of Delaware. The
cases were administered together with the
simultaneous bankruptcy filings of five
other wholly owned subsidiaries of SIST. On
September 22, 2009, these bankruptcy
proceedings were dismissed.
¶10 On May 28, 2010, one of the
aforementioned creditors, Southwest
Guaranty, Ltd., successfully moved to reopen
proceedings in Shawano County, Wisconsin.
On July 13, 2010, Midwest Properties of
Shawano, LLC filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy. In re Midwest Properties of
Shawano, LLC, Case No. 10-31515 (Bankr.
E.D. Wis.).
¶11 On July 16, 2010, Attorney Isaacson
drafted and signed a sworn affidavit filed
in the Midwest Properties bankruptcy case.
Attorney Isaacson's affidavit stated, inter
alia, that the Shawano Mayor "has wrapped
her tentacles around the judiciary system
including Shawano Municipal judges, Shawano
County judges, Wisconsin Appellate Court
judges, the Federal District Court judge in
Green Bay, Seventh Circuit Appellate Court
judges, and even [the U.S. Bankruptcy Court
Judge in Delaware]."
¶12 On August 15, 2010, Attorney
Isaacson personally prepared and signed a
declaration that was filed in Southwest
Guaranty, Ltd. v. U.S. Acquisitions & Oil,
Inc., et al., Case No. 10-CV-596 (E.D.
Wis.). In that declaration, she stated
that "Shawano is Neo-Nazi territory where it
is believed people of other races and
religions have no right to life," and
referred to the "underlying White
Supremacist feelings and beliefs and Jim
Crow mentality held by many persons in
Shawano." She declared that the "[d]
efendant's experience of 'justice' in
Shawano is comparable to the 'justice' Jews
experienced under Hitler's regime."
¶13 On October 12, 2010, in a written
order and decision, the U.S. District Court
remanded the USAO case to the Shawano County
Circuit Court and agreed to impose sanctions
for what the court described as "a number of
inflammatory and irrelevant allegations
regarding Southwest Guaranty, their counsel,
and various members of the Shawano
community." The court observed
that "inexplicably" the matter "includes a
number of detailed, serious, and bizarre
allegations in the footnotes about certain
members of the Shawano community, including
judges, city officials, and the mayor of
Shawano." The court observed that "[t]he
objectionable allegations are so fantastic
and delusional that no reasonable attorney
would certify that they have evidentiary
support."
¶14 Attorney Isaacson was also involved
with bankruptcy proceedings pending in
Minnesota and similar documents were filed
in those proceedings. On August 17, 2010,
Attorney Isaacson signed a declaration filed
in In re Midwest Oil of Minnesota, LLC,
Case No. 10—35450 (Bankr. D. Minn.), in
which she stated that "[the Shawano Mayor]
is involved in sending her cultic
missionaries to other lands to destroy the
family values, heritages, and cultures that
have preserved peoples of other
civilizations for thousands of years" and
declared that the mayor "is a member of the
most dangerous, dirtiest, and deadliest
death cult in human history and is a
descendent of Martin Luther and Hitler who
started and propagated the Lutheran cult."
Attorney Isaacson also referred to the
bankruptcy trustee as "a visceral racist,"
an "ignoramus," and "a member of this most
dangerous, dirtiest, and deadliest death
cult in human history as well."
¶15 On August 18, 2010, at a hearing on
the trustee's motion to dismiss the Midwest
Oil case, the presiding bankruptcy judge
commented on the pleadings, which included
an Attorney Isaacson document, "which in my
time on the bench are among the worst and
most scurrlious [sic], defamatory pleadings
I have ever seen from a lawyer."
¶16 On March 23, 2011, Yehud—Monosson
USA, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in
the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern
District of New York, Case No. 11-11278. On
April 12, 2011, Attorney Isaacson drafted
and signed a sworn affidavit in which she
averred that "[t]rying a matter in Minnesota
is like sending the Jews back to Germany
during the Holocaust."
¶17 On April 13, 2011, over the debtor's
objections, the Yehud-Monosson bankruptcy
was transferred from New York to Minnesota
and converted to a Chapter 7 proceeding. On
October 19, 2011, Attorney Isaacson signed a
sworn affidavit that was filed with the
court in which she stated that the
bankruptcy trustee was making false,
defamatory, scandalous, and misleading
statements to the court. Eventually,
contempt proceedings were brought against
Attorney Isaacson, and on November 10, 2011,
Attorney Isaacson swore to and signed an
affidavit in which she claimed that the
trustee "lied to the court" and "persisted
in her perjurious conduct," and stated
that "[o]bviously, like her dirty bible,
[the trustee] is full of lies and deceit."
¶18 Attorney Isaacson made reference to
trustees, variously, as a "dirty Catholic
inquisitor," a "Jesuitess," and a "priest's
boy," and referred to various judges as
a "black-robed bigot," a "Jesuit judge," and
a "Catholic Knight Witch Hunter." She
stated that court systems, "particularly the
Bankruptcy Court in Minnesota, are composed
of a bunch of ignoramus, bigoted Catholic
beasts that carry the sword of the church."
¶19 At an ensuing hearing on November
29, 2011, the presiding judge described
Attorney Isaacson's language
as "irresponsible, unprofessional and
unbelievably and unmitigatingly outrageous".
¶20 Attorney Isaacson responded with a
second declaration in which she repeated
similar rhetoric and referred to the Chapter
7 trustee as the court's "Inquisitor."
Then, on December 30, 2011, Attorney
Isaacson signed a 17—page "response" in
which she expressly asserted that all her
statements as quoted by the court were true
and accurate and not made for any improper
purpose. She referred to the first
bankruptcy judge to hear the case in
Minnesota as "an avowed Jesuit," "the dirty
Jesuit," a "dastardly Jesuit," and "a Jesuit
working undercover." Attorney
Isaacson's "response" also included
statements such as "out of personal malice,
[the court] has issued this Order to Show
Cause and warrant for my arrest," and "[s]
ince the unfortunate day that [the trustee]
was appointed, she has been a Jesuitess,
meaning a zealous advocate of her bigoted
catholic White Supremacy beliefs."
¶21 Eventually, Attorney Isaacson was
held in contempt for failing to comply with
the orders to turn over documents and
information and for her failures to appear
on before the court. The U.S. Bankruptcy
Court issued an order for sanctions against
Attorney Isaacson "for each of the
sanctionable statements identified in the
court's order to show cause." Attorney
Isaacson appealed and the Eighth Circuit
Court of Appeals affirmed. Isaacson v.
Manty, 721 F.3d 533 (8th Cir. 2013).
¶22 The referee concluded, as to Count
One, that the undisputed allegations of the
complaint establish clear, satisfactory, and
convincing evidence that:
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By making unfounded, scurrilous,
vilifying statements and religious slurs
directed against the courts generally, and
against specific judges, other counsel,
appointed officers and third parties, in a
series of 12 documents she signed or created
during July and August 2010, April 2011, and
between October and December 2011, and which
were filed in cases before various federal
courts in Wisconsin, Minnesota and New York,
[Attorney] Isaacson violated SCR 20:8.2(a),
SCR 20:8.4(g), SCR 40.15 and SCR 20:8.4(i),
and [MRPC] Rule 3.1, Rule 4.4(a), Rule 8.2
(a), Rule 8.4(d) and Rule 8.4(g).
¶23 The referee further concluded, as to
Count Two, that "[b]y inserting offensive
language that violated the Minnesota Rules
of Professional Conduct into a draft
memorandum supporting a motion, and
directing another counsel to file the
altered pleading with the U.S. Bankruptcy
Court (D. Minn.) on November 25, 2011,
[Attorney] Isaacson violated MRPC Rule 20:8.4
(a)."
¶24 The referee recommended that the
court dismiss Count Three of the OLR's
complaint. The OLR alleged that Attorney
Isaacson had stated in three affidavits or
declarations, filed in the U.S. District
Court, Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern
District of Wisconsin, and the U.S.
Bankruptcy Court for the District of
Minnesota, that a Shawano County circuit
court judge had appointed a receiver in an
ex parte hearing while knowingly failing to
disclose that she had previously signed loan
papers that expressly consented to the
appointment of a receiver without any
notice. The OLR asserted that this conduct
violated SCR 20:3.3(a)(1), SCR 20:8.4(c),
MRPC Rule 3.3(a)(1), and MRPC Rule 8.4(c).
¶25 The referee concluded that the
allegations of the complaint, alone, were
insufficient to establish that Attorney
Isaacson knowingly failed to disclose that
she had expressly consented to the
appointment of a receiver without notice.
The referee therefore recommended dismissal
of Count Three. The OLR has not appealed
this recommendation. We accept the
recommendation and dismiss Count Three.
¶26 Finally, the OLR alleged in Count
Four of the complaint that Attorney Isaacson
failed to cooperate with the OLR's
investigation into this matter. The referee
concluded that:
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By failing to timely respond to OLR's
initial investigative inquiry, by belatedly
providing a reply that did not fully and
fairly respond to OLR's questions and failed
to include supporting evidence as requested,
and by subsequently submitting approximately
3,000 photos and 4,000 pages of newspaper
clippings and miscellaneous documents having
no discernible substantial relevance to
OLR's inquiries, [Attorney] Isaacson
violated SCR 22.03(2) and SCR 22.03(6),
which are enforced via SCR 20:8.4(h).
¶27 The record supports the referee's
findings of fact and conclusions of law.
They are unchallenged and this court adopts
them.
¶28 With respect to the discipline to be
imposed, we determine the appropriate level
of discipline given the particular facts of
each case, independent of the referee's
recommendation, but benefitting from it.
See In re Disciplinary Proceedings
Against Widule, 2003 WI 34, ¶44, 261 Wis.
2d 45, 660 N.W.2d 686.
¶29 The OLR sought revocation of
Attorney Isaacson's license to practice law
in Wisconsin. The referee recommends that
this court suspend Attorney Isaacson for one
year. The OLR has not appealed that
recommendation.
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¶30 The referee was mindful that
Attorney Isaacson's misconduct certainly
displays aggravating circumstances. She
engaged in a pattern of intentional
misconduct in multiple tribunals over a
period of at least 17 months. Continuing
the offensive conduct after being sanctioned
by the courts shows a lack of remorse.
Indeed, the referee observed that Attorney
Isaacson's "conduct displayed an utter
disregard and disrespect for the integrity
of the courts and their judges in a brazen
and outrageous fashion."
¶31 The referee was strongly influenced,
however, by an opinion of the Minnesota
Supreme Court in In re Disciplinary Action
Against Nett, 839 N.W.2d 716 (Minn.
2013). Attorney Nett was counsel of record
for SIST and its related entities in a
number of the same cases involving Attorney
Isaacson. She was licensed to practice law
in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. The
Minnesota court imposed discipline for
conduct that was substantially similar to
Attorney Isaacson's conduct, namely,
engaging in a pattern of bad faith
litigation, including making false and
harassing statements towards judges and
others involved in the litigation. The
Minnesota Supreme Court ultimately
determined that Attorney Nett's misconduct
warranted an indefinite suspension with no
right to petition for reinstatement for nine
months. Id. Attorney Nett was also
licensed in Wisconsin and the OLR filed a
complaint with this court seeking reciprocal
discipline identical to that imposed by the
Minnesota Supreme Court. Attorney Nett did
not contest the OLR's complaint. This court
imposed reciprocal discipline, concluding
that a comparable suspension here, factoring
in procedural and timing considerations,
would be one year. In re Disciplinary
Proceedings Against Nett, 2014 WI 106, 358
Wis. 2d 300, 852 N.W.2d 486.
¶32 The referee observed that the cases
cited by the OLR in support of revocation
were of limited guidance because, while they
involved lawyers who engaged in harassing
conduct or filed frivolous claims, they were
distinguishable because other misconduct was
also involved and because none involved an
attorney who had no substantial purpose
other than harassment.
¶33 We agree that Attorney Isaacson's
misconduct warrants a one-year suspension of
her license to practice law in Wisconsin.
She repeatedly made frivolous and harassing
personal attacks and discriminatory
statements in numerous documents filed in
various matters. She continued to make
false statements about members of the
judiciary and others after being formally
sanctioned for her conduct. Based on the
record presented, we are satisfied that a
one-year suspension is sufficient in view of
the seriousness of her professional
misconduct and will serve to deter similar
behavior and protect the public from similar
misconduct in the future.
¶34 The referee further recommended that
Attorney Isaacson be required to pay all
costs of the disciplinary proceeding, which
total $6,634.96 as of December 23, 2014.
There is no claim that the costs requested
by the OLR are excessive or unreasonable,
and we order Attorney Isaacson to pay the
costs of this proceeding, as recommended by
the referee.
¶35 No restitution was sought and none
is ordered in this proceeding.
¶36 IT IS ORDERED that Naomi Dawn
Isaacson's license to practice law in
Wisconsin is suspended for one year,
effective the date of this order.
¶37 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within 60
days of the date of this order, Naomi Dawn
Isaacson shall pay to the Office of Lawyer
Regulation the costs of this proceeding.
¶38 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that to the
extent she has not already done so, Naomi
Dawn Isaacson shall comply with the
provisions of SCR 22.26 concerning the
duties of a person whose license to practice
law in Wisconsin has been suspended.
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