Former deputy attorney general deemed to have stolen $740K from clients

A former deputy attorney-general of New Brunswick who disappeared last year has been deemed to have admitted to stealing more than $740,000 from 10 of his clients.

A three-member panel of the Law Society of New Brunswick made the ruling at a disciplinary hearing Monday morning after Yassin Choukri failed to show up to defend himself.

Choukri was served with notice of the complaint against him in June and with notice of the hearing in August, but he did not file any response.

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The seat set aside for him at Monday's hearing remained empty.

"It's certainly not normal" for a lawyer facing a disciplinary hearing to not show up, "but it has occurred in other cases in the past," said Shirley MacLean, the society's registrar of complaints.

Under the provincial law governing the law society, a lawyer who doesn't respond to charges is deemed to be admitting to them.

The panel will rule on sanctions against Choukri at a second hearing yet to be scheduled. He could be fined and disbarred, meaning he could no longer practise law.

Whereabouts known

The law society revealed at Monday's hearing that it succeeded in tracking down Choukri during the summer.

When the accusations against him came to light last fall, his whereabouts were unknown. But MacLean testified he was located and served the two notices at an apartment building in Mississauga, Ont.

"The process server had advised me that he had been quite nonchalant with the documentation that's been served on him every time he was served," MacLean told reporters.

"He would look at the documentation and throw it on the floor of the foyer of the building where he was residing."

Numerous misappropriations

Choukri, a one-time law partner of former Premier Bernard Lord, was appointed deputy minister of justice and deputy attorney general by Lord in 2003.

He went into private practice after the Liberals took office in 2006. The Progessive Conservative government of David Alward made him public intervener at the Energy and Utilities Board in 2010.

The first of 10 incidents identified by the law society took place the same year. He was paid $1,000 by a client but the work wasn't done and the money disappeared, the charges say.

In 2014, he failed to forward $11,500 in court costs awarded to a company he had represented, and in 2015 he did not pass on $250,000 to a client who won it in a legal settlement.

'Abandoned' clients

There were seven other similar incidents in 2016. In each of the cases, the society accused Choukri of having "misappropriated" money from the trust fund maintained by his office to collect and pay out money for legal cases.

The complaint said Choukri "abandoned his clients and his practice as he left New Brunswick" on Sept. 29 2016, without telling anyone, including his family, that he was leaving. The law society suspended him in January 2017.

Despite the suspension, Choukri managed to withdraw $21,658 from his legal trust account the following month, the society said.

MacLean said the $740,000 has been repaid to Choukri's clients out of the law society's compensation fund. Society members will have to pay $400 each to replenish the fund.

Society to serve notice again

MacLean said the law society will try to serve Choukri again with notice of the sanction hearing once it's scheduled.

But she said the society would not otherwise try to find out why Choukri abandoned his law practice and stole money from his clients.

"The onus is really on them to respond, not on us to go out and try to extract a response from them," she said.

An affidavit filed by the society in its case last year said another lawyer who shared an office with Choukri said he "regularly gambles" and was often given free rooms and meals at Casino Moncton.

The law society's disciplinary action against Choukri doesn't preclude a police investigation into possible criminal offences, MacLean said.

She wouldn't comment on whether police have contacted the society to look at its evidence. The RCMP and Fredericton Police said they could not comment on whether they were investigating.