Attorney Discipline

Cuyahoga County

The Board of Commissioners on Grievances & Discipline has recommended that Cleveland attorney William M. Crosby be permanently disbarred for multiple acts of professional misconduct including failure to file federal income tax returns or pay federal income tax for the 2001 through 2006 tax years, resulting in his conviction on a felony count of tax evasion.

The board also found that Crosby misappropriated client funds, perpetrated a fraud upon a bankruptcy court, and engaged in illegal conduct involving moral turpitude; conduct involving fraud, deceit, dishonesty or misrepresentation; and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in his handling of the settlement proceeds from a lawsuit in which he represented five plaintiffs who had been abused as children by a Catholic priest.