Lawyer pleads guilty to bankruptcy fraud in Baltimore federal court

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Mar 29, 2004 by Peter Geier

A former bankruptcy lawyer pleaded guilty in Baltimore's federal court Friday to four counts of bankruptcy fraud and fraudulent transfer of property in bankruptcy.

Bridgette M. Harris, 45, had been suspended from practice in Greenbelt's bankruptcy court for what its judges called a course of continuing conduct - of malfeasance and nonfeasance that appeared to put her clients' affairs in jeopardy, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio.

She faces a maximum five years' imprisonment and $250,000 fine and may be ordered to pay restitution when she is sentenced in June.

Harris acknowledged that during 2000, she devised a scheme to defraud the Maryland bankruptcy court and clients when, despite her suspensions, she continued to solicit clients, request and receive fees, and file cases in the Maryland bankruptcy courts, according to a statement issued by DiBiagio's office.

In addition to Greenbelt, Harris had been barred in June 1999 from practicing in bankruptcy court in Alexandria, Va., the statement says.

Harris also had been suspended from practice and required to disgorge fees paid by certain clients in the Maryland federal district court and other courts in the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the prosecutor's statement said.

Maryland's Court of Appeals had handed Harris a 30-day suspension in September 1999 for practicing law in Landover without a Maryland license. She denied she had engaged in the unauthorized practice of law, since she took only bankruptcy cases and was admitted to the state's federal courts.

In the instant case, prosecutors say Harris filed bankruptcy petitions in which she used her own address rather than her clients' to bring the cases in Greenbelt, concealing her role by having the clients file the cases either pro se or in another lawyer's name without that lawyer's knowledge or permission, prosecutors say.

Harris also admitted to devising a separate scheme in which she filed her own personal bankruptcy petition in Brooklyn, N.Y., which involved numerous false statements under oath and false representations, the statement says.

That case was closed; however her personal bankruptcy case in Maryland remains open, court records show. The Maryland bankruptcy record shows a $272,000 legal malpractice judgment rendered against her here.

Harris also admitted in a statement of facts that in 2002, she solicited bankruptcy clients with a toll-free telephone number under the business name Foreclosure Prevention Network, having her agents meet clients, obtain fees from them and file bankruptcy petitions using a Landover attorney's name without that attorney's permission.

Neither Harris nor her lawyer, Timothy J. Sullivan, could be reached for comment before press time Friday.