SC disbars two lawyers over identity theft, forgery

The Supreme Court has disbarred two lawyers, one for falsely assuming the identity of his brother and another by forging her German client's signature.

In the first decision, the SC ordered the name "Patrick A. Caronan" be stricken off the Roll of Attorneys and respondent Richard A. Caronan alias “Atty. Patrick A. Caronan” be barred from being admitted as a member of the Bar.

“[R]espondent made a mockery of the legal profession by pretending to have the necessary qualifications to be a lawyer. He also tarnished the image of lawyers with his alleged unscrupulous activities, which resulted in the filing of several criminal cases against him," said the SC.

"Certainly, respondent and his acts do not have a place in the legal profession where one of the primary duties of its members is to uphold its integrity and dignity,” the court added.

According to Patrick, he was forced to quit his job as store manager of a convenience store in Muntinlupa City in 2009 after Richard, his older brother who was using his name, got investigated by the National Bureau of Investigation for a qualified and estafa case.

Court records said in 1997, Richard moved to Nueva Vizcaya with his wife and three children and never went back to school to earn a college degree. In 1999, during a visit to Metro Manila, Richard told his brother that he had enrolled at the St. Mary’s University’s College of Law in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya.

In 2004, their mother informed Patrick that his brother had passed the Bar Examinations using his [Patrick's] name and college records from the University of Makati, where the two went to high school. The SC said the complainant brushed aside the fact that his brother had used his identity to finish law school.

In 2009, after his promotion as store manager, Patrick was ordered to report to the head office of the company employing him and was informed that the NBI requested his presence in relation to its probe involving a certain “Atty. Patrick A. Caronan” for qualified theft and estafa.

Richard, still under his brother's name, had likewise been arrested for gun-running activities, illegal possession of explosives, and violation of BP 22. Patrick eventually was forced to resign from work after his name had been dragged in these criminal complaints.

In 2013, Patrick sued Richard before the Commission on Bar Discipline of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

In the second case, the SC disbarred Atty. Lorenza A. Abion after she was found guilty of gross misconduct in violation of the Lawyer’s Oath and the Code of Professional Responsibility when she forged her German client's signature. The SC ordered her name removed from the Roll of Attorneys.

The case stemmed from the 2003 disbarment complaint filed before the SC by German national Jutta Krursel against Abion for forgery, swindling, and falsification of a public document.

In 2002, Krursel engaged the services of Abion to assist her to file a case before the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for Conducting Business in an Unsafe and Unsound Manner in violation of Republic Act 8791, against a bank in Ermita and its officers in relation to the bank’s alleged illegal withholding/blocking of her account.

However, without the complainant’s knowledge, Abion withdrew her complaint with prejudice through a letter dated April 15, 2002 to the Monetary Board. The German claimed that Abion forged her and that of a certain William Randell Coleman’s signatures and stressed that she never authorized nor acceded to the complaint’s withdrawal.

She later discovered two Special Powers of Attorney (SPA), which appears to have her and Coleman’s signatures as principals and Abion as attorney-in-fact.

The Court noted that Abion cannot be located and even had to request NBI assistance to locate the lawyer but to no avail.

The high tribunal held that the respondent’s “evasive attitude is tantamount to a ‘willful disobedience of any lawful order of a superior court,’ which alone is a ground for disbarment or suspension under Section 27, Rule 138 of the Rules of Court.” —KBK, GMA News