Lawyers booted from Bar
Published:Tuesday | August 17, 2021 | 12:09 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
British solicitor Michael Lloyd Wilson, who was sentenced to three years in prison in England in 2016 for taking £100,000 from a fine wine investment scam, has been expelled from the Jamaican Bar.
Wilson, who has also been struck off the roll of lawyers in England, is one of two lawyers who were last month disbarred by the disciplinary committee of the General Legal Council (GLC).
Leonardo Fernando Christie and Wilson were both removed from the list of lawyers in Jamaica who are authorised to practise in the country after both were found guilty of professional misconduct.
Wilson, who had passed the Jamaican Bar in July 2015 but had never practised here, was convicted in England in June 2016.
The former director of Global Wine Investments, which shut down in 2012, was found guilty of possessing criminal property and was disqualified from acting as a director of any company for seven years.
Wilson, following his incarceration, was reported to the GLC for professional misconduct.
According to information published in the formal order of the GLC’s disciplinary committee, members of the public had paid over money to the Wilson’s investment company to purchase vintage wines, but, in most cases, never received the order and lost their investment.
Christie, who was contracted to represent a client in a personal injury claim involving Key Insurance Company, was reported to the council after he stopped communicating with the client.
The client, who was reportedly injured in a motor vehicle accident in 2015, had handed over all the original documents to support the claim to Christie in July 2017 and was communicating with him up to November 21, 2019. But following their last communication, the client had tried, without success, to contact Christie and reported the matter.
In the decision handed down on July 24, Christie, who had been previously found guilty, was ordered to pay $20,000 in court costs to the GLC.
Wilson, who was also previously found guilty, was also ordered to pay $100,000 in costs to the GLC in a July 31 decision.
According to the GLC, Wilson had refused to give evidence at trial and at the sanction hearing.
In the last five years, 20 lawyers have been disbarred, including prominent practitioners such as Harold Brady, Don Foote, and Jennifer Messado.