SAN FRANCISCO (Northern California Record) — Citrus Heights attorney Rita M. Lingwood faces possible disbarment following a recently announced California State Bar Court recommendation regarding a $60,000 loan to herself in 2016 from a family trust she had prepared.
Lingwood was charged with four counts of misconduct in the contested disciplinary proceeding, according to the 20-page decision and order of involuntary inactive enrollment issued Aug. 17 by the state bar court. The state bar court dismissed as duplicative a charge of failing to comply with the laws of California and found Lingwood culpable of misappropriation, entering into an unfair business transaction with a client and making misrepresentations to a trust beneficiary’s attorney, according to the decision and order.
The state bar's recommendation is pending final action by the California Supreme Court, an appeal before the state bar's review department or expiration of time in which parties can request further review within the state bar court.
The state bar court's recommendation included an involuntary inactive enrollment order that rendered Lingwood involuntarily enrolled as an inactive member of the State Bar of California. That order was effective three calendar days after service, according to the recommendation.
Lingwood's recommended discipline was among the dispositions filed earlier this month by the state bar court's hearing department for August.
Lingwood was admitted to the bar in California on June 8, 2001, according to her profile at the state bar website. She had no prior discipline before the state bar, according to the decision and order.
Allegations against Lingwood stem from the family trust agreement she prepared in February 2012 for a couple who were neighbors and in which Lingwood was a trustee, according to the decision and order. In April 2016, Lingwood took out a $60,000 loan from the family trust without permission, later testifying that she thought, as trustee, she had the authority to make the loan to herself.
"The court does not find this testimony credible," the decision and order said.
In June 2016 Lingwood resigned as trustee and as attorney and repaid the so-called "loan" in full by March 2017, according to the decision and order.