A Tustin attorney faces disbarment for allegedly misappropriating up to $282 million from as many as 60,000 clients who hired him looking for debt relief, the State Bar of California said. Daniel Stephen March did not dispute 27 ethics charges of moral turpitude, misappropriation, failure to maintain client funds in a trust account and others filed against him in May in State Bar Court, which independently handles attorney discipline cases.
The fees, part of the $282 million total, were either never deposited into a trust account or remained for only a day and were wired into a personal account, the complaint alleges. During bankruptcy proceedings, March seemed to admit that his client's money had been mishandled, saying, 'no money, nothing was held on behalf of the client,' according to the State Bar Court complaint.