Quantcast

FLORIDA RECORD

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Trinity attorney disbarred over loan from client he allegedly did not fully pay back

Law money 03

Trinity attorney Constantine Kalogianis has been disbarred following a May 25 Florida Supreme Court order for engaging in a pattern of misconduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation in a loan agreement from a client's inheritance.

Kalogianis borrowed more than $225,000 from the client in fall 2007 as part of a real estate development arrangement, which included building a new home for Kalogianis, detailed in the Florida State Bar's 11-page formal complaint filed with the court. The money borrowed had been part of the client's inheritance from the sale of her late mother's home, according to the formal complaint.

Kalogianis disbarment was effective 30 days after the state high court's order, which also directed Kalogianis to pay the state bar's costs of $11,180.32.

The state bar announced the discipline June 29.

Kalogianis was admitted to the bar in Florida on Oct. 8, 1993, according to his profile at the state bar website. The disbarment was not his first discipline before the state bar. Kalogianis received a public reprimand in June 2011 following a state Supreme Court order for employing a non-lawyer assistant to do client intake, consultations and signing fee agreements in one case and providing very limited services in separate personal property case. In addition to the reprimand, Kalogianis was ordered to pay the state bar's costs of $2,692.26.

Prior to taking the loan from the client, Kalogianis did not disclose the balance of his mortgage on one property, according to the formal complaint. He also did not provide an appraisal or any other information that would allow the client to determine whether there sufficient equity to fully secure and protect her interest.

Part of the arrangement in the loan Kalogianis' obtained from his client was to provide $35,000 of the money borrowed to Kalogianis' paralegal toward a mortgage on a lot in the real estate. The loan and real estate development evolved over time. Before Kalogianis received the loan from the client, he took out mortgages totaling more than $2 million with two different banks. Both of those loans ultimately failed, the court order noted.

Toward the end of 2009, Kalogianis reduced the monthly payment amounts he'd been sending the client toward the loan and later stopped making payments on the loan.

ORGANIZATIONS IN THIS STORY

More News