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Justices deny son of crime boss’ petition for reinstatement (UPDATE)

By: Eric Heisig//August 12, 2014//

Justices deny son of crime boss’ petition for reinstatement (UPDATE)

By: Eric Heisig//August 12, 2014//

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The felon son of a deceased Milwaukee crime boss wanted his law license back after not practicing for 30 years, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court said “no.”

In a per curiam decision released Tuesday, the court denied John Balistrieri’s petition to have his license reinstated in a 5-1 ruling. Justice Pat Roggensack withdrew from participating in the case.

John is the son of Frank Balistrieri. John was convicted, along with his brother Joseph, in 1984 of conspiracy to obstruct commerce by a federal jury. The conviction stemmed from the family’s criminal enterprise, and a threat made to an undercover FBI agent who purported to want to start a vending machine business in the city.

John and Joseph were sentenced to prison and the convictions ultimately ended both of their law careers.

John, whose license was revoked in 1987, petitioned the court to reinstate his license in 1995, but the petition was dismissed, according to the decision.

He tried again in 2012 and referee Richard Ninneman recommended that the court reinstate him, explaining that he though John and Joseph’s involvement “was limited to drafting the legal documents that gave their father a legally enforceable interest in the vending business,” according to the decision.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation strongly opposed, and the court rejected the referee’s opinion, explaining in its recent decision that it felt John, 30 years after his indictment and conviction, still will not accept responsibility for his criminal behavior.

READ OUR RELATED CASE DIGEST

“He even goes so far as to say that he ‘made a mistake,’ although he does not explain what that mistake was, and that he broke the criminal law,” according to the decision. “While he is now willing to say that his attitude has changed and he accepts that there was a conviction, he also explicitly testified yet in this proceeding that he did nothing wrong, which means that the conviction must still be illegitimate to some degree in his view.”

The decision points out several comments from John taken from hearings in the reinstatement proceeding. In a passage taken from a transcript from a lawsuit a relative filed against him, the former attorney said he was “employed by the United States government” from 1984 to 1989, which included his prison stint.

The justices also noted that John, who oversaw the Shorecrest Hotel when his brother owned it, acted questionably when he did not pay taxes for hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of “gifts” that his brother gave him while working at the hotel. The decision also states that some of the litigation John pursued after losing his license was done dishonestly.

“We conclude that engaging in misrepresentation in order to take advantage of a less sophisticated person, especially one with whom there is a fiduciary relationship, does not show a moral character of the type needed to practice law in this state,” according to the decision.

The court ordered John to pay $41,459.40 for the cost of the proceeding.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley dissented, saying the court should have accepted the referee’s findings and reinstated his license.

John was admitted to the Wisconsin bar after graduating from Valparaiso University Law School in 1973.

The decision notes he worked at the Shorecrest after being released from prison. Following Joseph’s death in 2010, John sold the hotel, which the referee noted “allegedly was the headquarters of the ‘mob’ in Wisconsin,” for $8 million.

John’s attorney, Terry Johnson of Peterson, Johnson & Murray SC, Milwaukee, did not immediately return a phone call Tuesday.

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