‘Knew what he was doing was wrong’: Wausau lawyer accused of stealing $33K from client has license revoked

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has revoked the law license of a Wausau attorney accused of stealing more than $33,000 from a client and misleading the Office of Lawyer Regulation in its investigation of the matter.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation filed a nine-count complaint against Craig A. Knapp in September 2019. The complaint said Knapp lied to the client about how much of the $33,000 he was holding in his trust account and then blamed the IRS and the post office for the missing money when the client asked about it. The OLR also charged Knapp with two counts of misconduct for failing to report a 2012 OWI conviction.

The state Supreme Court opinion released on Thursday said Knapp entered into a stipulation with the OLR and agreed to the facts alleged in the complaint and to the license revocation as punishment. The referee in his case also found license revocation to be the appropriate punishment, noting that Knapp “obviously knew that what he was doing was wrong.”

“The referee went on to say that Attorney Knapp ‘initially embarked upon a course of attempting to mislead the OLR’ and it took extensive discovery on the part of the OLR before Attorney Knapp ‘faced up to the full extent of his wrongdoing,'” the state Supreme Court’s opinion said.

The state Supreme Court revoked Knapp’s license and ordered him to pay $33,444.50 in restitution to the client and $5,786.79 in costs of the proceeding.

A message left at the phone number listed for Knapp was not immediately returned.

Knapp’s prior disciplinary history includes a 1991 consensual private reprimand for a conflict of interest violation. He was admitted to practice law in Wisconsin in 1989. Follow @“WLJreporter”