http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26796928/?GT1=43001Lawyer suspended for accepting nude dances
Panel: Client performed for him in return for reduced legal fees
updated 6:34 p.m. CT, Fri., Sept. 19, 2008
CHICAGO - An attorney has been suspended for more than a year for accepting nude dances from a stripper as partial payment for the legal fees she owed him.
The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission on Thursday said Scott Robert Erwin will begin serving a 15-month suspension for misconduct next month.
Erwin, who practices in the northern Illinois city of DeKalb, and his client mutually agreed that she'd perform nude dances for him in his office as a way to reduce her legal fees, the commission's report said. He credited her for $534 toward his bill for services of various legal matters, the report said.
While she agreed to the performances, the client contended he touched her inappropriately during those dances, and she went to police in 2002 with sexual assault allegations.
Erwin denied any inappropriate touching happened, and he was never charged criminally, the report said. He declined to comment on the panel's decision Thursday. The woman no longer works as a stripper, the report said.