Fayette attorney receives additional three-year ban from practicing law
The state Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board issued an order suspending a former Uniontown attorney’s law license for three years on Tuesday.
The suspension comes a little more than one month after John William “J.W.” Eddy was served with notice that he allegedly violated his supervised release in a federal wire fraud case.
According to the board’s Tuesday order, between April and June of 2021, Eddy, 40, took $3,418.50 from a woman whose son was facing legal troubles in Allegheny and Fayette counties while his law license was already suspended for misappropriating client funds.
The board’s findings indicated he did not tell the woman he was suspended from the practice of law, but instead falsely represented he was working with other attorneys on her son’s cases.
The woman used the Venmo mobile payment app to transfer money to Eddy on several occasions, including for retainer fees, document filing fees, travel fees and other costs. No legal work was done for the woman’s son, and he ultimately ended up with a bench warrant for failure to appear in court, the disciplinary board found.
The woman was repaid the money she gave to Eddy through the Pennsylvania Lawyers Fund for Client Security, which reimburses those who have lost money because of a lawyer’s misuse of funds.
The board’s order indicated that in October 2021, Eddy admitted to requesting two retainer payments totaling $650 that he told the woman were for another attorney. That attorney never received the funds, and Eddy could not recall asking the woman for additional money.
The order indicated Eddy also admitted “to a relapse of his drug and alcohol addiction” between April and June 2021, and consented to the three-year license suspension issued Tuesday.
Eddy’s license was suspended for three years, between 2019 and 2022, over to the misappropriation of nearly more than $240,000 in client funds and his arrest for driving under the influence of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
He did not apply for the reinstatement of his license after that suspension period passed in September 2022. At the time, he was awaiting a sentencing in federal court related to his guilty plea to wire fraud in the criminal case related to the missing client money.
Last November, he was sentenced to five years of probation and 21 months on home electronic monitoring. He was also required to participate in mental health and drug and alcohol treatment as a condition of his probation.
On Aug. 9, court paperwork was filed alleging “violations of the conditions of supervision” of Eddy’s probation. He waived his right to an initial hearing on the violations on Sept. 7, and was placed on 24-hour home incarceration with location monitoring. He was additionally ordered to enroll in an inpatient day treatment program on or before Monday, Sept. 11.
On Monday, Eddy’s attorney in the federal case, Jerry J. Russo, asked a judge to change the day he must report to a treatment facility. Russo indicated Eddy is suffering from a “severe gastrointestinal illness that requires urgent gastrointestinal care.”
The motion indicated Eddy was hospitalized this past Sunday, and has been admitted for further treatment, including medical procedures scheduled for later this week.
The motion asked that his inpatient treatment begin after he is medically cleared, and indicated he will “enroll in the relapse program” at a facility in Reading.
A probation revocation hearing in the federal case is scheduled for Sept. 26 in Harrisburg.
Eddy was admitted to practice law in 2008, and served for several years as a deputy prosecutor in Fayette County.