Dayton attorney suspended for 18 months

The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday suspended the law license of Dayton attorney John J. Scaccia, who has not paid a nearly $6,000 judgment against him for court-ordered sanctions.

The court suspended Scaccia for 18 months, with the final six months stayed if he does not engage in further misconduct and he pays his judgment. The court noted this is Scaccia’s third disciplinary case in two years. The case was argued Jan. 6, 2016.

The court suspended Scaccia’s license in October 2014 for incompetent handling of a case and other violations of the rules governing Ohio attorneys. In June 2015, a one-year suspension was handed down after the Dayton Bar Association complained that Scaccia engaged in professional misconduct with two other client issues.

Scaccia, who was admitted into the practice of law in 1983 and was once chief of the criminal section of the Dayton Law Dept., was cited for incompetence, charging an improper nonrefundable fee and failing to properly deposit funds into and maintain records for his client trust account.

In June 2015, the court found that Scaccia violated the rules regulating client trust accounts, failed to properly prepare a closing statement in a contingent-fee case and failed to properly communicate the scope of his representation to a client.

In January 2015, a complaint charged Scaccia with professional misconduct in 2012 and 2013 involving a single client. Scaccia denied the allegations, but a three-member panel of the Board of Professional Conduct found he had violated rules and recommended an 18-month suspension.

“When imposing sanctions for attorney misconduct, we consider several relevant factors, including the ethical duties the lawyer violated, relevant aggravating and mitigating factors, and the sanctions imposed in similar cases,” the court’s opinion stated.

“The board found the following aggravating factors: Scacci has prior discipline, he committed multiple offenses, he refused to acknowledge the wrongful nature of his conduct, his misconduct harmed his client and the opposing party, and he has not yet paid the court-ordered sanction of $5,980.”

The board found some mitigating factors, but refused to give Scaccia credit for family and personal-health issues that he claimed he experienced during his misconduct, including an alleged vitamin-D deficiency that led to absentmindedness. Scaccia presented no medical evidence.

Six justices voted to stay the final six months contingent upon Scaccia’s actions. Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and Justices Terrence O’Donnell and Judith Ann Lanzinger dissented with any stay of the suspension and would have made Scaccia serve a suspension consecutively to his other suspensions.

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