Palmer attorney disbarred

ANCHORAGE — The Alaska Supreme Court upheld the disbarment of a Palmer attorney and sometime dog musher for stealing more than $20,000 from a client.

Melinda Miles, who runs a private practice in Palmer handling everything from estate planning to family and divorce law to real estate matters and civil litigation, eventually paid back the $20,072 she took from the estate of Donald Moren. But she held it for three years after outright stealing it, Supreme Court Justice Daniel Winfree wrote in an opinion released Friday that revoked Miles’ license to practice law in Alaska.

“Such a duplicitous act by a member of the Bar, particularly while acting in her capacity as an attorney, damages the reputation of the legal profession and the legal system at large,” Winfree wrote.

The Alaska Bar Association has been gathering evidence on whether to disbar Miles for at least three years.

According to Winfree’s opinion, Miles and Moren met in 2006 when Moren built a fence for her. Moren, by friends’ accounts summarized in court documents, was a businessman, a “wheeler-dealer” who enjoyed hunting and fishing. Miles’ business website contains frequent mushing references. The Iditarod lists her as a rookie in the 2004 race, though she scratched.

They became friends, Miles said in subsequent disciplinary hearings, and she sometimes did legal work for him and was paid for her time.

In 2008, Miles set up a company for Moren, Progressive Diversified Services. Moren’s friends testified at the hearings that he used the company and its funds to buy and sell boats.

The company was Moren’s but Miles was given a “special power of attorney” to handle money for the company. Two business accounts were opened to which she had access.

In May of 2009, Moren died. A report from Alaska State Troopers at the time indicates that Moren choked to death on a piece of food at his home in the neighborhoods just south of Cottonwood Lake and north of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. Winfree’s opinion mentions it was during a barbeque.

Moren’s sole beneficiary was his mother. His brother, Patrick, had power of attorney for their mother.

Shortly after Moren’s death, on June 11, Miles went to KeyBank, which held business accounts for Progressive Diversified, and withdrew all the money, $1,162 from one account and $20,072 from the other. The smaller amount she handed over to Patrick Moren, the larger amount she put in her own account related to a rental company she owned.

“Over the next week Miles moved $20,000 from her rental company account to her personal account and began spending the money,” Winfree writes.

Patrick Moren and his attorney repeatedly asked Miles about the money and she told them on more than one occasion that the $1,162 was all there was. She even worked briefly — billing Patrick Moren for her time — cataloguing Donald Moren’s estate.

In the disciplinary hearings, she said that Donald Moren had intended to give her the money as a gift and that she knew he had wanted the money kept out of the hands of his brothers, from whom he was estranged.

“I never solicited this gift from Donald, it was his idea to do this and I agreed, albeit reluctantly, although I was appreciative of his generosity and kindness,” Miles said in a response to an Alaska Bar Association complaint Patrick Moren filed against her in 2010, quoted in Winfree’s opinion.

The Bar Association identified numerous problems with this whole arrangement. Among other things, the association found it was an ethical breach that she did work on Donald’s estate for Patrick despite having a financial interest at play, failed to separate Progressive funds from her own funds, and failed to notify people with interest in the funds that she had staked a claim to them.

She also, according to the bar association as quoted by Winfree, committed “the criminal act of theft, misappropriation or wrongful conversion.”

That was the finding of the bar association, anyway. Court records show no indication Miles was ever criminally charged with theft.

Not until April 2012 did Miles pay back the money. By then, Donald Moren’s mother had died.

Two of Donald Moren’s friends testified at Miles’ hearings that they didn’t really know Miles — a statement contrary to Miles’ testimony that she was Donald Moren’s best friend before he died — and that he seemed to have a mostly professional relationship with her. A bar committee holding the disciplinary hearings eventually recommended Miles be disbarred and the bar association’s Disciplinary Board agreed, imposing that penalty.

Miles then requested that the state Supreme Court knock that down to a three-year suspension but Winfree’s decision instead sides with the committee.

“We agree with the Board that the potential injury was great. Miles could have permanently deprived Donald’s estate of over $20,000 and withheld the money for almost three years, during which time Donald’s sole heir died. Additionally, Miles used her position to attempt to blind her current client — the estate’s personal representative — to her theft of one of the estate’s major assets,” Winfree wrote.

The disbarment will go into effect in 30 days. In the intervening time, Miles was ordered to close out or transfer to another attorney all of her open cases.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.