State Bar takes judge's license to practice law

RALEIGH -- It took three men less than an hour to dismantle James Ethridge's 30-year career as a lawyer and judge.

The N.C. State Bar's disciplinary hearing commission stripped Ethridge -- a district court judge serving Johnston, Harnett and Lee counties -- of his law license Friday evening for mishandling the home and life savings of an ill and elderly Smithfield woman. The punishment forces him out of the judicial seat to which he was elected in 2004.

"This is the most difficult and hard decision I've ever had to make in this position," said F. Lane Williamson, chairman of State Bar's commission. "I regret the decision we had to make, but see no alternative."

District Attorney Tom Lock said Friday night that he will consider asking the State Bureau of Investigation to review the case.

Ethridge's disbarment is a rare move for the State Bar. Officials can recall disbarring only one other sitting judge. Administrative Office of the Courts officials said earlier this week they wouldn't quite know how to officially remove Ethridge from the bench if he lost his law license.

Ethridge, 60, kissed his wife, Denise, on the cheek when Williamson read his punishment in the bar's hearing room at the headquarters on Raleigh's Fayetteville Street. As the towering Ethridge walked out of the hearing room, he shook hands with each commission member and exhaled as he joined friends clustered in the hallway. He ignored a request for comment.

Bar investigated

The State Bar began investigating Ethridge's dealings with Rosalind Sweet in 2004 after a News & Observer article detailed their interactions.

The commission decided Friday that Ethridge was dishonest and deceitful when he took Sweet's home and her savings of $14,249 in 2001. Ethridge told the commission Friday that Sweet, who had Alzheimer's disease, asked for help because she was terrified that her family wanted to steal her money and put her in a nursing home.

She begged Ethridge on Aug. 17, 2001, to hold on to her assets until she got better, he told the commission.

Sweet deeded her home to Ethridge that same day; he stamped the deed to show he paid her $12,000 for the house. He never did, State Bar attorneys said.

Sweet also signed over her savings. Ethridge put it in a personal checking account in his own name.

The health of Sweet, a retired teacher, sharply declined that summer. Neighbors saw her walk the streets in her underwear. A social worker, sent to check on her, noted that she had no running water in her house and that her cupboards were bare. The social worker persuaded her to check into a nursing home in late August 2001.

Sweet's nephew thought something was fishy when he read in the newspaper that Sweet had deeded her property to Ethridge. He contacted N.C. Legal Aid; lawyers at the nonprofit asked Smithfield lawyer Tom Berkau to straighten out the matter.

When Berkau confronted Ethridge, Ethridge immediately deeded the house back.

But it was what he did with Sweet's money over the next five years that troubled the disciplinary commission.

At the hearing Friday, it took more than 20 minutes to explain all of Ethridge's withdrawals, deposits and transfers of the money.

"At some point, Ethridge begins to treat Ms. Sweet's funds as his own," Root Edmonson, prosecutor for the State Bar, told the commission. Documents show Ethridge wrote checks to himself and his wife and paid at least one bill from Sweet's account.

And Ethridge resisted returning part of Sweet's money to her estate once the court declared her incompetent and her nephew was appointed guardian.

"I was not going to give that man all this money," Ethridge said during his testimony Friday. "He's a thief." Instead, he gave an envelope with cash to a friend and asked him to hold it.

Ethridge's team of three lawers admitted repeatedly during the two-day hearing that Ethridge showed poor judgment in his handling of Sweet's affairs.

Dudley Witt, Ethridge's lawyer, told the commission, "This is a mess."

Ethridge insisted he was just trying to help Sweet ward off greedy relatives.

"When she came to my office, she'd been looking for someone to do what I did," Ethridge said. "It just so happens, unfortunately, my name came up. It just so happens, unfortunately, that I made a grave mistake."

Sweet, now 74, lives in a nursing home in Harnett County.

During his testimony Friday, Ethridge begged for mercy and at one point broke down in tears.

"If my father knew I was destroying his name, he'd kill me," Ethridge said, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief.