KINGSTON – ATTORNEY AT LAW Arlean Beckford has been banned for two years from practising law as a result of what the General Legal Council (GLC) described as “professional misconduct”.
The GLC, in a newspaper advertisement yesterday, announced that the licence of the St Andrew-based lawyer had been suspended after she was found guilty of professional misconduct for a second time.
The GLC said that after hearing evidence in the latest breach from a complainant identified as Winston Rowe, it ruled that the attorney had acted unprofessionally.
The ban became effective on May 1 and Beckford is not entitled to practise until her suspension has expired.
Prior to the ban, the GLC had taken disciplinary action against the lawyer in 2005 for professional misconduct regarding a real estate deal.
She was reportedly fined $250,000 and ordered to pay the complainant’s attorney’s fee of $50,000.
Following the 2005 disciplinary action, Beckford was twice accused of defrauding her clients, and, in both instances, was arrested and charged with fraudulent conversion and taken before the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court.
She was first arrested and charged in February 2011 following allegations that she defrauded one of her clients of more than $5 million in a real estate deal. It is alleged that she sold a house for the complainant in 2008 and failed to hand over a cheque, which she had received for the sale of the house.
Beckford was later arrested and charged in March 2013 following fresh allegations that she failed to turn over $1.8 million given to her by a client in July 2012 to effect a land transaction in St Catherine. (Observer)
