A Legal Aid lawyer who rorted the system out of tens of thousands of dollars, went before the Civil and Administrative Tribunal yesterday.
A NSW solicitor found of rorted Legal Aid out of $30,000 has been stripped of his right to practice law.
The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Sonny Wilson guilty of dishonest conduct yesterday, between 2011 and 2013 using false invoices for payment in four cases and in one instance, he claimed $16,000 in fees which was paid out by Legal Aid.
He was ordered to pay the legal fees of the Council of the Law Society of NSW, according to News Corp reports.
The NSW Law Society suspended his practicing certificate back in 2013 and he has been unemployed since, applying for bankruptcy earlier this year.
“Currently, my wife and two older children are working to financially support me and our family of six,” he told the tribunal.
Wilson is working on a new career as a Christian minister.
“In our view the dishonesty involved in his conduct is so egregious that no order other than an order that his name be removed from the roll will meet the circumstances,” the tribunal found.
Wilson had been seeking a lengthy licence suspension instead of a permanent one, despite telling the tribunal that there were “no excuses whatsoever” for his actions.
