CANOGA PARK : Bar Suspends Lawyer Convicted of Fraud

The State Bar of California has temporarily suspended a Canoga Park attorney who was convicted on criminal racketeering and mail fraud charges after spending months in hiding.

Lynn Boyd Stites, 49, was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison Jan. 13 for masterminding “the Alliance” insurance fraud, which ended in the conviction of 13 lawyers in one of the largest such prosecutions in U. S. history.

The State Bar will consider permanent disciplinary measures against Stites within three to eight months.

The former Canoga Park lawyer was convicted of embezzlement and a dozen counts of mail fraud for violations including illegally manipulating cases in which his clients received legal fees from insurance companies.

After he was indicted, Stites went into hiding for more than 2 1/2 years. During that period, he proposed to two women under assumed names and spent large amounts of cash on ski vacations and yacht purchases. He was caught in an Illinois speed trap in November, 1992.

The Bar also temporarily suspended James Steven Carroll, 42, who admitted to the nation’s largest-ever embezzlement of legal services funds.

Carroll was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Dec. 14, after stealing more than $260,000 from the San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services, where he was the director, to sustain a gambling habit.

He resigned from the Pacoima center in July, 1992, after admitting to bilking the 26-year-old agency that serves about 12,000 poor people a year.

The State Bar may prohibit lawyers from practicing if they have been convicted of crimes involving “moral turpitude,” said spokeswoman Kim McCready. The Bar’s own legal panel will decide the cases of Stites and Carroll within three to eight months, she said.