Disbarred Branson attorney calls for rehearing

Elizabeth Farris was charged last year with two counts of theft.

Illness, divorce, misappropriation of funds, disbarment, felony charges – the allegations and realities of life for Branson attorney Eric Farris and his ex-wife, Elizabeth Farris, are severe.

Eric Farris, a former Branson alderman and weekend radio host, was disbarred by the Missouri Supreme Court after a 21-year legal career on Sept. 8 in a 4-3 decision that found fault with the lawyer accused of misconduct and misappropriation of client funds.

Farris, who owns Farris Law Group LLC and requested a rehearing from the state’s high court on Sept. 23, has said his ex-wife, the firm’s chief operating officer, stole the money in the two cases that led to the state action – claims denied by Elizabeth Farris’ attorney but from which charges are pending.

The Farrises, who divorced last year, are still fighting over the attorney’s visitation of their four kids in court as Eric Farris – now remarried – contemplates finding a new job.

The case before the state Supreme Court stemmed from a filing by the Office of Chief Disciplinary Council, which pointed to two cases where it found attorney Farris had broken several rules of professional responsibility.

The assigned disciplinary hearing panel recommended in November 2013 an indefinite suspension for Farris with no reinstatement opportunity for six months.

The cases
According to the Supreme Court’s investigation of the facts stated in the majority opinion, the Branson injury lawyer held settlement funds in a trust account and committed to paying off the medical bills of his clients.

Referred to as Client A and Client B in the opinion, Farris secured a $197,500 settlement deposited into the trust in September 2010. After Farris’ fee, Client A was entitled to $118,500, and owed $114,600 in medical bills.

According to the high court, Farris said he would negotiate less than the full payment for the medical creditors. Beginning in November 2010, the client tried multiple times to find out when she would receive her settlement, and in January 2011, Farris sent the client a $50,000 check for “client’s partial recovery.” In the following months, the client tried frequently to contact the attorney, but was either ignored or received vague replies.

Nine months later, the client received a nearly $32,000 check, but it bounced. In a November 2011 meeting with Farris and his ex-wife, Farris offered a summary of what had happened, saying after fees and the $50,000 check, the client had roughly $66,000 in the trust, which was used to pay medical bills, and that was why the check bounced.

The justices questioned why he had sent the check with insufficient funds, and said Farris’ explanation was “illogical, inconsistent and demonstrably false.”  

According to the opinion, written by Judge Paul Wilson, Farris never paid or negotiated with Cox Medical Center Branson.

With Client B, the circumstances were nearly identical. In September 2010, a settlement of $90,500 was deposited into Farris’ trust account. After attorneys’ fees, nearly $60,000 remained, and the client owed $27,000 in medical bills. The client received a $32,000 check and Farris said he would try to negotiate down the medical bills and pay them with the remaining cash. The money was never used to pay the bills or returned to the client.

In both instances, according to the high court, the funds were transferred to the Farris office account and used for business and personal expenses.

“Farris contends he ‘did not know’ about the improper transfers and expenditures because they were made by his then-wife, though with Farris’ authority and for his benefit. The court rejects this contention. By November 2011, the evidence shows that Farris knew nearly all of the $93,000 had been transferred to (and spent from) his operating account,” Wilson wrote.

Dissenting views
In the dissenting opinion, Judge George Draper III said the ruling went too far in an effort to punish Farris.

“It further abandons this court’s duty to protect the public in that by disbarring Farris, the court loses all authority and influence over him to seek restitution for the clients,” Draper wrote.

He said Farris should have been suspended indefinitely, with no opportunity to reapply for two years and that full restitution to the clients could have been a requirement for reinstatement.  

In Farris’ motion for rehearing, he said the court did not consider important facts in the case.

Elizabeth Farris was charged in May 2014 with two counts of stealing $25,000 or more from the attorney’s trust account and is scheduled for a pretrial conference Oct. 5 in Greene County courts. Eric Farris said his former spouse’s controls over financial and accounting matters increased after he broke his wrist in 2009 and suffered a near-fatal embolism in 2010.

The attorney said the majority opinion virtually ignored the mitigating circumstances of his poor health and the court did not give proper weight to the 10 witnesses he brought forward who had confidence in his professionalism. He also said he told the police about his wife’s activities, which has resulted in her felony charges, and is still fighting in court over life insurance money he said could be used to pay back the clients.

Falling out
Farris met Elizabeth in his third year of law school at University of Missouri, and they married after he graduated in December 1994. They split in March 2014. The Farrises have four children – two boys and two girls between ages 10 and 17.

The marriage was dissolved by interlocutory judgment in July 2014, but the legal battle continues in appeals court. Eric Farris has filed an order to receive his parenting time, which he said was being denied by his former spouse.

According to a July 2015 filing in that case, “Issues involved include the parties’ ability to co-parent; the extent to which the father should be allowed to continue seeing the youngest child … without involving the other three children; and potential emotional issues created by father’s approach to the visitation process.”

Elizabeth Farris, the daughter of longtime Branson restaurateur Dimitri Tsahiridis, resigned from her trustee seat with her alma mater, William Woods University, in the wake of the theft charges.

Her attorney, Michele Horn, said the allegations against her client are baseless and pointed to comments in the majority opinion that Eric Farris falsified documents to try and cover up the abuse of the trust accounts.

“My client, Elizabeth Farris, is encouraged by the findings of the Missouri Supreme Court which found that Mr. Farris was the sole owner and trustee of the trust account,” she said by email.

“It should be noted that as soon as Elizabeth Farris decided to end the parties’ troubled marriage, Mr. Farris began a relentless campaign of attempting to transfer blame for his theft of trust account funds, using fabricated evidence, to his wife Elizabeth. It not only punished her for leaving him, but gave him someone to blame for the trust account thefts.”

With the law work on hold, Eric Farris said via email he’s helping his clients find other qualified representation. He still hosts “The Eric Farris Show” on News Talk KRZK, a program since 2012 that advocates for the Constitution and defends liberty and freedom, according to Farris’ LinkedIn page.

His new wife, Sindy Kimmis Farris, is an associate producer for the show.

As for the misappropriated funds, he continues to point to Elizabeth Farris.

“I thought that, as my spouse of many years and the mother of my four children, that she could be trusted,” he said. “Unfortunately, I was wrong.”