A Scott County lawyer accused of misappropriating client funds has lost her license to practice law in Iowa. (Gavel photo by Getty Images; seal courtesy the State of Iowa)
A Scott County lawyer accused of misappropriating client funds has lost her license to practice law in Iowa.
Court records indicate attorney Rebecca Sharpe of Bettendorf was admitted to the Iowa bar in 2009. In 2018, she was hired to settle the $2 million estate of Evelyn Haack, who died earlier that year. Haack’s will stated that 5% of her estate, or $100,000, should go to the St. Paul Lutheran Church Endowment Fund. The church, however, never received the money or any notice of the intended bequest. Church officials learned of the bequest only after one of Haack’s former friends asked about it three years later.
Although some form of resolution concerning the bequest was reached between the church and Sharpe in October 2023, that was only after “Sharpe took several steps to hide the bequest from the church” and from the probate court, according to recent findings by the Iowa Supreme Court.
In 2019, the probate court granted Sharpe’s request for a total of $108,783 in attorney fees. Sharpe, however, collected from the estate an additional $65,291 and then used these funds for personal expenses, including a Florida vacation, the Attorney Disciplinary Board later alleged.
In March 2021, Sharpe informed the executor there was no money left in the estate and allegedly claimed, “I have not been paid my entire fee because I was worried there wouldn’t be enough money for taxes.”
When the estate was closed, no estate taxes were paid. In early 2021, Sharpe hired an accountant to file the estate taxes but the delay resulted in $51,000 in penalties and interest being assessed against the estate. That resulted in a negative balance in the estate that was caused in part, the court later said, by “Sharpe’s excessive withdrawals.”
Sharpe was also alleged by the Iowa Attorney Disciplinary Board to have mishandled other client funds, resulting in negative balances, overdrawn accounts and comingled funds.
After the board charged Sharpe with ethical violations, she filed a response in which she denied any wrongdoing. According to the Supreme Court, however, she was “generally unresponsive” throughout the subsequent disciplinary proceedings and failed to cooperate, resulting in motions for sanctions.
After a continuance in the proceedings was granted due to Sharpe’s claim of health complications, the Attorney Disciplinary Board indicated it found evidence contradicting her claim and Sharpe’s attorney withdrew from the matter.
The Grievance Commission of the Iowa Supreme Court later concluded Sharpe was guilty of several ethical violations, including one that makes it a violation to commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty or fitness. The commission then recommended that the court revoke Sharpe’s license.
In agreeing to a license revocation, the Iowa Supreme Court noted that in past cases, it has always held that “it is almost axiomatic that we revoke licenses of lawyers” who convert their clients’ money to their own use.
“This case is an egregious example of converting client funds,” the court stated in its decision. “Sharpe converted $65,290.71 for her own personal use and has presented no evidence of a colorable future claim to the funds. It does not matter that her firm later reimbursed part of the funds to the client trust account or that Sharpe eventually settled with the church concerning its bequest.”