Two New York lawyers were disbarred Thursday over their separate felony convictions — one for leaking CIA information to the press and the other for butchering his wife in the shower.
A state appellate court ruled to strike convicted killer Julius Reich and former CIA officer Jeffrey A. Sterling from New York’s roll of attorneys.
Reich, 68, of Scarsdale, is serving a 20-year sentence for the 2016 stabbing death of his physician wife, Dr. Robin Goldman.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2018 for killing Goldman in their $3.4 million home while they were going through a divorce.
The First Department appellate court said Reich’s conviction triggers “automatic disbarment.” The former attorney at WeiserMazars in Hamilton Heights also failed to report his conviction as required, the court ruled.
Sterling, 54, served a three-and-a-half-year prison term for leaking information about a secret operation to the press and was released in 2018, records show.
He was convicted of espionage charges by a federal jury in Virginia in 2015 for telling a reporter at the New York Times about an operation to interfere in Iran’s nuclear program, the newspaper reported at the time.
Sterling “committed professional misconduct by failing to timely report his conviction,” the appellate court said in the ruling, noting it wasn’t notified of the guilty verdict until December 2021.
He is disbarred effective retroactively to the time of his 2015 conviction, the ruling says.
Sterling’s lawyer didn’t immediately return a request to comment. Reich was listed as his own lawyer in the case. His defense attorney in his criminal case didn’t immediately return a request for comment.