Lawyer disbarred for duping client

The Supreme Court has ordered the disbarment of a lawyer who was accused of falsifying the sale of a property in Marikina City owned by her client.

Aside from ordering her name stricken from the roll of attorneys, the Supreme Court also revoked Christina Paterno’s notarial commission in perpetuity.

“For [her] deceitful conduct, [Paterno] is disbarred from the practice of law. As a member of the bar, respondent failed to live up to the standards embodied in the Code of Professional Responsibility,” the justices said in a 13-page per curiam decision dated June 10.

According to the complainant, Anita Peña, a former Government Service Insurance System official, she entrusted Paterno with securing bank loans for the construction of townhouses on a property in Parang, Marikina, in 1986.

Peña said she gave the title of the property to the lawyer as part of the documentation process of the loan. She said Paterno kept on telling her that the process was ongoing until eight years passed.

When she visited her property, she was surprised to find four houses already built on it. The new “owner” of the property told her that the lot was sold to him in 1989 by a firm managed by Estrella Kraus, who Peña said was Paterno’s secretary.

Peña said she learned that her property was sold to Kraus’ firm in November 1986, with Paterno acting as the notary public before whom the sale was acknowledged.

Voting 14-0, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines that said Paterno “betrayed the trust reposed upon her by complainant by executing a bogus deed of sale while she was entrusted with complainant’s certificate of title.”