ABA Jnl
A New York lawyer convicted in 2008 for allegedly licking cocaine off a waitress at the nightclub that he owned was disbarred last week partly for his conduct in a civil lawsuit that followed.
The Appellate Division’s Second Judicial Department of the New York Supreme Court ordered the disbarment of lawyer Gaurav Malhotra, also known as Gary Malhotra, of New York in a May 15 opinion noted by the Legal Profession Blog.
Malhotra was disbarred based on allegations in two ethics cases. One stemmed from the 2008 criminal conviction. The other stemmed from Malhotra’s failure to respond to subpoenas in the waitress’s civil suit and his failure to satisfy the $1 million default judgment that she obtained.
The nightclub owned by Malhotra was identified as Quo in a March 2015 story by the Daily Mail. Prosecutors had alleged that Malhotra grabbed the breast and buttocks of the waitress, pushed her against a wall, and told her that he wanted to “sniff some” off her breasts, buttocks and shoulder.
Malhotra then allegedly attempted to kiss the waitress, who was identified as “NS” by the appeals court. He also poured cocaine on the woman’s neck, arms and upper chest and licked the drug from those areas, prosecutors had alleged.
Malhotra did not testify at the criminal trial. He later told a grievance committee that he considered the woman’s allegations to be “pretty silly,” and he had created an environment that made him an easy target.
