David Smerling, the Lexington attorney already serving a nine-year federal prison sentence for embezzling more than $3.5 million from corporate clients and his own vulnerable relatives, has now been disbarred in New York. The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department granted a motion to disbar Smerling on October 1, stripping him of the law license he had held in the state since 1976.
The disbarment came as reciprocal discipline following Smerling's resignation from the Massachusetts bar, according to the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division. The court cited Judiciary Law § 90(2) and 22 NYCRR 1240.13, pointing to established precedent that intentional conversion of client or fiduciary funds warrants mandatory disbarment absent extraordinary mitigating factors. New York automatically retained jurisdiction over Smerling because he had been admitted to practice in the First Judicial Department back in March 1976, per the same court filing. As first reported by ALABnews, the disciplinary case is titled In the Matter of David Smerling and carries case number 2026-02388.
Three Schemes, One Decades-Long Career Unraveled
Smerling was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1975 and, according to Dhar Law LLP, maintained an unblemished public disciplinary record for 50 years before his 2025 federal indictment and subsequent resignation from the bar. That clean record masked what prosecutors say was nearly a decade of theft. The Department of Justice detailed that Smerling's fraud encompassed three distinct schemes totaling over $3.5 million: embezzling $2.8 million from three corporate clients while acting as their bookkeeper between 2016 and 2020, stealing $475,000 from a special needs family trust between 2020 and 2021, and diverting nearly $200,000 from a relative with dementia.
Court filings showed the victims were not strangers. Smerling's targets included corporate clients and relatives, including people with special needs or dementia. He abused both his corporate bookkeeping role and family fiduciary appointments, including powers of attorney and trusteeships, to gain access to the funds.
Hiding the Theft With Fake Payments and Changed Passwords
To conceal the theft of $475,000 from the special needs trust, Smerling funneled the stolen money into bank accounts held in his wife's name and sent small, periodic “lulling payments” to the beneficiary so they would not realize the trust had been emptied, the Justice Department said. In a separate scheme, after a corporate victim discovered in April 2020 that Smerling had transferred $350,000 to himself without authorization and forced him to return the funds, he changed the company's online banking passwords and transferred the same $350,000 to himself a second time, federal prosecutors said.
Smerling was first arrested in January 2025. His pretrial release was later revoked by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jennifer C. Boal after federal prosecutors demonstrated he continued stealing from his relative with dementia even after that initial arrest, transferring an extra $29,000 to himself, according to court filings reviewed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. His release conditions barred violations of law and access-providing occupations, and required him to transition management of the relative's finances; his failure to do so triggered the detention order.
Guilty Plea, Nine-Year Sentence and Millions in Restitution
Smerling pleaded guilty in June 2025 to four counts of wire fraud, two counts of money laundering, and one count of aggravated identity theft in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. On October 8, 2025, Judge Richard G. Stearns sentenced him to nine years in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and $3,534,316 in restitution, the Justice Department announced. Court documents also revealed that when confronted about unauthorized bank transfers during the investigation, Smerling offered investigators and business associates various excuses, including personal financial losses from a failed investment and what he described as an addiction to prostitutes, Dhar Law LLP reported.
Smerling did not substantively oppose the New York disbarment motion, instead asking to resign rather than be disbarred outright. The court declined, noting it gives significant weight to the sanction already imposed by Massachusetts and found no extraordinary mitigating circumstances in the record. He is now barred from practicing law or presenting himself as an attorney and must follow the rules governing disbarred attorneys in New York.
A Path to Recovery for Victims, With Limits
For New Yorkers harmed by attorney dishonesty or embezzlement, the Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection can reimburse losses up to $450,000 per claim, funded through attorney registration fees rather than taxpayer money, according to the Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection of the State of New York. Restitution is also one source of the Fund's revenue. Whether any of Smerling's victims have filed claims with that fund, or with its Massachusetts counterpart, remains unclear, as does how much of his $3,534,316 restitution order can realistically be recovered given his nine-year prison term.
Hoodline previously reported on Smerling's January 2025 charge and his federal indictment that month. The New York disbarment closes out the professional consequences of a case that began with a single corporate embezzlement complaint and grew to encompass members of his own family.
