A once-prominent Arlington lawyer was stripped of his law license Thursday, nearly a year after he pleaded guilty to charges that he tried to lure a child for sex over the Internet.
In a one-page opinion, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals ordered Ronald M. Cohen disbarred. The action comes nearly a year after Cohen went into Arlington County court and pleaded guilty to Internet solicitation and attempted indecent liberties with a minor.
Virginia disbarred Cohen late last year.
Authorities accused Cohen, 58, of McLean, of having graphic online chats with someone he thought was a little girl but was in fact an officer of the Northern Virginia child sex task force. Cohen was arrested on his way to meet the “girl.”
He had been a director of the Arlington County Bar Association and Arlington’s Kiwanis board.
Cohen couldn’t be reached for comment.
He wasn’t the only lawyer disbarred by the panel Thursday. In a separate action, the Court of Appeals ordered Leslie W. Lickstein disbarred after he was sent to prison on bank fraud charges.
Lickstein admitted in federal court in Virginia that he doctored loan and property records to help his clients finalize the sale of a nearly $6 million home in Great Falls. Lickstein told lenders at Lehman Brothers Bank that another company was providing secondary financing for the deal; in fact, the secondary financing was coming from the home’s seller.
When the buyer defaulted on the loan, Lehman Brothers foreclosed. The bank lost $1.1 million on the sale.
Lickstein had been the first president of the Northern Virginia Bankruptcy Bar Association, but his D.C. Bar record shows a checkered past, with an informal admonishment in 2000 and a five-year suspension in 2005 after ethics enforcers found “a pattern of dishonest and deceitful conduct” in Virginia bankruptcy court.
He could not be reached for comment Thursday, either.
