WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — A former attorney from Lackawanna County, disbarred amid allegations he lied to clients and forged signatures to hide his misdeeds, is now criminally charged.
James Conaboy, 52, will surrender Thursday at a district court in Luzerne County for arraignment on two counts each of misdemeanor forgery and records tampering. The state Attorney General's Office is prosecuting.
Authorities believe Conaboy misled clients in three cases and forged the signatures of Lackawanna County Judge Terrence Nealon and then Inspector General Bruce Beemer. Conaboy is now accused in charging documents of pocketing money meant for his clients.
Conaboy, who worked at Abrahamsen, Conaboy, and Abrahamsen in Scranton before he was disbarred last year, now works as a real estate broker.
Conaboy declined to comment when reached by phone Tuesday. His attorney, William Watt, also declined to comment.
A request for comment left with his former firm was not returned.
The case began with a lawsuit against Conaboy and his firm in August 2022 by Teresa and John Matheson, a Monroe County couple who turned to Conaboy to file a medical malpractice case in 2017.
The allegations contained in the civil case are now also part of the criminal charges.
According to charging documents, Conaboy lied to the Mathesons for years about the status of their case. In March 2022, he told them it settled for $700,000. He even produced a document purportedly signed by Nealon as confirmation. However, the case really had been dismissed in 2020 and Nealon never signed that document.
Conaboy came clean to the Mathesons in April 2022.
"On April 29, 2022, Teresa and John Matheson received a phone call from Conaboy telling them everything was a hoax and the court documents were fake," Special Agent Phillip Holbrook wrote in an affidavit.
In another medical malpractice case, Conaboy secured a $25,000 settlement in 2022 from an outpatient center in Lackawanna County and disbursed the funds to his client, James Moran. However, the claims against the doctor involved in the case moved forward.
Right before the start of trial, Conaboy led Moran to think the case settled for $50,000. In reality, it settled for zero.
For nearly a year, Conaboy made up excuses regarding why Moran had not been paid.
In February 2023, Moran called the firm because he saw his attorney had been removed from its website. He spoke with Conaboy's brother, who relayed Conaboy had a mental breakdown and broke the news Moran's case against a doctor ended without a payout.
In another case, Conaboy let a man named Paul Grace believe for years that he was entitled to a $517,000 settlement to be paid by the state of Pennsylvania. Grace worked in the Wilkes-Barre office of the state Department of Labor and Industry's Bureau of Disability and brought claims 2013 because of an alleged hostile work environment.
Conaboy had documents bearing Beemer's signature — a forgery, authorities charged — to try and explain why the money was not disbursed.
Grace learned the truth in March 2023, more than four years after a judge dismissed the case.
As for the case the Mathesons brought in 2022 that began the whole investigation, that settled at the end of last month, according to the case docket.
The settlement amount was not disclosed.
The Philadelphia attorney who represented the Mathesons, Jack Myerson, only could say, "it's been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties."