16 former clients will share $29,000 in compensation

By JEFF ORTEGA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- Sixteen former clients of former Atty. Mark S. Colucci will divvy up about $29,000 given them by the state to atone for Colucci's failure to provide legal services or account for client funds.
Colucci was convicted on federal tax charges last year.
The $28,950 released recently to the clients came from the Board of Commissioners of the Clients' Security Fund of Ohio, which is funded partially from attorney registration fees to help victims of attorney theft, Ohio Supreme Court officials said.
Janet Marbley, administrator for the Client's Security Fund, refused to name the clients allegedly bilked by Colucci, claiming that individual clients would have to grant permission.
Colucci, who resigned his law license last year amid a pending disciplinary investigation, pleaded guilty in a federal court to failing to withhold $29,727 in employee taxes from 1996 to 2001 and to pay $291,149 in personal income taxes from 1997 to 2001.
According to news reports, Colucci also figured in the corruption trial of disgraced former U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant, Jr.
Colucci was suspended from practicing law by the state's highest court last July while court investigators probed claims that Colucci had skipped a Youngstown court appearance in 2002 to speak with reporters in Cleveland about Traficant's eight-year sentence.
According to news reports, the bar association in Youngstown had complained that Colucci advised Traficant, who had represented himself at trial despite not being a lawyer.