Edgartown attorney Edward W. Vincent Jr. today was placed on two years administrative probation and ordered to perform 100 hours community service after he admitted to sufficient facts on two larceny over $250 charges.
Standing alongside his attorney in Edgartown district court, Mr. Vincent entered the plea on the two charges, which will be continued without a finding. He was also ordered to pay a $50 monthly probation fee and a $90 victim witness fee.
Two additional charges of fiduciary embezzlement were dismissed.
The cases involved about $190,000 owed to the Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for the sale of a building and more than $400,000 from another real estate transaction. Two civil lawsuits filed against Mr. Vincent were dismissed when the money was paid back earlier this year.
Edgartown district court Judge H. Gregory Williams noted that Mr. Vincent has “absolutely no criminal record,” but made a point of adding that he did not further public perception that lawyers are members of an “honorable profession.”
“This doesn’t help,” the judge said. “I don’t care if it’s one time, two times, a lifetime. It doesn’t matter.”
Robert Jubinville, Mr. Vincent’s lawyer, said that just as the criminal cases were filed earlier this year, Mr. Vincent was in the middle of negotiations in which “everybody has been made whole.”
He noted that Mr. Vincent is a lifelong resident of the Island and has a record of extensive public service. That includes membership on several town boards, the town’s representative to the MVTV board and elected member of the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank Commission.
“He has certainly suffered a great deal for his actions,” Mr. Jubinville said. “He admitted and takes responsibility for that episode.” Mr. Vincent’s license to practice law in Massachusetts was suspended earlier this year, but he hopes to eventually regain it, he said.
This article appears in November 4, 2011.
What will Mr. Vincent be doing to fulfill his 100 hours of public service?
Although no surprise, his sentence is still a travesty.
The message is clear; if you are a white collar criminal and get caught all you have to do is return what you stole, mumble an apology and mention the pain it has brought to your family.
I would prefer to see this man picking up trash on the side of the road with the sheriff’s van close behind. He belongs with the rest of the criminals, not planning how to regain his license to practice law.
Outrageous…What a web we weave when we …..
College kids serve more time for “Open Container” violation ” …. What a message this sends .. Awful simply awful….
If it is such an honorable profession, being an attorney, then why is it the only attorney you can trust is the one your paying?
The punishment does not fit the crime. The Prosecutors Office should never have allowed him to plead to “larceny over $250”. The amounts he stole were very substantial and constitute felonies which result in automatic disbarment not suspension. Who cares if everyone was made whole. This man is a criminal and after his suspension is lifted he will go back to practicing law and everyone will forget. a very bad lesson for the community. Shame on everyone who had their hand in this “fix”.
Lawyer’s are a top item lately in Edgartown, Mass.
100 of community service ? In Edgartown, Ma. or Palm Beach , Florida ? How does this really play out….
Unfairly !!!
This case questions everyone involved…Taking funds that don’t belong to you is stealing…Returning the funds cleans the slate ..I don’t think so.. This case really puts Lawyers in a bad light…The punishment doesn’t fit the crime ..The good old boy network … Who ever made this unfold the way it did with community service, and the possibility of reinstatement seems wrong….