The Supreme Court of Ohio today permanently disbarred a Gallia County attorney who was convicted of theft after stealing more than $225,000 from an estate he administered.

Nathan Harvey was a legal assistant attending law school when attorney Britt Wiseman arranged for Harvey to serve as the administrator of an estate. Shortly after opening a bank account for the estate, Harvey immediately began stealing from it. Wiseman later discovered the theft and reported Harvey’s actions to disciplinary authorities.

Harvey, who served as a full-time and auxiliary deputy sheriff at the Gallia County Sheriff’s Office before going to work for Wiseman, pleaded guilty to theft by deception in July 2024. At the time, he had been admitted to practice law for about two years. The Board of Professional Conduct found Harvey violated several ethical rules and recommended he be indefinitely suspended.

Writing for the Supreme Court majority, Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy stated that Harvey’s case is a first for Ohio, “and a disturbing case of first impression it is: a law student who put into action a theft scheme to misappropriate client funds for two years and eight months and did not get caught until” after he was certified as a legal intern and admitted to practice law.

Chief Justice Kennedy noted that Harvey received 60 months of community control and no jail time for his crimes. Disbarment is the presumed sanction for an attorney who steals client funds, and the Court found that the lesser sanction of an indefinite suspension was not warranted, she wrote.

Justices Patrick F. Fischer, Joseph T. Deters, Daniel R. Hawkins, and Megan E. Shanahan joined Chief Justice Kennedy’s opinion. Third District Court of Appeals Judge Mark C. Miller, sitting for Justice Jennifer Brunner, also joined the opinion.

Justice R. Patrick DeWine wrote that he would adopt the board’s recommendation of an indefinite suspension with reinstatement conditions.

Administrator Steals From Estate Account
Wiseman said he hired Harvey as an investigator after knowing him for about 12 years. Harvey was a deputy sheriff from 2005 to 2015, then worked as an auxiliary deputy in the office’s training program. For 10 years before joining Wiseman, Harvey also worked as an instructor at the Buckeye Hills Career Center, a joint vocational school serving Gallia, Jackson, and Vinton counties. He began studying law at Syracuse University College of Law in 2019.

In March 2020, Jason Sheppard Jr. died, and Sheppard’s neighbor was his emergency guardian. The neighbor asked Wiseman to handle Sheppard’s estate.

Harvey signed a fiduciary acceptance document, committing to keeping all estate funds in a separate account and obtaining court approval before making any personal purchases or attorney fee payments. The estate received probate court approval in July 2020, with Harvey acting as the estate administrator and Wiseman as the estate attorney.

Harvey opened a checking account for the Sheppard estate in August 2020 and began depositing funds. Five days after depositing $230,022 into the estate account, Harvey immediately began stealing by using the estate funds to auto pay his personal utility bills.

As part of the process to become an attorney, Harvey completed a National Conference of Bar Examiners application, which asked questions about whether he breached any fiduciary obligations or violated workplace conduct rules. He wrote that he was investigated for workplace misconduct at Buckeye Hills but did not disclose that he stole from the estate.

Theft From Account Escalates
While Harvey’s initial thefts from the account stemmed from monthly autopayments for his utility bills, in March 2021 he began writing checks from the estate account to himself. In the memo fields, he wrote “atty fee,” “executor fee,” or “fiduciary fee,” but none of the fees were earned for work on the estate nor approved by the probate court.

While serving as a legal assistant at the Wiseman firm, Harvey registered with the Supreme Court to work as a legal intern for Wiseman. Registration requires an intern to be bound by the same rules governing the professional conduct of Ohio attorneys. Shortly after being approved as an intern, he responded to another questionnaire as part of the process to take the bar exam. The form asked if he breached a fiduciary obligation or violated a workplace conduct rule in the past five years. He answered “No.”

Harvey continued writing checks to himself after graduating from law school and passing the bar in July 2022. In April 2023, he accepted a job as an assistant prosecutor for the city of Delaware. In preparation for Harvey’s departure, Wiseman reviewed the Sheppard estate and emailed Harvey about the 2023 checks. Wiseman wrote that he assumed the checks “were made in error,” and told Harvey the funds had to be returned immediately.

Harvey replied that he would correct the situation. Wiseman indicated that Harvey had written checks totaling more than $195,000 to himself. Harvey responded that he would soon have $300,000 from the sale of his house and would correct the matter.

Wiseman fired him that day. The next day, Wiseman could not locate the file for the Sheppard estate and discovered that Harvey had removed the file from the law office and put it in the garage of his home.

When confronted by Wiseman, Harvey admitted to taking the file and stealing from the estate. Wiseman reported Harvey to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel. In his response to the disciplinary counsel, Harvey did not indicate that he withdrew more than $22,570 from the account to pay utilities.

A criminal investigation revealed that Harvey had written 32 checks totaling $203,260 from the estate and made 53 autopayments for utilities, leading to more than $225,000 missing from the account.

After conferring with the disciplinary counsel, Harvey gave Wiseman a check for $203,260. The money came from Harvey’s father. He told investigators he assumed the $203,620 covered both the checks and the utility payments. An insurance policy reimbursed the estate for $22,570 for the amount stolen to pay Harvey’s utilities.

Attorney Points to Marriage, Depression as Cause for Theft
Harvey was sentenced to community control in September 2024, and the Court imposed an interim felony suspension. The Court issued an order instructing him on the duties he must undertake as a suspended lawyer, but he did not comply. The Court found him in contempt in December 2024, and he remained in contempt until his disbarment today.

At his disciplinary hearing, Harvey stated that his income drastically decreased when he went to law school and that he used student loans to supplement his family’s income. He said his wife was employed but did not disclose her salary. He said he began using the estate funds to try to maintain the same lifestyle his family had before law school.

He told the disciplinary hearing panel that his marriage was “rough” and that he feared that asking his wife to spend less money would lead to a breakup. The couple divorced in January 2024. He also told the panel he was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and PTSD. He said the depression started early in life and the PTSD was triggered by several experiences as a deputy.

The disciplinary counsel and Harvey stipulated, and the board agreed, that he violated five rules, including committing an illegal act that reflects on his honesty and trustworthiness and engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.

In considering a sanction, the Court noted that Harvey’s acts were uncovered after he made false statements and omitted key information when applying to become a legal intern and lawyer and after passing the bar. It also found that he did not make full restitution to the estate, knowing that the amount he paid covered only the checks he wrote, not the utility payments.

Harvey committed 85 individual acts of theft between the utility withdrawals and the checks and received a lenient sentence for a third-degree felony conviction, the opinion stated. When asked about the reason for stealing the money, Harvey attributed it to his marriage and did not prove any link between a mental disorder and his criminal behavior.

In addition to disbarring Harvey, the Court ordered him to pay the costs of the disciplinary proceedings.

2025-0207. Disciplinary Counsel v. Harvey, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-2047.

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