No. BD-2015-114
S.J.C. Order of Term Suspension entered by Justice Spina on July 27, 2016. 1
SUMMARY2
Saba B. Hashem, the respondent, was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth on June 14, 1999. On December 29, 2015, he was temporarily suspended from the practice of law by the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County pending further proceedings in this matter. On July 27, 2016, he was suspended for eighteen months, retroactive to December 29, 2015, on a condition specified below, for the following misconduct.
On November 24, 2015, the respondent admitted to sufficient facts in the Haverhill District Court to one count of strangulation or suffocation in violation of G.L. c. 265, § 15D(b), and pleaded guilty to one count of assault and battery on a family/household member in violation of G.L. c. 265, § 13M(a). The first count was continued without a finding until November 24, 2017. On the second count, the respondent was sentenced to two and one-half years in a house of correction, with six months to be served (with 42 days of credit for time served) and the balance suspended until November 24, 2017, on various probationary terms.
The facts supporting the conviction involved an assault on a woman with whom the respondent had been in a dating relationship for two years. The respondent banged on the door of the woman’s apartment. When she opened the door, he picked her up by the shoulders, pushed her down a nearby stairway, choked her on the ground by placing his hands around her neck and spit in her face. After the woman got up and went back to her apartment, the respondent followed her, again choked her and bit her upper lip. A friend of the woman then screamed at the respondent to leave, at which point the respondent left the apartment.
The respondent’s criminal conduct violated Mass. R. Prof. C. 8.4(b) and (h).
After formal disciplinary proceedings were instituted, the parties filed with the Board of Bar Overseers a stipulation on July 6, 2016. The respondent admitted his misconduct as described above. The parties agreed that the respondent be suspended for eighteen months, retroactive to December 29, 2015, the date of temporary suspension, on condition that the respondent not be reinstated to the practice of law until the successful completion of his term of probation in the underlying criminal matter.
On July 11, 2016, the board voted unanimously to accept the stipulation of the parties and to recommend that the respondent be suspended for eighteen months on the condition stated in the stipulation. On July 27, 2016, the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County (Spina, J.) so ordered.
1 The complete Order of the Court is available by contacting the Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County.
2 Compiled by the Board of Bar Overseers based on the record filed with the Supreme Judicial Court.
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