Buffalo hires lawyer convicted of filing false documents with IRS

Lisa M. Yaeger pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors in September 2014 and admitted to failing to report substantial income from her private practice for 2005, 2006 and 2007.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara sentenced Yaeger to prison and six months of supervised release after the U.S. Attorney’s Office informed him that she had paid off her $22,905 tax debt in full.

His license to practice law was suspended by New York in 2013 and reinstated in 2015.

Yaeger was hired May 20 as an assistant corporation counsel, earning $119,480, by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown’s administration, according to documents filed with the Common Council last week by the corporation’s attorney. firm Cavette Chambers, the city’s leading lawyer.

Chambers said Yaeger’s above-minimum-wage appointment was “based on more than 30 years of extensive legal experience.”

The Brown administration defended Yaeger’s hiring.

“This situation, which grew out of a very ugly and public divorce, occurred more than 10 years ago and has been resolved,” Brown spokesman Michael J. DeGeorge said. “She paid restitution in full immediately before sentencing and served her suspension. Subsequently, Ms. Yaeger worked at various levels of government, including several years at state level. She was hired for this position because she has more than 30 years of legal experience as a trial lawyer as well as extensive government experience.

Neither Yaeger nor Chambers responded to requests for comment.

Yaeger is also politically connected. On her Facebook page, she posted a fundraiser this month for the re-election of Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples Stokes.

Yaeger donated a total of $5,760 to Brown for Buffalo and Mayor Brown’s Leadership Council between 2005 and 2022. She contributed $600 to Friends of Leah Halton-Pope in 2023 for Halton-Pope’s successful bid Pope to the Buffalo Common Council.

She donated $200 to the Friends of Christopher P. Scanlon from 2017 to 2020. Scanlon, who has served on the Council for 12 years, was elected Council president by his colleagues in January.

In total, Yaeger has donated $11,078 since 2005 to New York state political committees, with almost all of it going to Buffalo-area Democrats.

She also served as legal counsel to then-state Sen. Antoine Thompson, who in 2014 wrote a letter to Judge Arcara asking for leniency for Yaeger before his sentencing.

“Ms. Yaeger’s leadership while serving as a counselor in the New York State Senate was essential in helping enact major legislation allowing bottled water buybacks in stores and creating green jobs in the ‘State,” Thompson wrote.

Clearly, Yaeger was a competent and diligent attorney, but she had errors in judgment related to the reporting of certain cash payments, according to the sentencing memorandum signed by U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy and Assistant U.S. Attorney Gretchen L .Wylegala.

As an attorney, Yaeger occasionally requested payment in cash, the document states. She deposited large checks, but only reported the income if she received a 1099, even though her accountant always asked her about the income. When she “rushed” to her accountant to amend the 2007 return following an ethics complaint, she had the option to amend previous years, but she did not do so , wrote Kennedy and Wylegala.

“Yaeger’s actions do not reflect the qualities we encourage in the legal profession. Yaeger’s actions demonstrate no respect for the law,” prosecutors wrote in asking Arcara to sentence her to 6 to 12 months in prison.