Jeffrey Bivens, Washougal’s former finance director and a licensed tax attorney, has filed a permanent resignation from the Washington State Bar Association in lieu of disbarment.
Accompanying the resignation was a $1,000 check to the state bar association to pay for expenses and costs.
The resignation, which was effective Thursday, is another result of Bivens’ October guilty plea to federal charges.
Bivens pleaded guilty to making materially false statements to the Small Business Administration and Wachovia Bank. He’s scheduled to be sentenced in May and faces five years in prison. Bivens also shares a portion of the $1.7 million loss associated with the bank and SBA loan.
Bivens represented the owner of a Longview-based disaster restoration company, Charles Prescott Restoration Inc., and assisted in the sale of the company in May 2007 and in obtaining a related loan. Bivens provided Wachovia Bank with an inaccurate sale price of the business. As a result, the bank agreed to a loan of $2 million, which was guaranteed by the SBA, to the purchaser, according to court documents.
Bivens failed to disclose information to the bank and SBA, and he helped engineer a secret second closing, which he and others concealed from the bank. The original business owner, Donald Chill, also inflated estimates and invoices to insurance companies.
Chill was sentenced to four years in prison for mail fraud, bank fraud and money laundering. Bivens and others were charged in federal court for making false statements to the bank and SBA.
The federal case, although the most severe, wasn’t the first time Bivens was reprimanded for dishonesty.
In August 2008, Bivens’ license to practice law was suspended for 18 months by the Washington State Supreme Court. The suspension was the result of Bivens charging unreasonable fees, conflicts of interest, failure to preserve the identity of clients’ property and dishonest conduct.
In May 2009, Bivens, who was serving on the Washougal City Council at the time, was hired as the city’s finance director. The city’s insurance refused to fully insure Bivens due to the law license suspension. The city council fired Bivens in December 2009 for failing to obtain insurance coverage.
Bivens and former Mayor Stacee Sellers were at the center of another controversy in 2009. The pair spent four days in Las Vegas in May 2009 and charged hundreds of dollars to city credit cards for meals that included steaks and Grey Goose vodka martinis.
Sellers and Bivens, who was in the process of being hired as finance director, traveled to Las Vegas to attend an International Council of Shopping Centers conference to try to attract businesses to Washougal.
The Las Vegas credit card charges and questions about $100,000 of city funds that remain unaccounted for were uncovered by the state auditor’s office in 2009.
The Clark County Sheriff’s Office opened a criminal investigation to try and determine what happened to the $100,000. That investigation is ongoing.
Marissa Harshman: 360-735-4546 or marissa.harshman@columbian.com.
