Surely, the courts of this country would agree that this freedom exists, however, this court concluded ''that respondent [Aretakis] has repeatedly crossed the line separating zealous advocacy from professional misconduct'' and that in order to ''protect the public, deter similar misconduct, and preserve the reputation of the bar, respondent should be suspended from practice for a period of one year.''
Two specific charges against Aretakis were upheld in this sanction. The first was a general charge that, among other things, he ''engaged in frivolous conduct by making false accusations against judges'' and ''knowingly made false statements of law and fact.'' Surely these things do not fall under what Aretakis claims as his freedom of speech and rights to criticize when he believes there is wrongdoing. You cannot just accuse someone of something because you have hard feelings towards them, especially with no foundation for your accusations.
All of these charges are purportedly based on sanctions from four other courts which Aretakis has received in the past three years. In 2005, Aretakis was found in contempt of court and fined for ''reckless and unsubstantiated charges.'' In two separate rulings from 2007 and 2008, Judge Gary L. Sharpe fined Aretakis more than $16,000 for ''launching a protracted attack on the diocese and its handling of sexual misconduct accusations against priests.'' In yet another sex abuse case involving a priest, Judge Paul A. Crotty fined Aretakis $8,000 for ''sloppy and unprofessional'' conduct in 2007 when Aretakis tried to show, unsuccessfully, that two dioceses had engaged in racketeering. Finally, in December 2007, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich fined Aretakis $5,000 for his assertions that she claimed were baseless and whose only purpose was to harass the defendants.
Though there are many that feel Aretakis is deserving of such sanctions and criticism, many look to him as a hero. His first case involving a victim of clergy sexual abuse came in 1996, when a high school acquaintance called him with the story, telling him no lawyer would take on the case. Aretakis said this is when his undergraduate major in psychology from Ithaca College ''came into play. I became a hand-holder. I became a therapist. I became the person to tell the deepest and darkest secrets to.''
Aretakis definitely deserves the credit for being willing to take on such a formidable opponent, if nothing else. This was before the scandal broke out of the Catholic Church struggling to cover up cases of clergy sexual abuse. Now Aretakis has taken on many of these cases single handedly (though Aretakis worked briefly for the law firm of Maynard O'Connor and Smith in Albany, he has been self-employed for many years). Aretakis was able to get a settlement for his first client of nearly $900,000.
Curtis Oathout, one of Aretakis's clients, says of Aretakis, ''He's a hero to us, to the victims. This man has taken up a cause that could probably hurt him but he has done it for the right reasons—to help victims get their lives together.'' It is unclear what will happen to Aretakis's clients during his one year suspension.
