The 10th time’s the charm for a former felon who wanted to become a lawyer.
Neal Wiesner was admitted to the state bar yesterday — 22 years after doing time for attempted murder and running a prescription-drug mill, and 17 years after he passed the bar exam.
“In an earlier life, he violated the law,” a panel of state Appellate Division judges said of Wiesner, 57, who “has sufficiently shown that he possesses the requisite character and fitness for admission to the bar.”
It was the determined ex-con’s 10th try at getting added to the roll since 1995 — and he was stunned to find out he’s now officially a New York attorney, said his lawyer, Ariyike Diggs.
“He is in some disbelief that this might really be over after all these years . . . I told him he should believe it because it’s true!” Diggs said. “It’s a very emotional and unbelievable feeling that after all this time, the judges got it.”
Wiesner was 25 in 1980, when he began a “sleep clinic” business “which was actually an illegal enterprise for distribution of Quaaludes,” the decision said.
The scam ran for two years, allowing him “to lead a flamboyant lifestyle, including his own extensive drug use,” the ruling said.
“However, his life increasingly spiraled out of control and, as federal authorities closed in, he entered into despondent emotional state” that he took out on his ex-girlfriend, the ruling said.
He pressured the woman into meeting up with him, and then showed her he had a gun and threatened to kill her, court papers say. He kept her hostage in her apartment for seven hours before she was able to jump to freedom — out of her second-floor window.
The fall broke her heels, and the stoned Wiesner “fired five or six shots in her direction but did not hit her,” the ruling says.
A jury convicted him of attempted murder, and he was sentenced to 12 to 25 years in prison. He later pleaded guilty to federal drug charges, and was sentenced to time served — two years at that point.
The attempted-murder conviction was reversed on appeal, and he later pleaded guilty in return for a sentence of two to six years.
Wiesner spent a total of six years behind bars for both convictions — and the experience inspired him to want to become a lawyer, Diggs said.
Within four years of his release, he earned a college degree and a law degree from CUNY, and passed the bar. But when he applied to the bar, the Appellate Division turned him down, citing his criminal past.
He was shot down eight more times despite glowing references from judges and other lawyers. He won the right in 2005 to practice in New Jersey and in some federal courts, but Diggs said he always wanted to practice in New York, “where he was born and raised.”
“All he ever wanted to do was practice here,” Diggs said.