The bi-polar, heroin-using son of a prominent Albany lawyer walked into a Manhattan courtroom at least three times last year, facing judges and representing a paying client despite having no law degree, according to the charges in a bizarre attorney-imposter case.
Terence Kindlon, 42, just wants to be a real attorney, his defense lawyer argued today. Unfortunately, “He does not know at times when he is taking over another character,” said the lawyer, Stacey Richman. “Sadly, he is an extremely intelligent person.”
Making the case still more strange is that Kindlon is the defendant in two open burglary felonies in the same Centre Street courthouse.
The mentally-troubled Kindlon most recently played criminal lawyer on Nov. 29 in Manhattan Criminal Court, prosecutors say. Court records show he returned there the very next day, Nov. 30, to face another judge upstairs as a defendant in his two felony burglary cases, one charging he stole a bicycle and another charging he stole a motorcycle.
“The defendant has shown the utmost contempt of the courts — pretending to be a lawyer in the same courthouse where he has two open cases,” the Manhattan DA’s public integrity unit chief, Daniel Cort, said at Kindlon’s arraignment today.
Kindlon didn’t stop there, additionally holding himself out as a lawyer to a small landscaping business in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island, prosecutors say — sticking to his “I’m a lawyer” story even as cops questioned him there two weeks ago.
“I am the in-house counsel for Rocco’s Landscaping,” Kindlon asserted, according to police statements released today.
Kindlon, who prosecutors described as an apparent heroin user, never saw the criminal case — described only as involving a misdemeanor mischief charge — through to disposition, and allegedly did even less work for Rocco’s Landscaping.
“He left those people high and dry… while representing them on six civil cases,” Cort said. “He took [their] money and never came to court.”
Kindlon “lawyered” using the name of an actual Manhattan attorney, James David O’Brien, and the ruse was exposed when prosecutors in the misdemeanor case reached the real O’Brien by telephone, prosecutors said. O’Brien did not immediately return calls seeking comment yesterday.
The eldest of seven siblings, Kindlon attended the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan twenty years ago, passed the New York State Bar Exam within the past year and has worked as a paralegal, his father, also named Terence Kindlon, told The Post.
“I’m going to be upfront about this — he has severe emotional problems,” said the dad, a respected, 35-year veteran of the bar and founding member of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
“The DA nows that they are shooting fish in a barrel here — but it’s their barrel. Unfortunately, it’s also my fish,” he said, giving a small, grim laugh.
“It’s a very upsetting situation,” the dad said. “But there’s a very powerful explanation for why this took place.”
Manhattan Criminal Court Justice Richard Carruthers set Kindlon’s bail at a whopping $300,000 bond or $150,000 cash.