Houston attorney Phil C. Nugent, admitted to the Louisiana State Bar 27 years ago, has agreed to an 18-month suspension, following a June 5 Louisiana Supreme Court disciplinary proceeding for allegedly falsely accusing a judge and his ex-wife of sleeping together.
The discipline follows a state bar office of disciplinary counsel investigation into the filings, according to the high court's single-page disciplinary proceeding. Nugent was alleged to have "filed two judicial complaints against a judge, as well as a petition for damages against the judge and [Nugent]’s former wife, and that none of these filings had a factual basis," the disciplinary proceeding said.
After formal charges were filed, Nugent and the office of disciplinary counsel submitted to the state high court a joint petition for consent discipline in which Nugent admitted to violating rules of professional conduct, according to the proceeding. Nugent also was ordered to pay costs.
Nugent was admitted to the bar in Louisiana on April 2, 1990, according to his profile at the Louisiana State Bar's website. He was listed as ineligible in September 2016 for failing to pay his bar and disciplinary dues and this past June for noncompliance with continuing legal education requirements, according to information on his state bar profile.
In July 2015, Nugent filed a civil suit claiming a New Orleans municipal judge, in whose court he faced domestic battery charges, had been sleeping with his wife, according to a media report at the time.
The petition for consent discipline was not Nugent's first. In March 2015, the state supreme court accepted a joint petition for consent discipline submitted by Nugent and the office of disciplinary counsel, according to a disciplinary proceeding handed down by the high court that same month. That state court filing followed Nugent's conviction in May 2014 of domestic abuse battery, according to the March 2015 disciplinary proceeding.