STATEMENT OF CHARGES PURSUANT
TO SUPREME COURT RULE 762(a)

Jerome Larkin, Administrator of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, by his attorney, James A. Doppke, Jr., pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 762(a), states that, on the date Joseph Anthony Cari, Jr. filed a motion requesting that his name be stricken from the Roll of Attorneys, an investigation was pending before the Administrator alleging that Movant engaged in the following misconduct. If the cause proceeded to hearing, the evidence set forth below would establish clearly and convincingly the misconduct described below:

Records of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in United States of America v. Levine, et al., no. 05 CR 691, would establish that:

1. On August 3, 2005, Movant was charged in an indictment, issued by the United States Attorney in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. United States of America v. Levine, et al., no. 05 CR 691. Count 11 of the indictment charged that in the spring of 2004, Movant attempted to commit extortion, a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1951, by assisting Stuart P. Levine ("Levine") in an effort to coerce officials of an investment firm to make payments to a third party. Levine was an Illinois attorney at the time of the events

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described in the indictment, but he has since been removed from the Master Roll of Attorneys for failure to register with the Commission.

2. Specifically, the indictment charged that Levine was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System ("TRS") who had participated in devising a scheme in which he would assist investment firms that sought to invest funds belonging to TRS. As part of the scheme, Levine agreed to assist in obtaining TRS Board approval of the investment firms’ requests to invest TRS funds, conditioned on the firms’ agreement to make payments to third parties designated by Levine. Movant assisted Levine in furtherance of that scheme with respect to an investment firm referred to in the indictment as Investment Firm 4 ("Firm 4").

3. The indictment further charged that when Firm 4 sought to obtain $85,000,000 in TRS funds for investment purposes, Levine, with Movant’s assistance, demanded that Firm 4 pay approximately $850,000 to a person whom Levine identified to Firm 4 as a consultant ("the consultant"). Movant believed that upon receipt of the payment, the consultant would make political or charitable contributions as directed by Levine or his business or political associates.

4. The indictment further charged that on several occasions during May 2004, Movant, at Levine’s direction, told representatives of Firm 4 that if they did not sign a contract in which they agreed to pay the consultant, Firm 4’s request to handle the investment of TRS funds would be removed from the agenda for the May 2004 meeting of the TRS Board of Trustees, and it would therefore not receive approval to invest funds belonging to TRS.

5. The indictment further charged that on or about May 20, 2004, Movant, at Levine’s direction, made a series of telephone calls to representatives of Firm 4. In those telephone calls, Movant said that if Firm 4 wanted to obtain any investment business from TRS,

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it had to hire the consultant, and that if Firm 4 did not execute the contract with the consultant by the end of business that day, its request for TRS business would be removed from the TRS agenda. The indictment charged that Movant said that this was how things were done in Illinois.

6. On September 15, 2005, Movant entered a plea of guilty in case number 05 CR 691 before the Honorable Amy St. Eve to the offense of attempted extortion, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1951. In his plea agreement, Movant admitted that he engaged in the conduct described in paragraphs two through five, above.

7. In the plea agreement, Movant also admitted that during one of his May 20, 2004 telephone calls to Firm 4, he told a Firm 4 secretary that Firm 4 would not receive TRS business, and that she herself would lose her job, if a Firm 4 executive did not call him back within an hour. Movant further admitted that in a subsequent May 20, 2004 telephone conversation with two Firm 4 attorneys in which the attorneys objected to Movant’s demand that Firm 4 pay the consultant, Movant said that all parties to the call were lawyers, and that the Firm 4 attorneys should do whatever they needed to do to advise their client. Further, in that same conversation, after the Firm 4 attorneys told Movant that the consultant had not performed services for Firm 4, Movant did not retract any of his earlier statements or advise the Firm 4 attorneys that Firm 4 did not need to sign the consulting agreement.

8. In the plea agreement, Movant also admitted that at the time he made each of his telephone calls to Firm 4, he believed that Firm 4 would be economically harmed if it did not pay the consultant as directed by Movant and Levine, and that Levine would continue to use his position on the TRS Board of Trustees in order to carry out Movant’s threat that Firm 4 would be denied access to TRS funds.

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9. On September 15, 2005, Judge St. Eve accepted Movant’s plea in case number 05 CR 691. A date for Movant’s sentencing has not yet been scheduled.

10. As a result of the conduct described above, Movant has engaged in the following misconduct:

1. committing criminal acts that reflect adversely on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects in violation of Rule 8.4(a)(3) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct;

2. conduct which is prejudicial to the administration of justice in violation of Rule 8.4(a)(5) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct; and

3. conduct which tends to defeat the administration of justice or to bring the courts or the legal profession into disrepute in violation of Supreme Court Rule 770.