Lawyer who traded sex for office supplies has law license suspended



Reema Bajaj, 27, has agreed to have her law license suspended after facing a disciplinary board

Bajaj pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of prostitution last year

The disciplinary board accused Bajaj of lying in her bar application and not disclosing her 'work' as a prostitute

An Illinois attorney who pleaded guilty to prostitution in 2012 has agreed to have her law license suspended for three years after facing a disciplinary hearing.



Reema Bajaj, 27, faced an Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC) board accused of lying to the board about her work as a prostitute.



The ARDC complaint filed in June accuses Bajaj, a Northern Illinois University graduate, of criminal conduct and making false statements in both a disciplinary matter and on her bar application by not disclosing her 'employment' as a call girl.

Suspension: Reema Bajaj, who had sex in exchange for office supplies for her legal practice, has agreed to have her law license suspended for three years

The complaint against Bajaj was threefold: Criminal conduct for her prostitution conviction; making false statements in connection with at an earlier disciplinary hearing into the matter; and making false statements on a bar application.

The ARDC accuses Bajaj of 'committing a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects,' as well as 'conduct which tends to defeat the administration of justice or to bring the courts or the legal profession into disrepute.'



The complaint details the charges filed against Bajaj in DeKalb County in 2011 in her prostitution case.



Between 2005 and 2008, Bajaj posted online advertisements as 'Nikita' on sites such as Adult Friend Finder, according the complaint.



Potential: Bajaj had just been admitted to the bar and opened her own law firm when allegations of prostitution emerged

Closed: Bajaj dissolved her law firm last month and is now suing her former lawyer for damages

Bajaj, who was admitted to the bar in 2010, accepted money from two men in exchange for sex, according to the complaint.



The first man paid her $100 per meeting for about 25 encounters over three years.

Barred: Bajaj won't be allowed to practice law for three years

The second man paid her between $25 and $70 in cash or an equivalent amount in DVDs or gift cards for sex on at least 15 occasions between 2007 and 2011.

According to the complaint, in 2011 she received $70 worth of office supplies from the second man for her recently-established legal practice in Sycamore in exchange for a sex act.

The ARDC complaint states that when Reema Bajaj testified before the Commission in September of last year, she denied ever receiving money for sex under oath - despite having pleaded guilty in the criminal case earlier that year.



The Commission's other complaints allege that Bajaj failed to disclose her pseudonym, Nikita, and that she had worked as a prostitute on her application for a law license.



Last month, Bajaj dissolved her law practice and filed a suit against her former defense lawyer, Timothy Johnson, and DeKalb County State's Attorney Clay Campbell for allegedly showing other attorneys nude photographs of her they had access to through the criminal investigation.

Out of practice: It is unclear what Reema Bajaj will pursue during the years she is likely to be banned from working as an attorney

Bajaj is seeking more than $50,000 in damages for 'extreme anger, grief, embarrassment, and humiliation,' according th e the Daily Chronicle .

She also claims an unnamed prosecutor shared newspaper articles about her arrest with other attorneys and that prospective clients, jurors and judges have seen the embarrassing pictures.



Bajaj's agreement to have her law license suspended for three years will go before another disciplinary board panel later this month, according to t he Chicago Tribune .