Jonathan Valentino's law license was suspended for at least six months this week by the Missouri Supreme Court after the former Armstrong Teasdale partner failed to file a suit on behalf of a client and instead kept up a yearslong ruse that the case was proceeding through the courts.

The never-filed case over a neighbor's allegedly encroaching residential property cost the client, St. Louis-area business owner Michael Greenblatt, some $662.50. The firm gave the money back after Valentino fessed up to fibbing. Valentino was also hit with a $1,000 fine in the Jan. 16 order by Missouri's top court.

“Cowardice. Probably cowardice, if l had to describe it in one word,” Valentino said when asked at a disciplinary hearing to explain why he lied over such a long period of time.

Alan Mandel, a St. Louis lawyer who represented Valentino in the disciplinary case, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Valentino self-reported the incident in 2016 to his former client, Greenblatt, as well as Armstrong Teasdale and the Missouri's Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel.

In December 2009, Greenblatt retained Armstrong Teasdale to file a case claiming that Greenblatt's neighbor had encroached on his residential property. Valentino, then an associate, was assigned the case from an Armstrong Teasdale partner. After discussing the situation with Greenblatt, Valentino suggested filing a suit to “eject” the neighbor's home improvements from Greenblatt's property, according to a Missouri disciplinary filing.

In February 2010, Valentino told Greenblatt that he had filed the suit that January.

“When I last checked, service has not yet been obtained,” Valentino wrote at the time.

That was just one of a series of false and increasingly creative statements that Valentino would make to Greenblatt over a five-year span.

Valentino told Greenblatt that a sheriff's office had failed to serve his neighbor with the suit. As a result, he told his client he had to hire a private process server. Valentino told Greenblatt of settlement discussions with opposing counsel. He discussed hearings with a judge; pressuring that judge to rule on a summary judgment motion; and a trial date being set.

He said Greenblatt had won a motion for summary judgment, but that the judgment was being appealed. All the while, a number of Greenblatt's inquiries to Valentino went unreturned.

All of these claims were lies, Valentino admitted, which were in furtherance of a simple mistake.

Valentino told a disciplinary hearing panel that the case was one of his smaller ones and he “just flat-out forgot” to file it after initially discussing the matter with Greenblatt. When Greenblatt called to ask about the case's progress, Valentino said he “freaked out” and told Greenblatt he had filed the case.

When called before the disciplinary hearing panel, Valentino said that he “kept thinking that at some point I would figure out something to do that would fix it. I didn't. And this went for, I think, five—a little over five years.”

Valentino was also afraid that he would “get canned” by Armstrong Teasdale after telling the firm about what he'd done. After a decade at the Am Law 200 firm, Valentino made partner in early 2015. In a little more than a year, he would be gone.

In a report suggesting at least a yearlong suspension, chief disciplinary counsel Alan Pratzel said that Valentino owed Greenblatt the “highest level of fidelity and honesty,” but instead “consciously chose to mislead” his client.

“He did so without a plausible explanation, other than his own 'cowardice' and a fear of termination of his employment,” Pratzel wrote.

The Missouri Supreme Court chose a lower suspension term than Pratzel suggested in part because Valentino had no other disciplinary track record, had self-reported the lying and was remorseful for his conduct.

Valentino was hired in 2016 as a partner at Clayton, Missouri-based Cofman Townsley, although the personal injury firm had taken down his biography page as of Friday. An email to Valentino at Cofman Townsley was not immediately returned by the time of this report, nor was a similar inquiry sent to Armstrong Teasdale.

Cofman Townsley partner Todd Nissenholtz testified in Valentino's disciplinary hearing that the former Armstrong Teasdale litigator discussed the Greenblatt case with him and other lawyers before joining the firm. Valentino “took full responsibility” for his failure to file the case, testified Nissenholtz, who himself is a former Armstrong Teasdale litigation partner.

Nissenholtz noted that Valentino had done “a fabulous job” as a lawyer at his new firm.

For its part, Greenblatt's suit was filed by a different attorney. But the businessman said his chances of winning have been slimmed by Valentino's delays. The litigation was filed after a 10-year period ran for a neighbor to claim adverse possession, according to Valentino's disciplinary hearing.

As for Armstrong Teasdale, the Valentino affair comes a few months after the firm parted ways with Stephen Wigginton, a former top federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Illinois who pleaded guilty last summer to driving under the influence of alcohol. In December, Wigginton re-emerged as a complex litigation partner at Simmons Hanly Conroy in the St. Louis suburb of Alton, Illinois.