A Manhattan real estate and commercial litigation attorney has been suspended from practicing law for two years after not filing his personal income tax returns for five years and, for several of those years, keeping a large part of a $450,000 legal-fee settlement in his escrow account in order to shield the money from tax authorities, according to the Appellate Division, First Department.

The suspension of veteran lawyer Steven S. Sieratzki is also based on findings that, for eight years, he placed monthly family-trust payments that his then-girlfriend was receiving into his attorney escrow account while paying her household expenses from the account, amounting to an improper use of an escrow account as a personal one, wrote a unanimous First Department panel.

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