The Louisiana Supreme Court this week barred New Orleans attorney Nicole Burdett from practicing law in the state for two years as a result of her conviction last year on federal charges of filing falsified tax returns.
Burdett, a former law partner of Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams, was tried alongside Williams, who was acquitted on tax fraud charges of his own.
Burdett may not remain out of the legal profession for much longer. The court made her two-year suspension retroactive to last September, when it temporarily suspended her law license in the wake of her conviction.
A jury found Burdett guilty of four counts of falsifying her tax returns after a trial in which it acquitted she and Williams of charges from a 10-count indictment alleging they had conspired to fudge Williams' tax returns, to the tune of more than $700,000 in bogus write-offs over five years.
Williams and Burdett blamed tax preparer Henry Timothy for inflating those deductions on his own, and a jury acquitted the pair on all charges related to his returns.
Prosecutors, however, also said Burdett inflated her business expenses over four years, saving her about $130,000 in owed taxes. The same jury agreed, and in November, U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk sentenced Burdett to five years of probation.
"I hope one day to get back to the practice of law," Burdett said at her sentencing hearing. "I miss it dearly."