Four weeks before Kevin Reddington picked a jury in the Lindsay Clancy case, the Office of Bar Counsel filed a petition for discipline against him with the Board of Bar Overseers. It is dated June 23, 2026, carries four counts, and names two former clients: Jasiel Correia, the former Fall River mayor Reddington defended at his 2021 federal corruption trial, and Jose Polanco, a state prisoner who paid him $25,000 in 2017 for a post-conviction motion. The other two counts concern how Reddington ran his client trust account over eight years.
The petition became public this week through reporting by Aguayo News on September 9 and the Fall River Reporter on September 11. We were not able to retrieve the petition itself from the board’s public site, and what follows is the two outlets’ account of it, which agree with each other on every material point. Reddington has denied the allegations. Nothing in a petition for discipline has been proved, and the process that decides whether any of it is true is described in our companion explainer.
Count four: the Correia fee
The count that drew the coverage is the last one. Correia hired Reddington in May 2018 after his indictment on investor fraud charges arising from SnoOwl, the app company he founded before becoming mayor. According to the petition, the fee was a $150,000 flat fee plus expenses, agreed orally, with no written fee agreement. By March 2021, Correia had paid more than $115,000.
The trial was set for April 2021. On March 31, according to the petition and to text messages Correia himself released in 2024, Reddington told him: “I am really pissed off. You better figure out at least how much you can get us.” And: “Do NOT tell Me You are all broke. They can all enjoy Visiting you in Leavenworth for the next thirty years.” In the 2024 texts, Reddington wrote, “Get it from wherever. We will negotiate an agreement where I will get a percentage of snoowl. Like 20%. Then we go to war,” and, “I cannot try this case for a month with a month preparation for no compensation.” Correia replied that he was “drained” and “maxed out.” He paid $7,700 during the trial. He was convicted, sentenced to 72 months, and Reddington withdrew after sentencing.
Reddington’s answer, as reported this week: “He’s a liar,” and, “by the way, 20% of nothing is nothing.” In 2024 he told the Herald News the case had changed underneath him. He took it as a contained investor-fraud matter at a set fee, and a superseding indictment turned it into a public-corruption prosecution over extortion of marijuana vendors, requiring a renegotiated fee. He has said he received far less than the numbers Correia cites. We take up whether a lawyer may do what he is accused of doing, and what his defense would have to show, in the Correia texts and Rule 1.5.
Correia’s own claims have a history. He raised the same allegations in May 2024 in a motion for compassionate release that argued ineffective assistance; the court said a sentence-reduction motion “is not the forum for litigating ineffective counsel claims” and denied it. He lost his direct appeal in the First Circuit. He was released from federal custody on July 11, 2026 after serving his term with good-time credit, works as a marketing manager at a Fall River restaurant, and is paying $170 a month against more than $306,000 in restitution.
Count three: Jose Polanco
The second named client is a prisoner who, according to the petition, paid Reddington a $25,000 flat fee in late 2017 to file a motion for a new trial. The petition alleges that Reddington never visited him in the six years that followed, despite repeated promises to come “next week” or “shortly,” that a 2019 letter told Polanco an appearance had been filed “a year ago” when in fact none was filed until May 2020, that a promised expert was never retained, and that the motion eventually filed had no case citations, a blank paragraph, a missing exhibit, and unsigned affidavits.
If proved, that is a diligence and communication case, and it is the kind of count that tends to matter more to a hearing committee than a fee dispute with a convicted former mayor, because the client had no leverage and no other lawyer.
Counts one and two: the trust account
The petition alleges that in 2019 Reddington received $18,000 from a client, took $15,000 as a flat fee, and held $3,000 in trust for a forensic evaluation, then used that $3,000 to pay another lawyer for work on a different client’s case, in two payments in August and November. The Fall River Reporter’s account is that the other client was Correia.
The first count is broader: that from 2017 through 2025 Reddington kept personal funds in his IOLTA account, failed to withdraw earned fees promptly, performed no reconciliations, kept no individual client ledgers and no bank-fee ledger, and did not meet the three-way reconciliation requirement of Rule 1.15. Those are record-keeping allegations. In a case decided in May 2025, the Supreme Judicial Court imposed private admonitions on two lawyers whose firm ran deficient reconciliations for years and let more than $100,000 in client funds sit undistributed, over the board’s recommendation of a public reprimand. Record-keeping alone rarely produces a serious sanction. Using one client’s $3,000 for another client is a different allegation.
What Reddington said in 2024, and this week
The petition arrived two years after Correia first made the extortion claim public, and Reddington’s response then and now has been the same: the client is lying, the fee changed because the case changed, and the equity in SnoOwl was worthless. Our August profile of Reddington reported that we had found no public record of bar discipline against him and that no proceeding arising from the Correia allegations had been reported. That was accurate when written and is no longer. The profile now carries a correction.
Where it stands
A petition for discipline is Bar Counsel’s charging document. Reddington is entitled to file an answer, and the matter goes to a hearing committee that takes evidence and makes findings, then to the full board, and, for any sanction of suspension or disbarment, to a single justice of the SJC. None of that has happened yet, and none of it is quick. Massachusetts bar discipline cases routinely take two to three years from petition to final order.
In the meantime he remains a member of the bar in good standing, he remains Clancy’s lawyer, and the petition has no legal effect on her case. The status conference in Plymouth Superior Court is September 29.
What is Kevin Reddington accused of?
A four-count petition for discipline filed by Bar Counsel on June 23, 2026 alleges he demanded an additional $50,000 and a share of a client’s company on the eve of a 2021 federal trial after an oral $150,000 flat-fee agreement; took $25,000 from a prisoner and neglected the case for years; used $3,000 of one client’s trust funds for another client; and failed to keep his trust account records as Rule 1.15 requires.
Who filed it?
The Office of Bar Counsel, the prosecuting arm of the Board of Bar Overseers, which the Supreme Judicial Court oversees. The complaints came from former clients Jasiel Correia and Jose Polanco.
Has he been found to have done anything wrong?
No. A petition is an accusation. Reddington denies it, and no hearing has been held.
Does this affect the Lindsay Clancy case?
No. He remains licensed and remains her attorney. A pending petition has no effect on a criminal case he is trying.
What could happen to him?
If the allegations are proved, sanctions range from admonition to disbarment. Fee and record-keeping counts usually draw the lower end; misuse of client funds and misrepresentations to a client draw the higher end.
Where is Jasiel Correia now?
Released from federal prison July 11, 2026 after serving a 72-month sentence with good-time credit. He works in Fall River and owes more than $306,000 in restitution.
Petition contents as reported by Aguayo News, September 9, 2026, and the Fall River Reporter (Jo Goode), September 11, 2026, which agree on the counts, the dates and the amounts; we were unable to retrieve the petition from the Board of Bar Overseers’ public site. Text messages as published by Correia and reported by the Herald News in July 2024. Reddington’s denials as reported by both outlets. Correia’s status from WJAR, September 11, 2026. Kevin Reddington is presumed to have complied with the Rules of Professional Conduct until a finding is made otherwise. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.