Supreme Court Suspends Cleveland Area Lawyer Who Allegedly Hypnotized Women For Sex

In a rare occurrence, the Ohio Supreme Court has suspended a Cleveland area lawyer from the practice of law, based on allegations that he hypnotized women for sexual gratification.

Reports about allegations against Michael Fine, 57, have been splashed across local and national media outlets since last week when the Lorain County Bar Association filed an emergency motion, arguing that the lawyer posed “a substantial threat of serious harm to the public.”

A story in the New York Daily News Nov. 19 played up some of the salacious aspects of the case, saying Fine had been accused in “secret court documents” of “secretly hypnotizing his female clients while he referred to himself as ‘the world’s greatest lover’…”

Though Fine has not been charged with a crime, the Daily News reported that police “busted one of his lurid sessions with a client earlier this month.”

According to a report this Tuesday in the Akron Beacon Journal (Ohio.com), two women who had hired Fine as an attorney told authorities that he had tried to hypnotize them, with some success. One of the women said it happened multiple times for more than a year, either via phone calls or in person at Fine’s office or other locations.

The Beacon Journal article said that Fine’s attorney has agreed to the Supreme Court suspension, and in the meantime is under medical treatment for issues related to the charges.

The main accuser in the case – identified as “Jane Doe” in court documents – reportedly contacted the Sheffield Police and told them that she left numerous meetings with Fine with “strange memories and feelings” (this according to an affidavit obtained by the Smoking Gun website.

An investigator with the Lorain County Prosecutor’s Office stated in the affidavit that “Jane Doe” could not recall significant parts of the meetings, “and afterwards would realize her clothes and bra were out of place and moved, and her vagina was wet.”

The woman ended up returning to Fine’s office with a tape recorder. Eventually, police monitored the woman meeting with Fine, and stepped in before the session got too far.