A complaint has been filed with the Mississippi Supreme Court against jailed Vicksburg attorney Marshall Sanders that could strip the longtime attorney of his license to practice.

Filed Wednesday by the Mississippi Bar, the complaint says Sanders violated Mississippi Rules of Professional Conduct governing trustworthiness, lawyer and client property and general compliance with the rules governing licensure. The bar’s Committee on Professional Responsibility recommended the action.

The state bar association also has asked a complaint tribunal — consisting of a judge and two attorneys — to hear a public trial against Sanders and have him pay all legal costs incurred by the association.

Sanders, 58, has been in a low-security federal prison in Yazoo City since May. A year earlier, he was indicted on three felony counts of failing to pay federal income taxes for 2000 to 2003. In March, he was sentenced to 18 months on two misdemeanor counts following a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid a possible 15-year sentence on the felony counts. Also, restitution totaling $1,025,453 was ordered paid by Sanders to the Internal Revenue Service.

According to the federal Bureau of Prisons Web site, Sanders’ release date is Aug. 31, 2010. The bar association Web site lists his license to practice as “active.”

Under bar rules, a felony conviction is tantamount to automatic disbarment. Misdemeanor convictions are less definite.

In the complaint, the bar cites information from the indictment stating Sanders had failed since 1994 to file individual tax returns or make payments relating to income during that time. Also cited in the bar’s complaint is Sanders’ use of his lawyer trust account to “receive, hold, and dispense his income for personal use in order to conceal income from the IRS from 1994 forward.” The accounts are typically used for client funds, real estate closings and other matters.

A trial date is not set for the proceedings and the court must choose the tribunal members. The panel, upon majority vote, may recommend multiple actions either way — which include disbarment, public or private reprimands, suspension for a fixed time period with possible conditions on reinstatement, exoneration and dismissal of the complaint or referrals to the bar’s Lawyers and Judges Assistance Committee.

Sanders, in mostly civil law practice since 1977, still may voluntarily turn in his law license at any time leading up to and even after tribunal proceedings, Mississippi Bar general counsel Adam Kilgore said.

“Anyone can irrevocably resign if they so choose,” Kilgore said.

A lawyer disbarred or suspended for six months or more must petition the Mississippi Supreme Court for reinstatement.

Rule 8.4 (b), one of three rules the bar says Sanders violated, specifies a lawyer “shall not commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects.” Rule 1.15 states a lawyer shall hold property of third persons’ and clients separate from the lawyer’s own property and be properly safeguarded. A third violation involves the first subsection of 8.4, which provides a lawyer shall not violate or attempt to violate the rules of professional conduct.

It also refers to an informal admonition the bar issued Sanders in 1999 for violating the third person property rule and a private reprimand issued in 1983.

“As a result, Mr. Sanders has demonstrated unprofessional and unethical conduct evincing unfitness for the practice of law. Further, his conduct constitutes cause for the imposition of discipline,” read a concluding paragraph in the complaint.

Jackson attorney Frank W. Trapp, who represented Sanders in the federal trial prosecuted by the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, said the Phelps Dunbar firm still represents Sanders, but declined comment on the bar’s complaint.

Sanders grew up in Vicksburg before attending Harvard and earning an economics degree and Emory University School of Law.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com