Gironza’s Complaint Against Cedeno

Supreme Court Appellate Division
First Judicial Department
Departmental Disciplinary Committee
61 Broadway, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10006

November 3, 2016

To Whom it May Concern:

Please accept this letter outlining the facts and circumstances of my Ethics Complaint against Peter L. Cedeno, Esq.

In or about 2010, I retained Mr. Cedeno to represent me in my divorce from my then wife.  At the time, I was employed by Wilens and Baker, P.C. while Mr. Cedeno was the head of the matrimonial department at Wilens and Baker.  As you can imagine, I assumed that Mr. Cedeno would diligently and zealously represent my interests in my divorce action as he was not just my lawyer but also my co-worker.  Unfortunately, Mr. Cedeno was more interested in propositioning my now ex-wife and attempting to engage her in an illicit relationship than in advocating on my behalf.

At a hearing in 2010, Mr. Cedeno represented me at a Court appearance wherein he unreasonably coerced me to accept an extraordinarily unfavorable settlement arrangement which included an extremely high child support payment in light of the fact that custody was evenly split between myself and my ex-wife.  Later, I came to discover that Mr. Cedeno negotiated this unfavorable deal with my ex-wife, who was unrepresented at the hearing, in order to gain her favor in an attempt to engage her in a sexual relationship.

While Mr. Cedeno was purportedly “negotiating” the settlement arrangement with my ex-wife outside of my presence, he was instead representing to her that he would “take care of her” and obtain a “great deal” for her as a result of the negotiations.  He further provided her with his personal phone number, requested that she