ELYRIA — The decade-old legal feud between two factions of an Avon church has led to another lawsuit.

This time, the losers of the original lawsuit are suing the attorney who represented them during the trial last year.

They were ordered to repay about $1.2 million in misspent bingo money and pay attorney fees to St. Clement of Ohrid Macedonian Orthodox Church.

The latest lawsuit, filed Thursday in Lorain County Common Pleas Court, accuses Akron attorney Ed Markovich of violating ethical rules and misconduct. That behavior led to the judgment against Markovich’s five former clients, the lawsuit claims.

The original lawsuit centered on control of the church’s finances between two groups that held power in the church in the 1990s. The church was flush with cash from a successful bingo night, but disputes arose over how the money was spent.

Their complaints aren’t the first to be filed against Markovich, who had his law license suspended earlier this year by the Ohio Supreme Court.

According to the Supreme Court’s suspension order, Markovich ignored two of his client’s cases, helped a client violate a civil protection order and borrowed money from a client, among other infractions.

Even before Thursday’s lawsuit was filed, Markovich had clashed with his former Avon clients. He was fired, he told The Chronicle last year, during an angry confrontation at the Lorain County Justice Center when he filed a notice of appeal in the original case — nine minutes after his then-clients filed their own notice of appeal without his help.

The appeal in the original case is still pending in the 9th District Court of Appeals, said Eric Zagrans, the attorney for the winners of the original case.

Zagrans declined to comment on the lawsuit against Markovich.

Markovich, who said last year that he suspected his clients in the St. Clement case were planning to sue him for malpractice, did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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