Nine days after he was charged with practicing law without a license and four days after he was freed on bond, E. Larry Kovel was again passing himself off as a practicing lawyer and accepting $150 in fees from a Wilkinsburg woman who says she doled out all her savings before she realized he was not licensed.

"This is everything in my savings that I had," said Mary Purser, who said she hired Mr. Kovel in November to represent her fiance, Clarence Belsar. Ms. Purser said she met Mr. Kovel at the Allegheny County Jail on March 14 to make the latest installment and he took a legal form from her that Mr. Belsar had been given.

"He said he needed that for the case," she said.

Today, detectives from the district attorney's office again arrested Mr. Kovel, this time after he met again with Ms. Purser and collected yet another payment on a Downtown street corner. That meeting took place yesterday afternoon.

"He wrote me a receipt saying 'for legal fees' and told me he had two associates who were going to be working on the case with him," Ms. Purser said. She said she asked Mr. Kovel about whether he was licensed to practice.

"He said he was licensed in Pennsylvania, Ohio -- he named off a bunch of states."

In fact, Mr. Kovel has not had a law license since Dec. 31, although investigators for the district attorney's office say he continued to pass himself off as licensed and attempted to appear before at least one county judge in a criminal matter.

Mr. Kovel was charged March 6 with theft and practicing law without a license. Investigators for the Allegheny County district attorney's office said he allowed his law license to lapse at the end of 2008 -- at the time he was facing suspension for a drug conviction -- and continued to represent clients. Witnesses said he regularly turned up for court appearances disoriented and smelling of alcohol.

Last week, District Justice Eugene Ricciardi dismissed the theft count against him but allowed the count of practicing without a license to stand.

From Nov. 11 of last year to today, detectives said, Mr. Kovel collected $2,150 in cash from Ms. Purser for his legal representation of Mr. Belsar while doing "nothing tangible in terms of legal representation" of his client.

Mr. Kovel's law license lapsed on Dec. 31 and earlier this month the state Supreme Court suspended his license for failing to respond to a disciplinary board subpoena.

According to documents in the latest case, Mr. Kovel solicited Ms. Purser's business on a visit to the county jail.

He then met with Mr. Belsar along with Ms. Purser at the jail.

"Kovel claimed that this would be an easy case and touted his knowledge of the District Attorney's office and the courts," an affidavit said.

He also allegedly told Ms. Purser that he had been out of touch because he'd been handling a murder case in New York.

Mr. Kovel was taken to the Allegheny County Jail today after he was picked up at what he believed would be another rendezvous to collect money from Ms. Purser.

Ms. Purser, meanwhile, said she has used up her money paying Mr. Kovel and is about to have her electricity turned off. Mr. Belsar, who has been in jail for six months for possessing a gun Ms. Purser says was hers, awaits an April hearing.

"My old man's still sitting in the county jail," she said. "I'm still without an attorney for my old man now. That's the bad part."