Saturday, August 25, 2018

Lakewood Lawyer Stole Millions From Trust Fund

LAKEWOOD, CO – A Lakewood lawyer was sentenced Wednesday for stealing $1.4 million from accounts set up by his deceased grandfather to take care of his late 89-year-old step-grandmother.

Glenn William Gregory, 56, was sentenced in Jefferson County to four years in prison, according to the First Judicial District Attorney's office. Gregory pled guilty on July 23 to one count of theft from an at-risk person over $500.

Last year, Gregory was convicted and sentenced to eight years for stealing $1.3 million from an associated trust fund, set up by his grandfather John B. Villano for the care of his step-grandmother Martha Violet Villano. Gregory will serve the four years consecutively after the previous eight-year sentence, the DA's office said.

According to the Denver Post, Gregory, who had the power of attorney for the account, was found guilty in 2017 of draining the trust down to $24 between 2006 and 2015. Martha Villano died ten days after the jury rendered a verdict in June of 2017.

In the most recent case, Gregory was found guilty of transferring more than $1.4 million from the trust account to his personal and law firm bank accounts.

Investigators said Gregory spent $440,000 from the trust between Feb. 2008-Feb. 2015 for hotels and travel in Nevada at various casinos, and ATM withdrawals in Nevada and Blackhawk, Colorado "which appear to be related to gambling," the arrest affidavit said.

Gregory shuttled money through his personal and company bank accounts. Investigators found that approximately $112,000 was paid from Dec., 2007 through Sep., 2016 to "what appear to be phone/on-line computer sex services." They also noted that $260,000 was paid to PayPal or an online company called Web-Tokens.com, that advertises itself as a service where purchases are "strictly confidential," the arrest affidavit said.

He also gave money to family members in multiple-thousand dollar gifts around the Christmas holidays, investigators found.

All told, Gregory was convicted of stealing $2.7 million from the trust funds.

Full Article & Source:
Lakewood Lawyer Stole Millions From Trust Fund

2 comments:

StandUp said...

Trust funds are not safe. Lawyers who steal from them usually get off without paying restitution too.

aclay said...

This is unusual, they normally get away with it. Virginia has perfected this type theft, the attorney gets the elderly, needed or not, a guardian ad litem, then move to have the person deemed incompetent to some degree and then spread all the money around, if a family member challenges it, they trump up bills against them too. A Virginia bar investigator exposed this and they have destroyed her.