For immediate release:
WOBURN — An accountant and now-disbarred attorney from Plymouth has been indicted in connection with a scheme to embezzle more than $300,000 from the family of one of his clients, Attorney General Maura Healey announced today.
Bruce Lavigne was indicted by a Middlesex Grand Jury on the charges of Larceny over $250 (2 counts), Fiduciary Embezzlement (1 count), and Obtaining a Signature by False Pretenses (2 counts). He will be arraigned in Middlesex Superior Court at a later date.
The AG’s Office alleges that from 2015 to 2016, a client from Chelmsford entrusted Lavigne to invest more than $314,000 of his father’s funds in an annuity that would eventually be inherited by the client and his siblings.
The AG’s investigation found that instead, Lavigne diverted the funds to personal and business expenses unrelated to the intended investment. Lavigne allegedly later paid over $56,000 to the client’s heirs under the guise of a purported successor annuity agreement. From this scheme, the AG’s Office alleges Lavigne stole about $258,000 in funds that once belonged to his client’s father and were owed to his heirs.
Additionally, the AG’s Office alleges that in 2017, Lavigne allegedly enticed his client to invest $60,000 in an entirely separate and fake annuity agreement and then failed to return those funds as requested, bringing the total amount of money he stole to more than $300,000.
Lavigne was disbarred in January 2019 for misuse of client funds unrelated to this investigation.
These charges are allegations and all defendants are innocent until proven guilty.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant Attorney General Edward A. Beagan of AG Healey’s White Collar and Public Integrity Division, with assistance from Financial Investigator Jillian Petruzziello, Victim Witness Advocate Lia Panetta, and Massachusetts State Police assigned to the AG’s Office.
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