Tuesday, May 3, 2022

Indiana Supreme Court disbars Evansville attorney after check deception conviction

by Mark Wilson

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — The Indiana Supreme Court has disbarred from practicing law an Evansville attorney convicted of check deception.

Jared Michel Thomas can no longer practice in Indiana as a result. He had already been temporarily suspended pending the outcome of the attorney discipline action.

Thomas had practiced as a criminal defense attorney and in areas, such as family law.

He was charged with felony check deception in July 2021. In September, he pleaded guilty to the charge as a Class A misdemeanor.

Warrick County Circuit Court Judge Greg Granger, acting as special judge in the case, sentenced Thomas to 6 months of unsupervised probation, which he completed in March, court records state.

According to the Supreme Court, during a three-week period in 2020, Thomas wrote several checks from his trust account to his operating account and vice-versa as part of a check kiting scheme that ultimately left his trust account overdrawn. 

He took $6,000 owed to a client in a marriage dissolution case and instead deposited it into his overdrawn account. This reduced the negative balance but still left the account overdrawn, the court disciplinary action said.

The $6,000 was never paid to the client. Instead, it served to reduce the bank's financial loss when the account was closed.

The Supreme Court also said both sides in the disciplinary action agreed that the court's Disciplinary Commission is "investigating several additional matters" involving Thomas. In one of those, according to the Supreme Court, Thomas admitted creating a fraudulent sentence modification document and forging a judge's signature on it.

Joe Storey, a Henderson resident, told the Courier & Press that he paid Thomas $2,500 in early 2021 to represent him in a family law case in Warrick County. Storey said after that he was informed that Thomas had been suspended.

"We never had a hearing. In December, they called me in and asked me to sign a document acknowledging they were informing me of his suspension," Storey said. "I told them I wanted my money back."

Storey said he subsequently missed a court hearing because notice of it was sent to Thomas' office and he was never informed. He has been unable to afford a new attorney.

"I don't have the money to hire another one. I'm a disabled veteran. I pay child support and to care for my kids. A portion of my savings went to hire him," he said. "I don't have the money to hire a new lawyer until my money is returned."

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