Former professional guardian Lynrod Douglas is sentenced to prison (WPEC).
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — For the last year, the CBS12 News I-Team has been investigating guardianship abuse in Florida and the case of a Palm Beach County guardian caught stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from his wards.
This week, disgraced guardian Lynrod Douglas was sentenced for 15 charges, including exploitation of the elderly, money laundering and more.
He could have been facing decades behind bars, but prosecutors only asked for 15.
Judge Scott Suskauer took Douglas' age and health condition into account and sentenced him to 10 years, with credit for two years time served.
"I think he got off light," said Larry Leonhardt, son of victim Richard Leonhardt. "Lynrod is going to have better care in jail than my father had under his care. So I don't have a lot of sympathy for him. I really think he should have gotten more time, but at least we got him off the streets."
The investigation into Lynrod Douglas started with Larry Leonhardt's complaint. He noticed more than $200,000 was missing from his father Richard's accounts after Douglas took over as professional guardian.
Investigators uncovered four more victims, and more than $400,000 in stolen funds. They say Douglas used the wards' money to pad his personal bank account, pay off his mortgage, and even buy a Mercedes Benz.
As the I-Team explained last year, Douglas was able to steal the money by leaving assets off of his wards' inventory lists.
When a court appoints a professional guardian to take over an incapacitated persons' estate, the guardian takes an inventory of their ward's assets and reports them to the court -- but no one checks the guardian's work.
It's a loophole that allowed Douglas to conceal large sums of money from the courts, and pocket some for himself.
Calling Douglas a "con man," the judge criticized the former guardian for not only stealing money, but also violating the trust of the courts that appointed him to oversee vulnerable people's medical care and money.
"For an honest business man the cost of doing business is rent and payroll," Judge Suskauer said. "For you, as a sinister criminal, you violated the trust of the courts, the families. Your cost of business has to be prison."
For the first time, we heard Lynrod Douglas
address the court and answer for his crimes. He did not offer any
explanations for the theft, but he did break down in tears and ask for
forgiveness.
"I want to apologize to those who were victimized by my bad decision," he said. "This includes the wards who depended on me and the family members who trusted me to do the right thing."
Douglas' attorney, Jason Weiss, told CBS12 News that he does not expect to appeal the sentence. He said assuming good behavior in prison, his client could leave after serving 85 percent of his sentence, or about 6.5 years.
While some of the victims' families felt the sentence wasn't long enough, Lynrod's wife and business partner, Millicent Douglas, made her displeasure with the sentence well-known.
After the hearing ended, she lashed out at some of the people who testified against her husband, calling them "[expletive] liars."
When CBS12 News asked her if she had any comments, she yelled at our camera crew and threatened to sue.
Millicent Douglas is facing her own criminal charges after police say she stole money from her mother to bail Lynrod out of jail.
