After $2M-plus stolen from New Orleans lawyer Bernard 'Bunny' Charbonnet, couple pleads guilty

Money used on Saints tickets, vacations, a lease payments for a Mercedes-Benz, among other things 

 

A north shore woman recently pleaded guilty to stealing more than $2 million from the law firm of prominent New Orleans attorney Bernard “Bunny” Charbonnet Jr., and her husband admitted to laundering some of the money.

Latanya Arnold, 49, began serving a three-year prison sentence on March 8, a little more than a month after pleading guilty to a charge of felony theft, according to St. Tammany Parish court records. District Attorney Warren Montgomery's office handled the case.

Then, last week, her husband, 50-year-old Raymond Arnold, received five years of probation shortly after pleading guilty to a charge of money laundering.

Judge Scott Gardner of 22nd Judicial District Court ordered both Arnolds to pay restitution, with Latanya’s being more than $2.2 million and Raymond’s roughly $272,000.

Charbonnet didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. But, in a statement from Montgomery’s office, he described how the theft “devastated the financial stability of his business (and) shattered his trust in the humanity of people.”

Charbonnet, 67, is a well-known figure in local political circles, having held roles such as general counsel for the New Orleans Aviation Board and Orleans Parish School Board while sitting on the city’s port and public library boards.

He was a key supporter of the 2017 mayoral bid of his sister, Desiree Charbonnet, who lost to LaToya Cantrell.

The case against the Arnolds dates back to early May 2017, when — a few days after Latanya Arnold left the firm — Charbonnet noticed a $25,000 withdrawal from a bank account that only he and she could access.

A warrant filed by the New Orleans Police Department said she had used the money to bail her son, Malcolm, out of jail following his arrest in St. Charles Parish on drug possession counts.

When Charbonnet confronted Arnold, she said she would repay the money, police said at the time. But police said she later forged Charbonnet’s signature on a check drawing money from another of his law office’s bank accounts, which she couldn’t access.

A worried Charbonnet then had all of his firm’s accounts audited, dating back to Arnold’s hiring in 2008. That audit identified $2,240,534 in unauthorized expenditures from six bank accounts associated with Charbonnet’s firm and related entities, authorities said.

Authorities said Arnold used the money for a Mercedes-Benz, tuition, vacations, clothes, salon services, tickets to Saints games and loan payments.

Police also found evidence that some of the money covered operating expenses for two companies that the Arnolds ran out of their home in Slidell. One sold tobacco products; the other was involved in the trucking business.

Investigators in New Orleans arrested the Arnolds on July 21, and they posted bail shortly afterward.

Ultimately, it was Montgomery who filed charges in the case. Both Arnolds were charged with theft, with Raymond Arnold facing an additional count of money laundering.

Latanya Arnold, who moves around with the help of a wheelchair, pleaded guilty as charged in Gardner’s courtroom on Feb. 6 rather than stand trial. She received a 10-year prison sentence March 1, with seven of those years suspended. She will serve three years of probation upon her release.

Raymond Arnold pleaded guilty to money laundering on March 11; Montgomery’s office dismissed the theft count. He received a 10-year prison sentence that was entirely suspended but faces five years of probation.

Raymond Arnold’s position was that “he didn’t know everything that his wife was doing,” his attorney, Jerry Fontenot, said Tuesday. “He admitted to knowing about a portion of the money but was unaware of the full extent.”

An attorney for Latanya Arnold, Aaron Rives, said he and his client believed the outcome of the case was reasonable. He said it had been “a hard time for her and her family.”

Full Article & Source:
After $2M-plus stolen from New Orleans lawyer Bernard 'Bunny' Charbonnet, couple pleads guilty

Former Judge Casey Moreland sentenced to 44 months in prison

Casey Moreland mug photo

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — Former Nashville Judge Casey Moreland received a 44-month prison sentence Friday.

Moreland pleaded guilty to five counts of relating to obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and stealing money from an organization receiving federal funds in late May.

According to Acting Assistant Attorney General John Cochran, the FBI began investigating back in Jan. 2017 whether or not Moreland offered sexual favors for favorable treatment as a General Sessions Judge.

Moreland later admitted that he actively took steps to obstruct the investigation in Feb. 2017 by paying a witness to sign a false affidavit to recant her previous statements. The Department of Justice also said Moreland planted drugs in the witness's car so she would be arrested and her credibility would be destroyed.

He used a burned phone registered to Raul Rodriguez to carry out these plans, working with someone who would become in an information for the FBI.

Back in March, Moreland faced more charges of tampering with a witness, victim, or informant and destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in a Federal investigation.

Moreland resigned in March 2017 amid an FBI investigation charging him with public corruption.

Full Article & Source:
Former Judge Casey Moreland sentenced to 44 months in prison

See Also:
Casey Moreland to stay in jail after second round of obstruction charges

Undercover Recordings At Center Of Moreland Case

Nashville judge faces federal criminal charges

Casey Moreland to take leave from bench

Judge dismissed tickets, fines for female friend

Metro General Sessions Judge Casey Moreland resigns as presiding judge

Ethics Complaint Levels Charges Against Two Judges, Lewis

Investigation underway into inmate/deputy relationship in judge’s court  

Ex-Nevada guardian to serve up to 40 years behind bars

Families and victims of state appointed guardian speak out

Victims of former Nevada guardian April Parks packed a Las Vegas courtroom for much of Friday morning.

Relatives of those who died under her watch and of those too ill or weak to attend the proceeding spoke of the torment she put them through and observed as District Judge Tierra Jones sent the 53-year-old to prison for 16 to 40 years.

Nine people described their personal grief, while also reading letters from several others who lost thousands of dollars and precious, priceless heirlooms that would never be replaced because Parks stole from elderly victims for whom she was supposed to care.

As the victims wept and told their stories of suffering, a shackled and seated Parks kept her head turned and never looked their way.

Larry Braslow, the first victim to speak during the nearly four-hour hearing, told the judge that a decades-old family address book had disappeared, while Parks was tasked with caring for his mother, Ruth. His father’s footlocker, which contained military uniforms and accoutrements, also was gone.

Karen Kelly, Clark County’s public guardian, read through a long list of names of people victimized who lived under “intense anxiety and anguish” for the final years of their lives because of Parks and those who worked closely with her. Parks’ business partner, Mark Simmons, and her husband, Gary Neal Taylor, also were ordered Friday to serve time in prison.

“The choices she made were out of greed, not because she didn’t understand the ethical obligations of being a guardian.”

Of the victims, Kelly said, “She didn’t see them as people. They were paychecks.”

The judge ordered the three defendants to pay more than $500,000 to their victims.

Herman “Bill” Mesloh, who is blind, said Parks first visited him at the Southern Nevada Medical and Rehabilitation Center in late 2013 after he had undergone various surgeries.

He was involuntarily isolated from his wife, Kathy, for six months, he said.

“There are some evil people in this world,” he said. “And April Parks is a predator of the worst kind.”
Another woman, Barbara Ann Neely, said Parks separated her from family and friends.

“She was not a guardian to me,” Neely said. “She did not protect me. As each day passed, I felt like I was in a grave, buried alive.”

Rudy North, yet another victim, compared Parks to Hitler and said, “This lady should be banished.
Parks, 53, pleaded guilty in November to exploitation, theft and perjury charges.

She told the judge on Friday that she accepted responsibility “but never intended harm,” adding that “things could have been done better. … We were a group practice, and honestly I think some things got ahead of us.”

She said she had a “great passion” for guardianship and took “great care and concern” in her work.

Parks was one of the most active private professional guardians in the region. She often acted as the surrogate decision-maker for 50 to 100 elderly and mentally incapacitated people, called wards, at a given time. As guardian, she had full control of their finances, estates and even medical decisions.

She originally faced more than 200 felony counts.

Simmons was ordered to serve seven to 18 years in prison, while Taylor was given a sentence of two to five years behind bars.

Handing down the sentences, Jones called Parks’ actions “absolutely shocking” and “downright offensive.”



Full Article & Source:
Ex-Nevada guardian to serve up to 40 years behind bars

95-Year-Old Woman Bilked by Attorney, Judge Strips Guardianship

An Orange County Superior Court judge Thursday took guardianship away from a suspended Santa Ana attorney who is the trustee for a 95-year-old woman he billed more than $488,000 to help her get her driver’s license back.

Wayne Irwin McClaskey has been suspended from practicing law since January 2015, for billing Lola Wilber $488,700 to “resist the adverse decision of the DMV on her driver’s license renewal,” according to the State Bar.

But McClaskey remains Wilber’s trustee and has control over her trust containing at least $600,000, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Marc Labreche. He appeared at Thursday’s hearing as a “friend of the court” because he prosecuted McClaskey subordinate, Thomas Chapman Hood, who pleaded guilty to stealing about $534,000 from Wilber.

McClaskey sold Wilber’s home after taking out a reverse mortgage on the property, Labreche said.

The Orange County Public Guardian is now in charge of caring for Wilber and her estate, Labreche said. A hearing will be held on July 5 to make the temporary order permanent.

Hood, 69, pleaded guilty Monday to multiple felonies and was sentenced to five years of formal probation and 212 days in jail, or time already served in the case, Labreche said. The prosecutor worked out the plea deal based on Hood’s health, which has worsened in custody as he underwent a procedure on his heart in the medical ward, Labreche said.

Hood put up $150,000 toward restitution to the victim, as well, according to Labreche, who said insisting on a prison sentence would have meant Wilber wouldn’t have gotten any money back.

Full Article and Source:
95-Year-Old Woman Bilked by Attorney, Judge Strips Guardianship

Former Congressman sentenced to 10 years

Former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah was sentenced Monday to a 10-year prison term by a judge who said he was "astonished" that a veteran legislator would steal government and charity funds to pay his son's debts and buy a vacation home. (Dec. 12) AP

Source:
Former Congressman sentenced to 10 years

Atlantic County Woman Sentenced to Prison for Aiding in Theft of Millions of Dollars From Elderly Clients of Senior Care Company

TRENTON – Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman announced that a woman was sentenced to prison today for participating in a scheme with her sister and a lawyer to steal millions of dollars from elderly clients of an in-home senior care company in Atlantic County.

Sondra Steen, 60, of Linwood, was sentenced to 10 years in state prison, including 4 ½ years of parole ineligibility, by Superior Court Judge Bernard E. DeLury Jr. in Atlantic County. She pleaded guilty on Feb. 8 to first-degree money laundering. Steen is jointly and severally liable for full restitution in an amount to be determined.

Steen was charged in an investigation by the New Jersey State Police and the Division of Criminal Justice. Deputy Attorney General Yvonne G. Maher is prosecuting the defendants and took the guilty plea for the Division of Criminal Justice Specialized Crimes Bureau. Detective Richard Wheeler led the investigation for the New Jersey State Police Financial Crimes Unit.

Steen was indicted on March 16, 2015 along with her sister Jan Van Holt, 59, of Linwood, owner of A Better Choice, a company that offered elderly clients in-home care and legal financial planning; Susan Hamlett, 56, of Egg Harbor Township, who worked as an aide for company clients; and William Price, 57, of Linwood, who has since pleaded guilty to taking part in the scheme and stealing $125,000 from an elderly couple he met as a caseworker for Atlantic County Adult Protective Services. Price was sentenced in October to five years in state prison.

Van Holt and Steen were charged with conspiring with Barbara Lieberman, 63, of Northfield, a lawyer who specialized in elder law, to steal over $2.7 million from 12 elderly clients from January 2003 through December 2012. Lieberman pleaded guilty to money laundering and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, including 3 ½ years of parole ineligibility. Lieberman forfeited $3 million in assets as well as her law license. The charges against Van Holt and Hamlett are pending.

In pleading guilty, Steen admitted that she assisted her sister and Lieberman in carrying out the scheme to steal from clients of A Better Choice and Lieberman.

“Steen used the stolen life savings of elderly clients to pay for her own luxuries, such as pet care, pool supplies and a vacation condo,” said Acting Attorney General Hoffman. “Her predatory and conscienceless behavior has earned her a lengthy prison sentence.”

“Steen and her co-defendants coldly exploited the infirmity of their elderly clients, betraying their trust and siphoning away assets that took a lifetime to accumulate,” said Director Elie Honig. “This case is especially egregious because of the sums involved and because the victims represent some of the most vulnerable members of our society. We’ll continue to make prosecuting elder fraud a priority.”

“The business Steen helped run, ‘A Better Choice,’ was meant to help the elderly with in-home care and finances, but ironically she made a series of despicable choices by choosing to steal the life savings and assets of clients for her own indulgences,” said Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police. “This substantial sentence is the result of the great work of State Police detectives and our partners at the Attorney General's Office.”

Van Holt worked as a case worker for Atlantic County Adult Protective Services from 2002 through December 2007, when she was terminated. Five of the 12 alleged victims targeted by Van Holt, Steen and Lieberman were recruited as clients after they came into contact with Van Holt through her official public position as a case worker.

It is alleged that Van Holt generally was the one to identify potential clients, approaching them to offer the services of A Better Choice and Lieberman. The defendants allegedly targeted elderly clients with substantial assets who typically did not have any immediate family, offering them non-medical care and services, including household chores, errands, driving clients to appointments, scheduling, budgeting, paying bills, balancing checkbooks, and other tasks. They did not provide healthcare services.

Once a target accepted Van Holt’s offer of services, Steen usually would be put in place as the victim’s primary caregiver. Lieberman would then be brought in to do legal work, preparing powers of attorney and wills for the clients. Lieberman was a leading specialist in elder law in Atlantic County who gave seminars to senior citizens on end of life affairs, wills and living wills.

The defendants allegedly took control of the finances of their victims by forging a power of attorney or obtaining one on false pretenses. The defendants then added their names to the victims’ bank accounts or transferred the victims’ funds into new accounts they controlled. Thereafter, the defendants allegedly stole from the accounts to pay their own expenses, including, for Van Holt and Steen – who lived together – veterinary bills for their pets, pool supplies, two Mercedes cars owned by Van Holt, and lease payments on a Florida condo.

A portion of the money was used to fund the victim’s expenses to keep the victim unaware of the thefts. In some cases, money from one victim would be transferred to another victim to pay expenses and cover up the thefts. If the victim owned stocks or bonds, they were cashed out and the funds were deposited into the account allegedly controlled by the defendants. When Lieberman prepared wills for the victims, she typically named herself or Van Holt as executor of the estate and named Steen as a beneficiary, or named other beneficiaries who had little or no ties to the victim and never actually received anything from the estate. The defendants allegedly relied on fraud, manipulation or forgery in the execution of the wills. In this manner, they allegedly continued to steal from the victims’ estates after they died.

The investigation began after the New Jersey Office of the Public Guardian referred a case involving one of the victims to the State Police. In addition to the first-degree conspiracy and money laundering charges against Van Holt, she is charged along with Hamlett with second-degree counts of conspiracy, money laundering and theft. The charges are merely accusations and the remaining defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Deputy Attorney General Derek Miller is handling the state’s forfeiture action. Acting Attorney General Hoffman thanked the New Jersey Office of the Public Guardian for its referral.

Source:  Press Release

Former county judge, lawyer sentenced on bribery charges

Angus McGinty (right) outside federal court Wednesday

(Photo: Matthew Craig)
SAN ANTONIO -- A former state district judge and an attorney were both sentenced to prison Wednesday as part of a federal corruption probe inside the Bexar County Courthouse. Angus McGinty, who resigned his position in 144th District judge in 2014, was sentenced to two years in prison. Attorney Al Acevedo was sentenced to one year and one day in prison.

McGinty was indicted on 2014 on charges of conspiracy to commit federal bribery, one count of bribery, one count of extortion and 12 counts of honest services wire fraud. The indictment alleged that McGinty solicited and accepted bribes from San Antonio lawyer Alberto Acevedo Jr. over a nine-month period in 2013.
McGinty resigned on Feb. 14, 2014, a month before Acevedo plead guilty to bribery. In his plea, Acevedo admitted he engaged in corruption by influencing McGinty with things of value.

On Wednesday, a judge offered McGinty some time to spend with his family and serve his prison sentence after Christmas but McGinty didn't take it. He said he just wants to get his sentence over with. He said it's about moving forward now with his family.

"Forward. What we're enduring is nothing compared to what other families have endured. We'll be fine," said McGinty.McGinty thanked the people who supported him in the last year and a half. He also, thanked the judge who sentenced him and the remarks he made in federal court.

Full Article and Source:
Former Judge, Lawyer Sentenced on Bribery Charges

DA May Have Let "Guardian" Patience Bristol Take Rap for Her Ex-Boss, Jared Shafer

When for-hire guardian Patience Bristol was handcuffed and led out of court last Wednesday morning, it may have been one of the luckiest days of her life! Instead of spending dozens of years in prison, a deal was cut so she can get out in three years or less.

Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez had her hands tied by a plea bargain cut by Bristol’s attorney Warran Geller with DA Steve Wolfson who dropped twenty of twenty-one felony charges requested by Las Vegas Metro Police. At the end, Judge Gonzalez gave Bristol the harshest sentence she could - three to eight years in the Nevada Women’s Correctional Center in North Las Vegas - based on the one remaining category B felony count of Exploitation of Older or Vulnerable Person that Wolfson allowed in his stipulated sentence. Courts are usually bound by valid stipulations and are required to enforce them.

However, Patience Bristol did not exploit just one older or vulnerable person. She ripped off dozens during the ten years she was employed by Jared Shafer, the owner of Professional Fiduciaries of Southern Nevada, Inc. (PFSN), the company given full power of attorney by certain Clark County Family Court judges to control the persons and property of well-to-do wards of the court who have no relatives living in Nevada to provide them care and manage their assets.

Jared Shafer has not yet been charged with a crime.

Full Article and Source:
DA May Have Let "Guardian" Patience Bristol Take Rap for Her Ex-Boss, Jared Shafer

See Also:
Coming Monday on Rick Porrello's AmericanMafia.com

Former attorney pleads guilty in theft of death benefits intended for a child

A former Upper Arlington lawyer pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of theft and tampering with governmental records for stealing death benefits intended for a child.

Lindsey T. Burt, 33, of Berwyn Road, could be sent to prison for as long as 4 1/2 years or placed on probation when she is sentenced on May 21 by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Laurel Beatty.

Assistant Prosecutor Kimberly Bond said Burt was supposed to file paperwork with the probate court to recognize the child’s father as guardian after the child’s mother died. The parents weren’t married, and the father, Mark Chapa, lives in Texas.

Instead, Burt altered a document to make it appear as if she was the child’s guardian, and she sent it to the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, where the child’s mother had worked. From April 2008 to April 2013, the retirement system deposited death benefits totaling $67,183 in Burt’s personal savings account.

Bond told the judge that Burt used the money “to make her life easier.” 

Full Article & Source:
Former attorney pleads guilty in theft of death benefits intended for a child

Former Conservator John E. Clemmons Gets Potential Break on Prison Sentence

Over the strong protest of the court official who first caught him stealing from a helpless ward, suspended Nashville attorney John E. Clemmons has won approval for a plea deal that could get him out of prison in five years and four months.

In a 30-minute session before Rutherford Circuit Judge David Bragg, Rutherford Chancery Court Clerk and Master John Bratcher said he was cut out of the negotiations leading to the plea arrangement and that it amounted to a travesty of justice.

It was Bratcher, in his role as clerk and master, who first discovered that Clemmons was, without court authorization, taking money from the accounts of wards who had been entrusted to him.

Since that discovery and subsequent criminal investigations, Clemmons has admitted to stealing at least $1.4 million from four wards. He has pleaded guilty to three counts of theft of more than $60,000 in Davidson County and one count of theft of more than $60,000 in the Rutherford case. He also has entered a guilty plea in Davidson to TennCare fraud and perjury.

Clemmons’ case comes amid growing concern about the handling of conservatorships in Tennessee. Earlier this year, the General Assembly, after recommendations from the Tennessee Bar Association, approved the first major changes in the state’s conservatorship laws in a decade.

Under the plea deal unveiled Friday, a decision on just how Clemmons will serve an 8-year sentence for stealing about $120,000 from his ward Russell Church of Murfreesboro will be deferred until Clemmons gets out of prison on the charges he has pleaded to in Davidson County. Under his 18-year sentence in Davidson County, he could apply for parole after serving five years and four months.
Under Bragg’s ruling, Clemmons pending motion to serve out those eight years under alternative sentencing, such as home detention, or to get quick probation will be put on hold until his release on the Davidson charges.

Handcuffed and wearing an orange prison jump suit, Clemmons, 66, told Judge Bragg in a barely audible voice that he understood the plea deal and had agreed to it.

“He stole over $100,000 from a helpless man,” Bratcher said, barely holding back anger. “He stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from wards in Davidson and he’s been doing it for 10 years.”

Full Article and Source:
Former conservator Clemmons gets potential break on prison sentence

See Also:
Nashville Lawyer Admits to Stealing  $1.3 million, Gets 18 years in Prison

Inheritance guardian sentenced for embezzlement

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A lawyer appointed to oversee the inheritance of a civil rights leader's grandson has been sentenced in Mississippi to serve 30 years in prison for using hundreds of thousands of dollars for himself.

Attorney Michael Brown was sentenced Aug. 29 in Rankin County to 40 years, with 10 suspended, on two counts of embezzlement related to the estate left to the grandson of late civil rights leader Aaron Henry.

Brown, 56, of Rankin County, represented himself during the four-day trial. He remains incarcerated and was not available for comment Thursday. A telephone call to the sheriff's office was not immediately returned.

Henry, a former state legislator who led the state NAACP for more than 30 years, died in 1997 at the age of 74, leaving his estate to his only daughter, Rebecca. She died in 2000, with her estate going to her two sons, Rankin County District Attorney Michael Guest said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Guest said a guardianship was set up in Hinds County in 2000 for Henry's grandson, Demon McClinton, who was a minor at the time.

Brown was under court order to use the funds strictly for the benefit of the child, but he put the money in his personal escrow account, spending some of it on five cars over a period of several weeks in 2001 and investing $550,000 in a cemetery, Guest said.

Rankin County brought criminal charges because the checks for the Lakeland Place Garden Cemetery investment were written in the county, Guest said. Brown faces additional charges in Hinds County, where Guest said other fraudulent transactions occurred.

Brown closed the guardianship in 2006 after spending $1.2 million and then filed fraudulent paperwork with the Hinds County Chancery court to make it appear the money was properly spent for the benefit of McClinton, Guest said.

The estate was reopened in 2011 when Hinds County Chancellor Dewayne Thomas held a series of hearings that uncovered the fraud, Guest said.

Full Article and Source:
Inheritance guardian sentenced for embezzlement