Portage County Probate Court officer arrested

By Brian Koster

PORTAGE COUNTY, Ohio (WOIO) - Portage County Probate Court announced that the court’s fiscal officer Jennifer Urbania has been arrested on an allegation of theft from a previous employer.

Urbania started her job with the court on July 22 of this year after completing the court’s standard interview process and passing a BCI background check.

The court said allegations are wholly unrelated to Ms. Urbania’s employment with the Court or its finances, but Judge Patricia J. Smith has requested a full audit of all financial records and accounts to which Ms. Urbania had access.

County Auditor Matt Kelly will oversee that process. Urbania has been placed on unpaid leave.

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Portage County Probate Court officer arrested

Legal woes adding up for suspended Chesco lawyer

Joshua Adam Janis

WEST CHESTER — As of noon Friday, a total of 30 individuals had been publicly identified by authorities as alleged victims of suspended Chester County attorney Joshua Adam Janis. By 1:30 p.m., the number had grown to 31.

This time, the target of his alleged theft was his former mother-in-law, an East Goshen woman from whom he is now accused of stealing about $5,000 by falsely applying for a line of credit using her personal identification and that of a business she co-owned with her daughter, who herself has been identified as one of Janis’s victims.

Chester County Detectives Gerald Davis Jr. and Sgt. Robert Dougherty filed a criminal complaint containing the new allegations following a preliminary hearing before District Judge Bret Binder on charges that Janis — whose license to practice law was suspended by the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board in December 2015 — had improperly taken money from three women who had hired him to represent them in family law matters in 2014 and 2015.

It was the fifth such arrest for Janis, 38, who now lives with his family in New Jersey, since July 2018. Clients Janis allegedly bilked are from Chester, Montgomery and Berks counties.

The hearing before Binder lasted more than 2½ hours before the two sides concluded their presentations, but without a resolution. Binder took the unusual step of saying that he would wait two weeks before announcing whether he would hold Janis on all, some, or none of the theft charges against him.

The judge explained that the issues involved in the case were complex enough that he wanted the additional time to study the law involved and mull over the facts presented by the prosecution and the arguments made by Janis’ defense attorney.

In general, Chief Deputy District Attorney Ronald Yen, who is heading the prosecution against Janis on all the myriad charges against him, said that Janis had illegally taken money paid to him by the three women by not depositing it in a so-called “lawyers trust account,” as is described by the state’s Rules of Professional Conduct.

Funds deposited in such accounts are meant to be withdrawn as an attorney completes work on a client’s case, with proper billing identifying the withdrawals sent to the client. In the cases of the three women, Yen argued, he had instead put the fees in his own bank account and used them as his own.

“Mr. Janis put moneys he was required to hold in trust into his own account and he spent it,” Yen said in a closing argument Friday in Binder’s courtroom at the Chester County Justice Center. “He took those funds and used them as his own when he knew he could not. It is not his money. It is the client’s money.”

But attorney Dan McGarrigle of Media, representing Janis, argued strongly that the prosecution was attempting to transform what should be either a civil suit or a disciplinary matter into a criminal case.

“They haven’t proven anything,” McGarrigle said of the prosecution’s case. “We are not in a disciplinary hearing. There has to be an intent to do something criminal, and it was his money to do whatever he wanted to do.” he argued that the women had been told what Janis intended to do for them, and at least one seemed satisfied enough that she considered hiring him for new work on her behalf.

The three women involved — Bonnie Hains, Katherine Bailey, and Judith Borland — all testified at the hearing about their interactions with Janis, which took place in 2014 and 2015, before his license was suspended by the state. The suspension came after multiple clients told investigators for the Disciplinary Board that Janis had taken money for their cases and then did little or no work for them, and attempted to skirt their attempts to get refunds.

Hains said that she had paid Janis $2,500 in March 2014 for a custody case involving her daughter, Jami Hains. She said that Janis had initially told her that the “retainer” would be put into a secure account that he would withdrawl from as her worked, but that he later sent her daughter a written fee agreement that specified that the $2,500 was a one-time payment to his office that would be deposited into his operating account rather than a trust account.

Eventually, when Hains checked court dockets in Chester and Montgomery counties, she learned that Janis had never filed anything in her daughter’s behalf, according to a criminal complaint filed in January.

Likewise, Bailey testified that she had paid Janis $2,500 in January 2015 to represent her in a child custody matter. She said he seemed to do little to present her case at a mediation hearing held in the Justice Center in March 2015, and afterwards told her. “He was going to take care of everything.”

But she said she later learned he had never spoken with the attorney for the child’s father, and never sent her an itemized bill for his services. There was a complete lack of communication, and she never received a refund for her payment    after he was suspended.

Finally, Borland said she paid Janis $3,000 to handle her divorce in July 2015, at a time when he was being investigated by the Disciplinary Board. He told her nothing of the investigation, and gave her no written fee agreement. He filed a divorce complaint in her behalf, she said in her testimony, but “not a lot happened after that.”

Eventually, when she saw an article in the Daily Local News about his suspension, she contacted him and received $920 back from him, although he never explained what he had done to earn the $2,080.

McGarrigle objected frequently to much of the women’s testimony, and argued that the alleged thefts might be attributed to sloppy bookkeeping, but lacked any showing of criminal intent. The charges that Janis faces include theft by failure to make required disposition of funds, theft by deception, and receiving stolen property. 

According to a press release from the District Attorney’s Office announcing the latest arrest, the total sum of alleged thefts from former clients is now in excess of $100,000, in addition to the thefts from his mother-in-law.

Said District Attorney Tom Hogan: "The defendant’s pattern of conduct is reprehensible.  He regarded everybody he met as a potential victim - - his clients, his wife, even his mother-in-law.”

The allegations from the criminal complaint are as follows:

 After Janis was arrested for the first time in July and charged with stealing money from the West Chester law firm he worked at from 2006 to 2013, his wife, Jennifer Hulnick, left him and divorced him.  During the subsequent time period, she discovered that he had opened multiple credit card accounts in her name without her permission and incurred substantial debts in her name.

In August, Hulnick went to the mailbox that she and Janis had shared at their former home in East Caln and found a bank statement from JP Morgan Chase identifying $3,931 in an outstanding balance. The account was in the name of Ellen Hulnick, her mother, and the company they ran together.

In their investigation, Davis and Dougherty discovered that the defendant had set up a Chase account in Ellen Hulnick’s name, but with his own contact information and phone number, preventing his mother-in-law from knowing about the account.  He used his mother-in-law’s name, Social Security number, and date of birth to open the account, and incurred $5,000 in unpaid debt on this account, less fees and costs.

Hulnick told the detectives that she had earlier caught Janis trying to open an account in her name in March 2016, just after she and her daughter started their business. When she confronted him, he told her he was “just trying something” and “messing around” without any further explanation, according to the criminal complaint. She told him he did not have any permission to open any account in her name. The new account was opened by Janis that same month, according to the investigators. 

Janis is charged with identity theft, forgery, theft by deception, and receiving stolen property. After arraigning him, Binder set bail at $10,000 unsecured. The three cases that have been held for Common Pleas Court have been assigned to Judge Patrick Carmody.

Anyone with additional information is asked to contact Dougherty at 610-344-6866.

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Legal woes adding up for suspended Chesco lawyer

Documents Show Lois Riess Stole Thousands From Disabled Sister In 2015

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — New documents show accused murderer Lois Riess was under criminal investigation in Minnesota in 2015.

But Riess was never charged. The documents from Dodge County show investigators were looking at charging Riess for taking tens of thousands of dollars from her disabled sister.

She was appointed her sister’s guardian in 2012.

Recently, Riess was arrested for a murder spree that allegedly started with her husband in Blooming Prairie last month, and ended in Florida with the death of Pamela Hutchinson.

Riess was on the run for almost a month before she was captured in a Texas bar last week. But this was not her first brush with serious legal trouble.

We found documents showing she was on authorities’ radar in Minnesota for felony theft three years ago.

A review of hundreds of documents show that in 2015, Lois Riess was very much on Minnesota law enforcement radar for stealing tens of thousands of dollars from her disabled sister.

A September 2015 document from Dodge County says, “Law enforcement is also looking into the matter for possible criminal charges.”

A civil judgement filed just a year ago against Riess said she owed her sister $100,000.

Susan Gaertner is the former Ramsey County attorney. She has no ties to the Riess case.

“If you steal money from anyone, especially from a vulnerable adult, of course you can be prosecuted. That’s a crime,” Gaertner said.

Documents WCCO found claim Riess spent thousands of her sister’s dollars at casinos and, deposited thousands into her own accounts. Gaertner, who reviewed documents in the case, says Minnesota law gives wide discretion to guardians.

“Twenty-twenty hind sight is always perfect,” Gaertner said.

Under pressure in 2016, Riess withdrew as guardian, and the courts appointed an independent guardian. According to Minnesota courts, 21,000 adult Minnesotans have court-appointed guardians.

Gaertner says even if Riess had been prosecuted for felony theft back in 2015, under Minnesota law, she would likely have never seen any prison time.

“We don’t put people in prison generally for stealing under $100,000,” Gaertner said.

We did reach out to Dodge County authorities for comment and did not hear back. That $100,000 judgement against Lois Riess filed a year ago remains open – court documents show Riess has not repaid her disabled sister any of that debt.



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Documents Show Lois Riess Stole Thousands From Disabled Sister In 2015

Housing Authority coordinator charged with swindling elderly man

A woman who coordinates senior services for the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority was indicted Wednesday on charges that she and her husband swindled more than $100,000 out of an elderly man they befriended at a karaoke bar.

A Clark County grand jury returned the indictment charging Yvette Mendes-Hayes and Lawrence Paul Hayes with exploitation of an elderly person and theft. The charges follow an investigation into allegations of exploitation of Peter Antonucci, who was 87 when he met the married couple while out doing karaoke in 2015.

Mendes-Hayes earned a taxpayer-funded salary of $55,000 last year in her role providing housing services to senior citizens. In that same year, she is accused of defrauding an aging but lucid man of the wealth he had left by, among other things, persuading him to sell his home.

According to the arrest warrant filed in the case, Antonucci developed a friendship with the couple after meeting them. Antonucci told authorities that Hayes told him to sell his townhouse, so “they could buy a bigger house and he and Yvette would take care of Peter.”

Antonucci obliged and sold his Summerlin townhouse for $150,000, with the help of a real estate agent who is a friend of the Hayes couple. The arrest warrant said that Hayes and Mendes-Hayes used the proceeds of the townhouse to purchase a North Las Vegas home but that Antonucci’s name was not listed in any title documents for the new house. The three of them moved into the house in the summer of 2015.

“Peter said that he was told to stay in his room and had to ask for permission to leave the house,” the arrest warrant said. “He now believes that he was defrauded by the Hayes and they had planned to exploit him.”

Antonucci told authorities that Hayes told him he could not be on the deed because his only income is Social Security benefits. He also told police that Hayes took the $2,200 in monthly Social Security payments and transferred it into his own account to use the money for mortgage payment, living expenses, and house furnishings.

Hayes collects disability benefits and is not employed. He has a criminal record that include fraud offenses in Michigan.

Filings in the case accuse the couple of belittling Antonucci, who told police “he would stay in his bedroom most of the time because every time he came out he was ordered away or criticized by Paul (Hayes).”

Court filings indicate that Antonucci left the house in May 2016, taking only his clothes, guitars and two handguns. He left furniture and other belongings with the Hayes, who authorities say changed all the locks after Antonucci left.

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Housing Authority coordinator charged with swindling elderly man

Indicted Las Vegas lawyer used firm’s funds for church donations

By JEFF GERMAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Indicted probate lawyer Robert Graham used his firm’s operating account to pay money to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, grand jury transcripts show.

Tim Schultz, a financial expert with the Clark County district attorney’s office, testified before the grand jury that Graham poured an average of $187,000 a month from his client trust fund into the operating account to run his law practice and pay personal bills.

Schultz testified that he believed Graham was using his clients money as a “piggy bank” to pay his bills. Records showed he funneled money into the operating account to pay a $244,000 IRS debt and $700,000 to $800,000 a year on advertising, Schultz said.

When a prosecutor asked Schultz whether Graham had paid charitable contributions to the Mormon church, he replied: “Oh, I did see some, yeah, where it looks like to a Mormon church he was paying some money out.”

 

Schultz, whose testimony was included in 200 pages of grand jury transcripts obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, said the money was coming out of the Lawyers West operating account, but he didn’t know how much Graham was paying the church.

All Mormon church members are encouraged to tithe and give one-tenth of their income.

Eric Hawkins, a spokesman for the church in Salt Lake city, would not discuss Graham’s church ties.

But in an email he said: “Church members routinely make donations to the Church. We would never knowingly accept or retain donations that are the proceeds of ill-gotten gains, including fraud. If it is demonstrated that the donations received from this individual were from money obtained by fraudulent means, the donations will be returned.”

Graham’s contributions to the church weren’t his only charitable endeavors. As his law practice was collapsing, he also donated money to Boys Town of Nevada and the Colorado State University sports program.

That didn’t sit well with Las Vegas attorney Joseph Kistler, who has been attempting to recover more than $1 million from Graham for one of his estate clients.

“He should have paid his clients back rather than grandstanding with charities to make himself falsely look like a big shot do-gooder,” Kistler said.

The grand jury indicted Graham on Jan. 5 on charges of stealing $2.1 million in three of his cases. He is facing six felony counts of theft and exploitation of an older or vulnerable person and two gross misdemeanor counts of destroying evidence.

In all, prosecutors have alleged in court that Graham, 52, may have stolen more than $15 million in client funds, and they expect to file additional criminal charges. He is in custody at the Clark County Detention Center on $5 million bail.

 

The state bar filed a complaint against Graham alleging the massive theft occurred before he abruptly closed his Lawyers West office in Summerlin on Dec. 2. He has been temporarily suspended from practicing law while the bar conducts disciplinary proceedings.

As late as November, as his financial troubles escalated, Graham was serving on the Boys Town of Nevada board.

Boys Town officials would not say how much Graham donated over the years to Boys Town, an organization that strives to improve the lives of at-risk children.

“We set high standards for the young men and women who are part of our family, and clearly if these allegations are true they run counter to what we teach and believe,” said Kara Neuverth, a Boys Town spokeswoman in Omaha, Neb. “We will hold any of his donations aside until this process has concluded.”

Records show that Graham also has been a member of Ram Legacy Club, an exclusive group of roughly 50 donors at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo., where Graham and his wife, Linda, maintained a home.

Members of the Ram Legacy Club donate $50,000 over five years toward scholarships for student athletes. In return, the donors receive special access to university sporting events.

Graham and Lawyers West are listed on the Colorado State website as a joint legacy club member, but a club spokeswoman on Monday refused to discuss Graham’s membership.

His lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Bryan Cox, also would not comment.

“I’m gathering more information on those issues, and I decline comment at this time,” Cox said.

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Indicted Las Vegas lawyer used firm’s funds for church donations 

See Also:
Authorities consider criminal investigation of suspended Las Vegas attorney

Las Vegas lawyer accused of stealing millions from clients arrested
 
Millions missing from lawyer's trust account, bar alleges after he abruptly closes law firm

New Brunswick Man Tricked Elderly Woman Into Giving Up Her Home, Prosecutors Say

New Brunswick, NJ - A New Brunswick man is accused of tricking a senior citizen into signing over the title to her home, and then withdrawing several thousands of dollars from her checking account, the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office said.

The investigation began after an anonymous tip was placed to state authorities at Adult Protective Services of the Division of Family and Children’s Services. Fady Chedid, 52, of New Brunswick, was arrested Friday after police said he convinced the older woman to first sign over the deed to her home. He then wrote several checks from her bank account between September 4, 2013 and June 2014. The checks were for various amounts, but in total they added up to several thousand dollars withdrawn from her account.

After the anonymous call tip was made, a legal guardian assigned by the state subsequently notified the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office.

“The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office remains committed to investigating and prosecuting instances of elder fraud, abuse and exploitation.” Prosecutor Andrew Carey said.

Chedid was charged with two counts of theft and is being held at the Middlesex County Adult Corrections Center in North Brunswick in lieu of $50,000 bail.

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New Brunswick Man Tricked Elderly Woman Into Giving Up Her Home, Prosecutors Say

Couple Ripped Off Elderly Relative For $6K, Husband Bought Motorcycle, Speedway Tix and Rented U-Haul: Cops

Lisa Blazek and Kenneth Blazek

JOLIET, IL — A Romeoville couple ripped off an elderly relative for nearly $6,500 and the husband used the money to buy a motorcycle, tickets to Chicagoland Speedway and to rent a U-Haul, according to a criminal indictment filed in Will County court.

Lisa Blazek, 44, and Kenneth Blazek, 45, were both arrested and booked into the Will County jail Thursday night.

Kenneth Blazek was charged with a continuing financial crimes enterprise, the financial exploitation of the elderly and theft. Lisa Blazek was charged only with the financial exploitation of the elderly and theft.

The Blazeks drained away their elderly relative’s money for six months in 2014, the indictment said. She was 81 at the time of the alleged crimes and has an address listed in Joliet.

The Joliet police investigated the Blazeks and brought the case against them.

Kenneth Blazek bought a $5,500 motorcycle from a dealer in Joliet, the indictment said, as well as splurging on speedway tickets and the U-Haul.

The charges were filed Thursday morning. The Blazeks were in custody shortly before 8:30 p.m.

The Blazeks’ bond was previously set at $50,000 each.

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Couple Ripped Off Elderly Relative For $6K, Husband Bought Motorcycle, Speedway Tix and Rented U-Haul: Cops

Northern Nevada man charged with abusing guardianship system

By WESLEY JUHL
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

An Elko County man has been arrested in connection with abuses of the guardianship system, the Nevada attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.

Wade Fordin, 53, will face one count of exploitation of an older person and one count of theft for acts authorities say were committed between February 2012 and November 2013.

According to the criminal complaint, Fordin was appointed as the permanent guardian of his 80-year-old mother, Helen Mae Fordin, after it was determined that she was unable to care for herself. Wade Fordin was entrusted with her estate for the limited purpose of providing for her care, but he personally used more than $6,000 of her money, the attorney general’s office said.

The case, which is being prosecuted by the attorney general’s fraud unit, comes just a week after the Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee approved Attorney General Adam Laxalt’s request to use non-taxpayer settlement funds to take on financial fraud. The initiative also included about $400,000 for the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada to boost its capacity to take on civil guardianship exploitation and abuse cases.

 

This is the second guardianship-related case that Laxalt’s office has prosecuted.

Wendy Rudder, who was providing public guardian services under a contract with Lincoln County, pleaded guilty to one count of misconduct of a public officer related to unauthorized withdrawals from a ward’s guardianship account and was sentenced in the spring of 2015.

The case was referred to Laxalt’s office by Elko County officials during a law enforcement summit in February.

“My prosecutors will continue to partner with local law enforcement and district attorneys to deter the exploitation of vulnerable populations, and to ensure our elderly are treated with respect and dignity, not victimized,” Laxalt said.

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Northern Nevada man charged with abusing guardianship system

Accountant stole over $1M from two women who fled Germany during WWII

Richard Doren

An accountant stole over $1.1 million from the estates of two women who fled Germany during World War II, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Richard Doren, 50, as administrator to the estates, was supposed to find next of kin for the late clients but many died in the Holocaust, according to the Manhattan District Attorney.

Between 2009 and 2015, Doren took large sums of money from the estates for himself and used it to pay off a mortgage that was held in his wife’s name and her $10,000-per-month credit card bills.

“Insider theft and fraud can be committed by new and long-term employees alike — this defendant is accused of stealing from clients at the accounting firm where he worked for approximately 20 years,” DA Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement

Doren, who pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court, was ordered held on $300,000 bail.

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Accountant stole over $1M from two women who fled Germany during WWII

Elderly couple’s $4 million suit accuses caregivers of major household theft

David & Vera Mann

Sometimes Vera Mann sees an empty spot where a treasured object once sat, and her eyes fill with tears. The mantelpiece in her living room, which used to display crystal vases and porcelain figurines. Her light-filled atrium, where small marble animals peeked out from among the orchids. Her own fingers, where for 70 years she wore her wedding and engagement rings.

All gone, now.

Over the course of six months last year, she and her husband, David, say, three nurses caring for him in their Kalorama home systematically made off with more than half a million dollars’ worth of their belongings. The Manns, both 91, have filed a $4 million civil suit against the nurses and two home health-care agencies, seeking compensation for the missing items — from bath towels to priceless family heirlooms — and for the distress it caused them. An investigation by D.C. police is also underway.

The alleged disappearances, and the length of time over which they occurred, highlight a growing problem as more Americans age and require in-home care: The more dependent they are on caregivers, the harder it is to confront them when there is a problem. And crime allegations can be hard to prosecute if it’s the word of the residents against that of the caregivers.

A bill being considered in the District may help, making it a crime to use “undue influence” in the financial abuse of a vulnerable adult, including people 65 or older. Thirty-five states have statutes criminalizing the financial exploitation of older or incapacitated persons, and at least nine have laws defining undue influence in their criminal codes.

The bill passed an initial D.C. Council vote last week, and the council expects to take a final vote this month or next. If it passes, advocates say it will make such cases easier to prosecute, particularly in situations involving coercion or in those in which it isn’t clear whether a crime has been committed.

The Manns’ three-story D.C. townhouse, with a soaring, custom-built atrium that Vera hand-painted in Italian-style trompe l’oeil, is filled with items collected over a lifetime of travel and overseas stints: He is a former assistant secretary of the Navy and she is a psychologist. The nurses were provided by Maryland-based Capital City Nurses, hired by their son in March 2015 after gastric bypass surgery left David in need of round-the-clock care.

When small kitchen items began to vanish, the couple said they initially assumed they had been misplaced. But then the disappearances became more glaring, they said. A Limoges china planter. A silver fish platter. An expensive eelskin briefcase that hadn’t left the house in 25 years. And finally, the couple said, jewelry and furs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars vanished, including pieces Vera’s mother brought over from Russia around the time of the Titanic disaster.

“Those things, and the house itself as a safe environment that she had designed, were an important world to her, so to have a lot of the components of that world lost, to be invaded like that, was very traumatic for her,” said their son, James Mann. For his father, he said, “it’s more a matter of a violation of trust, that people who came in on the basis of they were going to take care of him didn’t do their job.”

By September, David was nailing boards across the kitchen cupboards and Vera was hiding valuables in locked rooms the caregivers were not supposed to enter. That didn’t work — they allege that locked closets were forceably opened, and Vera said she awoke one night to find one of the caregivers in her bedroom, rummaging through boxes.

When the Manns called Capital City Nurses to report what was happening, they said, they were not taken seriously.

“They said, ‘Oh no, our people don’t do such things,’ ” David said.

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Elderly couple’s $4 million suit accuses caregivers of major household theft

Partners Report Lawyer to Conn. Officials, Allege $3 Million Theft From Client's Estate

State attorney disciplinary officials are seeking an interim suspension for a Southbury attorney, claiming he collected exorbitant fees of more than $3 million while acting as executor and trustee for a now deceased client's estate.

The application for order of interim suspension was filed against attorney Robert J. Barry on Nov. 3 in Superior Court in Waterbury. In the application, Assistant Chief Disciplinary Counsel Desi Imetovski asserts Barry "poses a substantial threat of irreparable harm to his current and prospective clients." The application notes he has about 70 pending cases in the seven-town probate court district that includes Southbury. "Respondent continues to represent numerous individuals in trusts and estates with access to untold monies," the application states.

The Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel also asked the court to appoint a trustee to protect the interests of Barry's clients. The court had not scheduled a hearing or taken any action on the application as of Nov. 4. The disciplinary counsel's office declined to comment on the case beyond what is outlined in court documents.

Barry, of the law firm Sturges & Mathes on Heritage Road in Southbury, was admitted to the bar in 1967, according to the state Judicial Branch, which indicates he has no public record of discipline. A message left for Barry seeking comment was not immediately returned. It was unclear whether he has hired another lawyer to represent him in the matter.

Attorney Kevin Thornton, who works at the same firm as Barry, said he learned about the $3 million fees after hearing staff in the office express concerns about exorbitant fees being taken in a client's case. After checking the firm's financial records, Thornton said he and another attorney at the firm, Lisa Wnuck, met with the disciplinary counsel's staff to discuss what they had discovered.

The firm's website lists the three attorneys — Barry, Thornton and Wnuck. Barry's areas of practice include estate administration, estate planning and real estate. Thornton said the extent of the financial situation is still being evaluated. He said after the situation was discovered, the partners argued and Barry tried to kick Thornton out of the building.

"I think this is the tip of the iceberg," Thornton said. "No one else [other than Barry] was looking at the [financial] books until very recently. Of course, I am concerned about the firm's reputation. It was founded in 1908 and its reputation has been stellar."

According to court documents, in December 1998 Barry began representing Catherine Wilens. He prepared her will testament and set up a revocable trust agreement.

From 2010 through February 2014, Barry held a power of attorney for Wilens. During this time, he wrote checks payable to his firm, Sturges & Mathes, in excess of $743,000, the disciplinary counsel's office claims. Barry then became the estate trustee prior to Wilens' death, and as such, he wrote trust checks payable to his firm in excess of $900,000 between 2010 and 2014.

Wilens, who had been a Southbury resident, died on March 1, 2014. Barry was also the executor of her estate, which was valued at $9 million at the time of her death, according to the application for temporary suspension. Under the terms of the trust, two individuals, Madison and Megan Mahoney, were to receive $100,000 each, with the balance of the assets to go to the Cornell University's medical school, to be held as "The Catherine Williams Wilens Memorial Fund," documents show.

But from March 2014 through November 2015, Barry executed checks payable to his firm in the amount of about $1.4 million, the disciplinary counsel's office claims. Overall, it alleges Barry as fiduciary issued his firm fees in excess of $3 million in connection with the representation of Wilens.

In May 2015, Barry filed a federal estate tax return, listing the value of the estate at only slightly over $8 million, omitting almost $1 million in assets, according to disciplinary counsel's office.

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Partners Report Lawyer to Conn. Officials, Allege $3 Million Theft From Client's Estate

Carrollton Lawyer Under Investigation for Alleged Theft

Authorities are looking deeper into the bank records of a Carrollton lawyer accused of forging records and stealing tens of thousands of dollars from at least one client.

Capt. Jeff Richards of the Carroll County Sheriff's Department said in a written statement that the investigation "has produced more than one victim, and [investigators] believe that more victims will surface."

Sheriff's deputies arrested Robert B. Eddleman on Oct. 9 and charged him with forgery and theft by taking. Eddleman, who was released the same day on a recognizance bond, could not be reached for comment. (Calls to his office were directed to his voicemail and his firm's website no longer appears to be operational.)

The charges stem from an allegation by a former client whose mother paid Eddleman approximately $20,000 earlier this year to represent him in a criminal proceeding, Richards said.

"The client was desirous of getting bond so he could return to work," said Richards.

Eddleman and his friend Joseph Matt Rooks, who is not an attorney, are accused of filing forged power of attorney documents with the Carroll County Superior Court Clerk's office and sending a forged resignation letter to the client's employer so that they could obtain $30,000 from the client's retirement account, Richards said. The pair deposited the money into Eddleman's trust account and then immediately withdrew the money.

Rooks, who is related to the client, also is charged with forgery and theft, Richards said. He was released from jail on Oct. 10 on $10,000 bond. Investigators do not believe Rooks is associated with any of the other instances under investigation.

Richards said investigators are trying to verify allegations that Eddleman may have kept money issued to another client in a wrongful termination suit in early 2013 and that Eddleman may have forged documents to alter the terms of settlement in a third, unrelated case.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is assisting in the Eddleman matter, Richards said.

"The GBI financial analysis unit and investigators are doing a forensic review of Eddleman's trust account and preparing flow charts of the disbursement of funds," he said.

Eddleman, who earned his law degree from Georgia State University and was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 2005, does not have a public disciplinary history. Richards said the sheriff's department has been in contact with bar officials, but State Bar General Counsel Paula Frederick would not discuss whether the bar was investigating.

Another Carrollton attorney, Joseph Nathaniel Harden, in August pleaded guilty to criminal charges of bilking 30 clients of more than half a million dollars, the Times-Georgian reported. His plea came two years after the state Supreme Court accepted Harden's voluntary surrender of his law license, which is the equivalent of a disbarment.

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Carrollton Lawyer Under Investigation for Alleged Theft