Disbarred lawyer can't blame bank fraud on old football injury - appeals court

By Barbara Grzincic 

Sept 2, 2022; Uvalde, TX, USA; Football players watch the game from the sideline. Mandatory Credit: Sara Diggins-USA TODAY NETWORK

Summary

• Defendant argued that brain disorders nixed specific criminal intent
• 6th Circuit found the lawyer's conviction and 30-month sentence proper

(Reuters) - A disbarred Tennessee lawyer cannot claim that head injuries he suffered playing football in high school and college made it impossible for him to form a criminal intent to commit federal bank fraud, a federal appeals court held Wednesday.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction and 30-month sentence of George Skouteris Jr, who had settled several cases between 2007 and 2013 without his clients’ knowledge and signed their names to deposit the checks to his own account. Those same actions had resulted in Skouteris’ disbarment in 2014.

At his criminal trial April 2021 in U.S. District Court in Memphis, the defense argued the federal bank fraud statute required the prosecution to show that Skouteris specifically intended to defraud the bank, and that his “days on the gridiron had left him with mental impairments — including possible chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — that cast doubt on whether he had the requisite state of mind,” Circuit Judge Chad Readler wrote Wednesday for the three-judge appellate panel.

Both sides introduced evidence and expert testimony about Skouteris’ mental disorders, but the trial judge declined to instruct the jury that evidence of “diminished mental capacity” could provide “reasonable doubt” that Skouteris lacked a specific intent to defraud the bank.

That was the right call, the 6th Circuit said. Despite some older appellate decisions to the contrary, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear in 2016 that the bank-fraud statute only requires prosecutors to show that defendants knew their actions were likely to cost the bank money – not that they purposely set out to do so.

Applying that “clarified standard,” the 6th Circuit said, “a mountain of circumstantial evidence demonstrated Skouteris’s knowledge that depositing unauthorized settlement checks into his own account was likely to wrongfully deprive the bank of its property.”

Former clients and colleagues had described Skouteris as a “detail-oriented lawyer who did not exhibit signs of a diminished mental capacity,” while others testified that Skouteris repeatedly lied to clients about the status of their settlements, “suggesting that he knew he was engaged in deception when cashing the settlement checks.”

In addition, the fact that Skouteris had engaged in similar behavior in seven cases over the “better course of a decade,” even after being confronted and sued for doing so, suggested that his actions “were no accident,” Readler wrote.

“That evidence is reliable proof that Skouteris knew the likely consequences of his behavior,” the court concluded.

Attorneys for the prosecution and defense declined to comment on Wednesday.

The case is USA v. Skouteris, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals No. 21-6221.

For Skouteris: Josie Holland of Holland Law

For the USA: Carroll André III, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee

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Disbarred lawyer can't blame bank fraud on old football injury - appeals court

Appeals court partially rules for former judge in probate case

A visiting panel remanded part of the case back to the trial court

 

by: Joe Gorman

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — A panel of visiting judges in the 7th District Court of Appeals this week partially ruled in favor of an appeal filed by former Mahoning County Court Judge Diane Vettori.

In an opinion issued Thursday, the visiting judges ordered that a ruling ordering Vettori to pay over $12,000 in interest in an estate case that Vettori’s lawyers claimed was a “prejudgment” order be vacated but ruled against her claim that the judge in her probate case was not impartial.

Vettori was sentenced in June 2019 to 30 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to stealing several hundred thousand dollars from the estate of a client she once represented in a probate case.

Vettori served as a judge in area court in Sebring from 2002 until the time the charges were filed against her, when she was suspended. She has since lost her law license.

In a separate case in Mahoning County Probate Court, Vettori was ordered to pay back over $185,000, including the over $12,000 interest.

Vettori’s lawyer John Juhasz asked that the interest be excluded, saying that it was rewarded before a hearing was held by Visiting Probate Judge Thomas Swift.

The visiting judges ruled that they could find no record of any hearing held on the matter of interest and ordered that the issue be remanded back to a trial court for further action.

As to Vettori’s claim that Judge Swift was not impartial, the visiting judges ruled that they could find no evidence to back up that claim and they dismissed it.

The judges who heard the appeal are W. Scott Gwin, Patricia Delaney and Craig R. Baldwin.

Vettori’s husband, former city police officer Ishmael Caraballo, pleaded guilty for his role in the crime and was sentenced to probation.

Full Article & Source:

Appeals court partially rules for former judge in probate case

 

See Also: 

Trial of Sebring judge to begin earlier

 

UPDATE | Mahoning County judge charged with stealing

Mahoning County judge charged with stealing over $96K from client

Appeals judge: Savitt case shows guardianship system in ‘disarray’

A panel with the 4th District Court of Appeal hears the guardianship case of senior Frances Berkowitz

A state appellate judge said from the bench that one of professional guardian Elizabeth Savitt’s most controversial cases is an example of Florida’s guardianship system in “disarray” — a system that is supposed to protect incapacitated seniors but instead “sucks the ward’s estate dry.”

Last year, then-Palm Beach County Chief Judge Jeffrey Colbath handed down guardianship reforms, many of which targeted specific actions by Savitt — such as the taking thousands of dollars in fees prior to judicial approval. Savitt is married to former Circuit Court Judge Martin Colin.

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Elizabeth Savitt, a professional guardian, is married to a former judge. Savitt’s lawyers practiced in front of her husband in other ... read more

 

“The reason why we find ourselves in this Byzantine muck, if you will, is because there is no clear strategy on who is ultimately responsible for that dignity of the ward or the preservation of the decedent’s estate,” said Judge Cory Ciklin of the 4th District Court of Appeal at a Tuesday hearing on the Savitt guardianship of Frances Berkowitz.

“Maybe something will come out of this case that, if nothing else, encourages an appreciation of how terribly the system is in disarray.”

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Judge Martin Colin. Palm Beach Post file photo

Ciklin’s comments during a hearing Tuesday morning were even more remarkable considering the law firm of his brother Alan — Ciklin, Lubitz & O’Connell — recently got hit with a  $16.4 million verdict for running up fees in a guardianship in front of Colin.

That federal case has since settled for a confidential amount to avoid a lengthy and expensive appellate process. But the troubled guardianship of Frances Berkowitz, a state case, is on appeal.

SPECIAL REPORT

A Palm Beach Post Investigation

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The Palm Beach Post’s award-winning investigative series, Guardianship: A Broken Trust, outlined the vast conflict of interest for Judge Colin as a sitting guardianship judge while his wife practiced as a guardian. He was removed from overseeing guardianship proceedings and announced his retirement.

The series also reported numerous complaints from families of Savitt’s wards and forced her cases to be moved. Colbath then announced his reforms.

Victim of fraud

The issue litigated Tuesday at the 4th DCA centered on whether a lawyer who sought a guardianship to protect his client, Berkowitz, could challenge Savitt for her actions and get her removed.

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Frances Berkowitz, with her husband Jerry Berkowitz. (Photo provided by WPTV News Channel 5)

 

Boca Raton attorney Webb Millsaps claimed in court documents that Savitt squandered Berkowitz’s opportunity to recover as much as $1 million from a bank and a Miami lawyer who assisted a caregiver in defrauding Berkowitz of her life savings. The senior died on Dec. 31 at age 86.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Howard Coates last year ruled Millsaps and his colleague, Donna Greenspan Solomon, had only limited standing to challenge Savitt. Coates ended up dismissing Millsaps’ only surviving claim that Savitt’s appointment was invalid and may have been influenced by Judge Colin.

Millsaps also argued that Savitt failed to account for $400,000 missing from Berkowitz’s bank accounts.

Instead, the former tennis pro turned guardian entered into a settlement that let the bank and other parties off the hook and instead used what was left of Berkowitz’s money to sue Millsaps and Solomon for the fees they took in collecting more than $800,000 from the caregiver.

Solomon, representing Millsaps on Tuesday, told the appellate panel the settlement Savitt made with the bank and caregiver never was formally approved by any court.

Solomon told the appellate panel — which included Judge Mark Klingensmith and Associate Judge Mark Belanger — that Savitt paid off a $308,000 foreclosure judgment on a home she owned shortly after receiving her appointment in December 2014.

Savitt’s attorney previously told The Palm Beach Post that documentation was provided to the Clerk of Court & Comptroller showing the money used to pay off the foreclosure judgment came from Savitt’s personal accounts.

No standing

If the appellate court rules in Millsaps’ favor, Solomon said, the decision would allow the Berkowitz heirs to unwind the settlement made by Savitt. The family members have also indicated they plan to sue Savitt.

John Carter, a Boca Raton lawyer representing the family who was present at the hearing Tuesday, said Ciklin’s questions and comments highlighted the core problem with guardianship in Florida: “The need for protection of the elderly and their assets from all persons with a financial stake in the process.”

Attorney Roger Levine, arguing on behalf of the guardianship on Tuesday, told the DCA panel that Millsaps, despite being the one who sought guardianship protection for his client, had no standing under the law to challenge Savitt’s decisions.

Klingensmith, though, said he reads the state guardianship law as giving broad authority to allow interested parties to intervene if a guardian is “not acting in the best interest of the ward.”

Ciklin also indicated Coates could have acted unilaterally to get to the bottom of Millsaps’ accusations against Savitt.

“The stark reality is whatever judge is assigned to a particular case is the person in charge. Period,” Ciklin said. “This, I would suggest, needs to begin and end with that judge.”

Solomon said she pleaded with Coates to look at the Berkowitz case and “find out what is going in our guardianship system in the state of Florida.”

“The absurdity of all this to some extent is that the ward ends up paying for everybody,” Ciklin said. “And all the while the ward’s estate is just being sucked dry.”

Full Article & Source:
Appeals judge: Savitt case shows guardianship system in ‘disarray’