Disbarred attorney stole more than half of client’s settlement, prosecutors say

By Matt Reynolds

A disbarred Pennsylvania attorney faces felony theft charges after prosecutors accused him of misappropriating more than $563,000 from a client who was seriously injured in a car crash.

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele announced the charges Thursday against 50-year-old disbarred Warrington attorney Michael Bradley. He is accused of commingling insurance settlement funds awarded to his client Branden Thornton and using them to fund his home renovations, vacations, plastic surgery and other personal expenses.

“The defendant’s theft of more than half a million dollars – funds that were dedicated to helping his client receive the care he needed to live – which he used to pay for extravagant goods and vacations, is not only illegal but disturbing on a basic human level,” Steele said in a prepared statement.

Bradley’s attorney, William Brennan, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he had known his client for 30 years.

“He’s been totally cooperative with this investigation, and when I have the opportunity to review the discovery in this case, we will decide on an appropriate way to resolve this matter,” Brennan said.

Thornton had received more than $1.1 million after he was injured by a vehicle in September 2012 as he was walking along a road in Upper Merion, a township in southeast Pennsylvania, according to Steele’s office.

Thornton was 18 at the time, the Inquirer reports, and was left with a traumatic brain injury that put him into a coma for three months. After he recovered, he needed around-the-clock care, says the newspaper, citing an affidavit.

For his work representing Thornton, Bradley received $276,250, or 25%, of his client’s award, according to Steele’s office.

Investigators allege Bradley placed the funds earmarked for Thornton’s care in his bank account, using the money to pay college tuition, student loans and vehicle payments, and for hundreds of purchases on Amazon.

The Inquirer says Bradley’s purchases included a new driveway at the lawyer’s home, vacations in Key West and $10,000 for plastic surgery.

Steele’s office noted that Bradley was disbarred in February 2019 after Thornton’s mother, Tammy Howard, filed a complaint against him with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Bradley was arraigned on multiple first-degree felony charges including receiving stolen property and theft. He was released on a $250,000 bond.

Full Article & Source:
Disbarred attorney stole more than half of client’s settlement, prosecutors say

Suspended Warsaw attorney disbarred following theft, fraud conviction

by Dave Stafford

A northern Indiana lawyer who was indefinitely suspended in March after he pleaded guilty to multiple felony theft charges was disbarred Wednesday by the Indiana Supreme Court.

Justices unanimously leveled the most severe attorney discipline sanction against Scott J. Lennox, ordering him disbarred immediately for 15 rule violations related to “neglecting client matters, mismanaging his attorney trust accounts, converting client funds, and failing to cooperate with the disciplinary process.”

In the per curium opinion In The Matter of Scott Joseph Lennox, 19S-DI-628, justices accepted the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission’s allegations against Lennox, who did not appear or respond to the proceedings against him.

Lennox, formerly a partner with Lennox, Sobek & Buehler LLC in Warsaw, was suspended last November for noncooperation with the commission’s investigation of four grievances against him. Relatedly, Lennox had been criminally charged in Kosciusko Circuit Court with multiple felonies alleging theft of client funds, among other counts.

Lennox pleaded guilty in March to two counts of Level 5 felony fraud on a financial institution and six counts of Level 6 felony theft arising from a case investigated by Warsaw police after money entrusted to the firm went missing. Under terms of his plea agreement, Lennox agreed to make restitution of more than $51,000 to his former law firm, clients and a bank.

The court said in its order Wednesday that Lennox “failed to maintain appropriate records for two trust accounts and made several unauthorized withdrawals of client funds, converting those funds for his personal use.” He also “made several unauthorized withdrawals and converted client funds from a third trust account,” resulting in criminal charges.

Full Article & Source:
Suspended Warsaw attorney disbarred following theft, fraud conviction

Ohio woman found guilty of swindling tens of thousands from 89-year-old Korean War vet

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A judge found a Strongsville woman guilty of felony theft charges Thursday after she was accused of swindling an elderly war veteran out of tens of thousands of dollars before his death earlier this year.

Latasha Wisniewski, 38, used the false promise of romance to gain the trust of Charles Bauer, an 89-year-old Korean War veteran and widower, then looted much of his life's savings in a matter of months, prosecutors said.

Common Pleas Court Judge Shannon Gallagher on Tuesday found Wisniewski guilty of two counts of theft from an elderly person, which could land her behind bars for more than a dozen years.

Wisniewski and her boyfriend, Daniel Scholz, are also charged with additional felony charges of misuse of credit cards in a separate case. Gallagher will impose her sentence on the theft charges against Wisniewski after that case is settled.

Wisniewski's attorney, Marcus Sidoti, declined to comment on the case.

Wisniewski's conviction was based in part on the testimony of her aunt, 39-year-old Lisa Dotson. The two were charged in connection with this case in October. Dotson was a home health aide charged in a separate case that accused her stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from elderly and disabled clients. She pleaded guilty to charges in both cases in August and agreed to take the stand during Wisniewski's trial.

Dotson also faces a maximum sentence of more than 12 years in prison.

The scheme that played out from late summer 2017 through September 2018 is told in both civil and criminal filings in two Cuyahoga County courthouses.

Bauer, a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War and longtime Lake County resident, was the first 50-year employee at Bailey Controls in Wickliffe, and missed just five days of work in his career, according to his obituary. He was a 48-year member of the Erieside Church on the Boulevard in Willowick.

He battled depression in 2017 after the death of his longtime wife and began attending support meetings. That's where he met Wisniewski, 50 years his junior, who befriended him and convinced him that she was in love with him and wanted to marry him, according to court records.

Bauer's family, and prosecutors, say in court records that Wisniewski was preying on a vulnerable, heartbroken man with modest wealth whose health was declining.

She moved into Bauer's Parma Heights bungalow and convinced him within months of his wife's death to withdraw thousands of dollars from his bank accounts at give it to Wisniewski, records say. She bought herself jewelry and furniture for the house, records say. She then used his information to open joint bank accounts in both of their names, and transferred money from his savings account into the accounts, the records say. In a period of eight months, Wisniewski opened and closed eight different bank accounts in their names, prosecutors say.

Wisniewski pretended to be Bauer's granddaughter to access his accounts. She also recruited Dotson to help her carry out the fraud on Bauer, records say. The two used another elderly man to pose as Bauer in phone calls to banks to liquidate his assets, according to court records.

When Bauer's adult children questioned his relationship with Wisniewski, she manipulated him into distrusting his children and turned him against them, records say.

She convinced Bauer to sign a quitclaim deed adding her name to the deed on his home, then took out a $30,000 loan against the home in December 2017, according to court records. In August 2018, she took out a $4,000 loan with a 400-percent interest rate against Bauer's 2012 GMC SUV, according to court records.

By that time, Bauer had been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer and elected to forego treatment, records say. His family on Sept. 1, 2018 confronted Wisniewski, who signed a handwritten agreement on notebook paper agreeing to return all of Bauer's property by the day's end, records say.

Three days later, on Sept. 4, 2018, Wisniewski and Scholz applied for a marriage certificate, according to Cuyahoga County Probate Court records.

Cuyahoga County prosecutors obtained an indictment charging both Wisniewski and Dotson in November 2018.

Bauer died on Feb. 3, 2019, his obituary says.

Full Article & Source:
Ohio woman found guilty of swindling tens of thousands from 89-year-old Korean War vet