Ex-Ontario Attorney Gets 22 Months For Manufacturing Forged Mortgage Used To Swindle 85-Year Old Man Out Of $150K

In Barrie, Ontario, the Toronto Sun reports:

• A Barrie-area lawyer was sentenced to 14 months in jail yesterday after being convicted fraud and forgery. Justice Amy Mullins imposed a 22-month sentence on Myles McLellan, 56, a real estate lawyer, but gave him credit for time already served in prison, leaving him facing a 14-month jail term.

• McLellan was charged in 2006 after he forged his office clerk’s signature, Janet Laurin, and convinced an 85-year-old Toronto business man, Sam Klaiman, to loan him $150,000 for the false mortgage, which he deposited into his own bank account. At the time, McLellan, who has since been disbarred because of the charges, ran a legal service called the Law Store with offices in Barrie and Innisfil that offered mortgage financing services.(1)(2)

For the story, see Lawyer jailed for fraud.

(1) According to another story (see Lawyer sentenced 22 months for fraud), The Law Society of Upper Canada has disbarred McLellan from practicing law. In all, he was found to have misappropriated approximately $423,000 of trust funds belonging to four clients. McLellan will return to a Toronto court May 31 for preliminary hearing in connection with trust fund frauds.

(2) If an Ontario, Canada attorney or paralegal, either in the course of representing you or acting as a fiduciary, screws you out of money or property through dishonest conduct, check out the The Law Society of Upper Canada Compensation Fund for information on how to recover some or all of your losses from the fund.

Elsewhere in Canada, check the Canada Client Protection Funds Map for the attorney compensation fund for client protection available in your province.

In the United States, see:

• Directory Of Lawyers' Funds For Client Protection (courtesy of the American Bar Association);
• Check the USA Client Protection Funds Map.

Maps available courtesy of The National Client Protection Organization, Inc.