Attorney Accused In Civil Suit Of Milking Deceased Client's Estate; Damages Estimated At $6M+

In Annapolis, Maryland, The Capital reports:

• When Robert Blackburn Hewitt died of a heart attack in 2007, the Arnold resident's longtime attorney estimated his estate at almost $4.7 million. He told Hewitt's widow that she and her two sons "would never have to want anything," according to a lawsuit filed in Circuit Court.

• But two years later, that same attorney, Steven B. Preller, turned around and told Tina Hewitt Sargent she was broke and facing foreclosure on an investment property she didn't know she owned.

• Attorneys for Sargent and her sons, Robert Brett Hewitt and Ryan Hewitt, now claim Preller entered into at least six "self-dealing" business transactions over the past three years to reduce the estate "to nothing more than a series of empty investments" while lining his own pockets and the pockets of his friends and family. They put the damages at more than $6 million. [...] No criminal charges have been filed against Preller, a partner with Preller, Fastow & Klein, LLC in Windsor Mill.

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• The family learned last year that within weeks of Hewitt's death, Preller allegedly began orchestrating self-serving business transactions. They argued Preller did not have the legal right "to sell or otherwise transfer any money or other assets" from the estate.

• The lawsuit acknowledged that Sargent and her oldest son signed off on some of the deals, but argued those signatures were provided without "informed consent." "Ms. Sargent and Robert Brett Hewitt signed various documents in reliance of defendant Preller's false misrepresentation that these documents were ordinary documents that had to be signed to 'settle your late husband's estate,' " the lawsuit said.

For more, see Widow, sons sue attorney to reclaim millions (Claims he stole from her late husband's estate).