Disbarred Attorney Cops Pleas To Both Federal & State Charges In Connection w/ Draining Over $1 Million From Since-Deceased, Alzheimer's Victim's Trust; When Victim's Money Ran Out, He Then Fleeced Another Elderly Client Out Of $114K

In Petoskey, Michigan, the Petosky News reports:

• A disbarred attorney from Petoskey has pleaded guilty to an embezzlement charge amid allegations that he siphoned more than $1 million from an elderly woman's trust over which he had control.
  
  In a news release [], Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said Michael Aho Kennedy, 67, has pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement of more than $100,000 from a vulnerable adult, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and was his elderly client. The charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
  
  “Our parents and grandparents are a part of this country’s greatest generation and unfortunately they are a high target generation for scammers,” Schuette in the release.
  
  Kennedy is scheduled to be sentenced on the conviction by Emmet County Circuit Court Judge Charles W. Johnson at 9 a.m. on Feb. 16. Kennedy also awaits sentencing on federal charges related to the case. Kennedy’s assets have been seized for forfeiture in order to pay restitution to the victim’s family, Scheutte said in the release.
  
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  On Nov. 30, Kennedy also pleaded guilty to two federal charges in the Michigan Western District Federal Court in Grand Rapids. He pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud and income tax fraud as a part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. In exchange for his pleas, five other mail fraud counts and two other tax fraud counts will be dismissed.
  
  The maximum penalty for the mail fraud count is up to 20 years in federal prison, a three-year supervised release and/or a fine of up to $250,000 or twice the amount involved in the offense. The maximum penalty for the tax fraud charge is three years in prison, followed by one year supervised release and the same possible fines.
  
  Although the amount contemplated in in the state case is "in excess of $100,000 because the statute of limitations has barred some of the amounts from being considered, the federal case places the amount of restitution Kennedy owes associated with the mail fraud case a more than $1.2 million. The federal plea agreement also spells out that he owes another $100,000 in restitution for unpaid federal taxes. The amount represents about one-third of the amount the federal government contends he should have paid in taxes.
  
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  According to the plea agreement, the mail fraud charge was based on the fact that while he was siphoning money out of the trust account, Kennedy would regularly send the victim in the case false statements in the mail showing that the account still had a full, and growing balance in it. Other facts Kennedy admitted to through the plea agreement included that when he had exhausted all of the first victim's funds, he enticed a second victim to invest about $114,000 in to a real estate fund that did not exist.

For more, see Attorney admits stealing more than $1 million from elderly woman.

For the related U.S. Attorney (Grand Rapids) press release, see Petoskey Attorney, Michael Aho Kennedy, Pleads Guilty To Mail Fraud Scheme And Filing False Tax Returns (Michael Aho Kennedy Embezzled Over One Million Dollars from Two Elderly Clients):

• When Kennedy exhausted all of her funds, he defrauded an additional elderly client of $114,000.00 that he then used for his own benefit and to pay the continuing expenses of the initial client that he defrauded.

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(1) The Client Protection Fund of the State Bar of Michigan is a program established by the State Bar of Michigan Board of Commissioners, as authorized by the Michigan Supreme Court, to reimburse clients who have been victimized by lawyers who violate the profession’s ethical standards and misappropriate funds entrusted to them.

See generally:

• N.Y. fund for cheated clients wants thieving lawyers disbarred, a July, 2015 Associated Press story on this Fund reporting that the Fund's executive director, among other things, is calling for prompt referral to the local district attorney when the disciplinary committee has uncontested evidence of theft by a lawyer injuring a client or an admission of culpability;
  
  When Lawyers Steal the Escrow, a June, 2005 New York Times story describing some cases of client reimbursements ("With real estate business surging and down-payment amounts rising with home prices, the temptation for a lawyer to filch money from a bulging escrow account and later repay it with other clients' money has never been greater, said lawyers who monitor the thefts."),
  
  Thieving Lawyers Draining Client Security Funds, a December, 1991 New York Times story that gives some-real life examples of how client security funds deal with claims and the pressures the administrators of those funds may feel when left insufficiently financed as a result of the misconduct of a handful of lawyer/scoundrels.

For similar "attorney ripoff reimbursement funds" that attempt to clean up the financial mess created by the dishonest conduct of lawyers licensed in other states and Canada, see:

• Directory Of Lawyers' Funds For Client Protection (now includes a listing for Canadian client protection funds, courtesy of the American Bar Association);
• Check the USA Client Protection Funds Map;
• Check the Canada Client Protection Funds Map.

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