Now-Disbarred Attorney Avoids State Prison Time, Gets 30 Days In Jail After 'No Contest' Plea To Fleecing 65-Year Old Blind, Double Organ Transplant Recipient Out Of $400K+ Inheritance; Victim: "He Stole My Parents' Whole Lives Away, What They Saved Up. ... I Feel Like I Might As Well Be Dead!"

In Concord, California, the Contra Costa Times reports:

• On Oct. 27, 2008, Janet Stites' mother died and left her an inheritance of more than $400,000.
  
  Stites, who is blind, hired an attorney, but on the advice of her friend Richard Stickney, she fired that attorney and hired 56-year-old Concord lawyer Timothy Darden to set up two trusts for her. Within a year, Darden had allegedly swindled $438,000 from Stites and $33,500 from Stickney, and days after they complained to the State Bar of California, he turned around and sued them for fraud.
  
  "I've been scammed by the damned devil himself," said Stites, a 65-year-old double organ transplant recipient.
  
  "My mom knew how hard it is to be blind to make it in the world, especially when you're poor," she said. "Meanwhile, Darden lives high on the hog, driving his fancy Lexus and sticking his nose in the air like he's God almighty himself."
  
  On Jan. 13, Darden pleaded no contest to two felony grand theft charges and must serve 30 days in jail and pay $471,500 in restitution to his two victims over a five-year probation period, prosecutor Dodie Katague said. He was disbarred a year ago.(1)
  
  ***
  The years of court battles have sapped the strength and retirement savings of Stites and Stickney, who hold little faith that Darden will pay back the money.
  
  "It's been eight years that he's been using my money," Stites said, her voice cracking. "He stole my parents' whole lives away, what they saved up. ... I feel like I might as well be dead."
  
  Darden has not served his jail time yet, and despite the conviction and disbarment, his law firm website remains active. "We're taking steps to take down the website, and if it doesn't come down he can be charged with a crime," Katague said.
  
  Darden said he hasn't practiced law in a decade and will take down or "adjust" his website. He said he hopes to have his law license reinstated once he completes his probation.

For more, see Concord attorney swindled blind client of $430,000 inheritance.

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(1) The State Bar of California's Client Security Fund was established to reimburse eligible clients who have suffered a loss due to misappropriation or embezzle­ment by a California-licensed attorney

For similar "attorney ripoff reimbursement funds" that sometimes help cover 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 Canadian recovery 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.

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.