Sunday, August 28, 2016

Another Lawyer Gets Bar Ticket Pulled For Fleecing Since-Deceased Clients; Currently Sits In State Prison Doing 30 Months For Pilfering Approx. $500K From 86-Year Old & Dementia-Stricken 98-Year Old Victims

In Belfast, Maine, WABI-TV Channel 5 reports:
  • A Belfast lawyer in prison for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from two elderly clients can no longer practice in Maine.(1)

    The Maine Supreme Court [] disbarred William Dawson, Jr., 62. He was also ordered to pay than $10,000 to the Board of Overseers of the Bar for disciplinary proceeding costs.

    Dawson was sentenced in March to two-and-a-half years in prison. He has to pay $520,000 in restitution, too. Dawson pleaded guilty to theft and failure to pay income taxes for three years, starting in 2011.

    Court documents say it was during that time, Dawson paid himself from the bank accounts of an 86-year-old woman and a 98-year-old woman. He over-billed them, too.

    Both women have since died.
Source: Belfast Lawyer Who Bilked Two Elderly Clients Disbarred in Maine.

See also, Belfast lawyer gets 30 months in prison for bilking elderly clients:
  • In one case, William L. Dawson Jr. placed an 85-year-old Belfast resident in a nursing home for four years while he looted her bank accounts, according to court records.
    ***
    The theft was uncovered in March 2013 when a teller at Key Bank noticed Dawson was writing large checks to himself on at least a weekly basis from the account of Veronica Pendleton. She alerted her supervisor, and a review of the account was undertaken, as well as that of another customer, 97-year-old Doris Schmidt. In that case, Dawson also was writing large checks on her account, according to Assistant Maine Attorney General Leanne Robbin.
    ***
    Pendleton had told [her friend Anne] Cilley she felt like she had been incarcerated for four years and missed seeing the birds and squirrels in her yard, according to Cilley’s letter.

    Schmidt suffered from dementia and was in the same nursing home as Pendleton. Dawson had given himself power of attorney over Schmidt’s finances without going to probate court, according to the prosecutor.
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(1) The Maine Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection was created by an Order of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to promote public confidence in the administration of justice and the integrity of the legal profession, by reimbursing clients who suffer losses caused by an attorney’s dishonest conduct. Generally, such conduct involves the misuse of funds in the care of the attorney or the misappropriation of amounts for the attorney’s personal benefit. The Fund was not designed to address losses caused by legal malpractice and no amounts are payable to clients for such activity.

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

posted by Home Equity Theft Reporter at 4:00 AM