Just when you thought you couldn’t find a more malevolent lawyer for the day, one rears its ugly head.
Looks like this one didn’t get away with it though.
PIKEVILLE, Ky. (Herald-Leader/WYMT) – An Eastern Kentucky attorney accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a settlement he was supposed to distribute to children of a man killed in a car wreck was indicted by a grand jury Thursday, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
In all, the grand jury indicted Elkhorn City’s Timothy Belcher on seven charges of fraud and three charges of filing false tax returns.
According to the indictment, the widow of a man killed in a 2001 car wreck in Pike County hired Belcher to represent her in a wrongful-death lawsuit.
In 2004 Belcher won a significant settlement, with half going to Johnson’s widow and half to his children, the indictment said.
The money for the children went into an escrow account controlled by Belcher to be distributed later.
For years, Belcher transferred money from the account to his own checking account and used it for business and personal expenses, including mortgages, food, insurance and cell phones, the indictment said.
Johnson’s widow and daughter asked attorney Angie Hatton for help in early 2019, and Hatton contacted attorney Ray S. Jones II, who worked with Belcher on the original wrongful-death lawsuit.
Jones, now the Pike County judge-executive, contacted Belcher about the money and Belcher admitted he had spent the money and was “sick and broke,” according to the Supreme Court order.
Jones says Belcher estimated he had taken around $600,000 from the account, but the Supreme Court order indicates it could have been “quite a bit more”.
The bank-fraud charges against Belcher are punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
https://www.wymt.com/2021/03/27/pikeville-lawyer-charged-with-stealing-from-victims-children/
