Bank-Robbing Attorney Pleads Guilty to Embezzling $63K From Clients
The law, it seems, wasn’t working out financially for Buffalo, N.Y., attorney Michael W. Rickard II.
Earlier this year Rickard, 42, pleaded guilty to holding up two banks in Nashville, Tenn. Yesterday, in the New York State Supreme Court 8th Judicial District, he pleaded guilty to embezzling almost $63,000 from two former clients. According to the Buffalo News, the embezzlements took place in 2009, about a year before the bank robberies.
Rickard, who was admitted to practice in New York in 1998, told the court that he stole $10,240 from from a 91-year-old nursing home resident. She was mentally incapacitated, and the court appointed Rickard as her legal guardian. He also admitted to taking $52,662 from a client’s estate.
Rickard is currently in West Virginia, serving a 37-month sentence for the bank robbery convictions. At his New York State Supreme Court hearing Tuesday, Judge Russell P. Buscaglia told Rickard he would probably get a one-year jail sentence for the embezzling, to be served after Rickard finishes his federal sentence.
