Disbarred lawyer gets 30 days after pleading no contest to theft of blind client's $400K inheritance
After getting an inheritance of more than $400,000 after her mother died in 2008, Janet Stites decided to have a lawyer, Timothy Darden, put the money into two trusts.
Instead, the California attorney stole the inheritance from Stites, she says—and, when she and another client complained to state bar authorities, Darden sued them for allegedly breaching a loan agreement, reports the Bay Area News Group.
The state bar filed a notice of disciplinary charges in 2012, and found Darden culpable in 2014 of two counts of moral turpitude, dishonesty or corruption by misappropriating client funds. The State Bar of California’s website shows that Darden has been ineligible to practice law in the state since June 2012, and was disbarred (PDF) in February 2014.
Darden’s civil case against his former clients was dismissed at the end of 2012, and a criminal case against him was launched in May 2014.
He was sentenced to 30 days behind bars on Jan. 13, after pleading no contest to two felony theft charges, the article reports. He now has five years to make restitution of $438,000 to Stites while he is on probation, said prosecutor Dodie Katague to the Bay Area News Group.
Darden maintains his innocence but told the Bay Area News Group on Friday, “I pleaded no contest to get it behind me. It was just way too expensive.” He added that it would have been hard for a jury to understand the complex case. “This was only $500,000. For me to risk my law license or jail time over it … that’s absurd,” he said.
Stites, 65, is blind and has had a double-organ transplant, the article reports. She says she doubts Darden will repay her.
For nearly eight years, she has struggled financially despite her mother’s gift. “My mom knew how hard it is to be blind to make it in the world, especially when you’re poor,” she told the Bay Area News Group, adding: “He stole my parents’ whole lives away, what they saved up.”
Darden told the Bay Area News Group that he hopes to have his law license reinstated after his probation.
