Disbarred lawyer takes plea in federal wire-fraud case, agrees to pay $837K restitution
A disbarred Iowa lawyer with an admitted gambling problem has taken a plea in a federal wire fraud case, but still faces a state-court theft case.
Susan Hense, 54, misappropriated a total of $837,011 from 15 clients, according to her Monday plea and confessions of judgment she filed in state court to help the victims of her crime get restitution from the Iowa Client Security Commission. The Associated Press and the Gazette have stories.
Former client Brad Huff told the Gazette that Hense not only stole $79,000 from his mother’s estate which was supposed to be held in trust, but charged $3,000 in legal fees for doing so.
Hense agreed to pay full restitution as part of her federal plea. She will be sentenced at a later date in the Cedar Rapids case, and faces a maximum prison term of 20 years.
The separate theft case involves bad checks Hense is accused of writing to the Meskwaki Casino in Tama, Iowa, which totaled $13,000. No trial date has yet been set for that case, the Gazette reports, but Hense will be turned over to the Tama County authorities once she’s been processed in the federal case.
She was disbarred by consent in 2013, the Gazette reported at the time.
