Two lawyers are convicted of extortion for arrest threat in bid to collect fee
Two Tennessee lawyers have been convicted of extortion for threatening a client with an arrest for theft of services in a bid to collect $50,000 in legal fees.
Jurors in Clarksville, Tennessee, deliberated for two days before convicting the lawyers, Fletcher Long and Carrie Gasaway, the Leaf-Chronicle reports.
Long is known for his representation of suspects in two-high profile cases– the kidnapping and slaying of nursing student Holly Bobo and the alleged rape of a student by four former Vanderbilt University football players. Gasaway is the wife of a Montgomery County judge.
The client, Michelle Langlois, testified at trial that she agreed to pay the lawyers $800 to attend the reading of her father’s will in October 2010. Afterward, Langlois said, Gasaway said the estate was complex and Langlois should hire the lawyers to help her get her inheritance.
Langlois signed a contract to pay the lawyers a $50,000 flat fee for the work and gave them a $50,000 check to hold until she could get some money from her father’s stocks. In the interim, Langlois testified, the lawyers contacted her several times to ask when they would receive the money.
When Langlois got the money from the stocks, she said, she got a certified check and faxed it to the lawyers to show her intent to pay. But then she changed her mind about hiring the lawyers and deposited portions of the check in separate accounts, preventing the lawyers from cashing the personal check. The lawyers responded by seeking a warrant for Langlois’ arrest for theft of services, citing the “bad check” they were unable to cash, prosecutors contended. The criminal case against Langlois was eventually dropped.
Prosecutors said the lawyers wanted the fee to cover money they took from a client’s trust account for a real estate deal.
Long’s lawyer told the Leaf-Chronicle that jurors had received erroneous instructions and an appeal was planned.
Related article:
ABAJournal.com: “2 lawyers indicted for extortion, accused of using arrest threat to seek purported fees from client”
