Lawyer Gets 10 Years for Stealing $2.5M from Paralyzed Client

Criminal Justice

Lawyer Gets 10 Years for Stealing $2.5M from Paralyzed Client

Posted Apr 8, 2008, 10:55 am CDT
By Martha Neil

A lawyer who funded a lavish lifestyle by stealing most of the $3.5 million intended to fund a lifetime of care for a paralyzed client has been sentenced to a 10-year prison term by a United Kingdom judge.

Covering his tracks with dummy bills, solicitor Thomas McGoldrick, 59, stole not quite $2.5 million from a wheelchair-bound client to fund what the judge described as an "obscenely extravagant" lifestyle as his Cheshire law firm went downhill, reports the London Times.

"Even the birds in his garden lived well. The prosecution identified £50 to £80 spent each month on birdseed," the newspaper recounts. That translates to about $100 to $160 monthly in American dollars, at the current exchange rate.

McGoldrick, who appeared shaken at the length of the prison term, was found guilty in February of fraud, false accounting and money laundering.

His client, who is paralyzed from the neck down, was eventually reimbursed by the Law Society, but says he now worries that he can't trust anyone and panics when his current solicitor asks him to sign documents.

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