'Suspicious' Death of Ex-Lawyer Accused of Embezzling $1M from Calif. Clients
A once-prominent California lawyer who resigned his bar membership earlier this year rather than face disciplinary charges for allegedly embezzling $1 million from clients has been shot and killed in what a police official described as a “suspicious” death.
Franklin Cibula, whose age is given as 66 or 67, was found dead yesterday at his home in Redding, Calif., with a gunshot wound to the chest, according to the Record Searchlight and the Associated Press.
Police are investigating, although no suspects apparently have been identified. Redding Police Sgt. Koby Heston described the death as “suspicious,” saying that he couldn’t explain why but the reasons would soon become obvious.
“We’re talking to everybody we can get our hands on,” Heston told the newspaper. “There are so many unanswered questions about this case.”
Shasta County District Attorney Jerry Benito said his office had been on the verge of filing criminal charges against Cibula over the alleged $1 million embezzlement. However, Cibula, he believes, wasn’t aware of the pending criminal case. He was scheduled to be deposed tomorrow in civil litigation over the claimed thefts.
Benito says it isn’t clear whether Cibula might have committed suicide, or if a disgruntled former client might have killed him.
Described in a Food for Thought blog post by a woman who knew him as a “brow-furrowing, feather-ruffling, liberal-thinking, underdog-defending old-school attorney,” Cibula was known professionally for his willingness to represent the indigent in unpopular cases.
“Personally, Cibula never shook the legendary north-state tale of the death-defying crash he survived after his car sailed off a curvy Lake Tahoe-area road,” writes Doni Greenberg. “That crash still serves a cautionary tale for at least one local driving school, complete with a poster-sized photo that contains a tiny circle that identifies Cibula’s car, far, far down the face of that massive, steep hillside.”
