A Kentucky lawyer is facing theft charges over settlements that were not remitted to his clients.
Paducah personal injury attorney James Grant King will be arraigned today over charges filed by former clients who never saw a cent of the insurance settlements he negotiated on their behalf.
The McCracken Country Sheriff’s Department initiated an investigation following a complaint filed by a couple who said that King did not remit the settlement paid to them by
Nationwide Insurance.
According to
The Paducah Sun, King allegedly failed to pay them the $93,000 settlement paid by the insurance company to settle their claim. When the couple confronted King about it after learning of the settlement from Nationwide, he said that the error was due to misplaced paperwork and that their money was being held in escrow.
The couple then filed a complaint against King with the authorities.
A paper trail revealed that King deposited the $93,000 in separate increments into a bank account in March and April 2016, and toward the end of April, all of the money had been withdrawn from the account. Documents also show that the money was used to pay for payroll, personal expenses and possibly money King owed to other clients.
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Investigators also said that they were unable to find records to show that the settlement was remitted to his clients.
A second victim came forward after news of the complaint broke.
The
Sun said that the client hired King to negotiate an insurance settlement after an accident in April 2015. King ceased to contact the client for a year, who then contacted the insurance company in September 2016 and learned that the claim had been settled months earlier for $17,500.
Bank records show that the money was mostly used to foot King’s personal expenses, the report also said.
.
King is now charged with three counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of property.
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