Indianapolis attorney Stacy Sheedy pleads guilty in $596,000 fraud

Indianapolis attorney Stacy Sheedy pleads guilty in $596,000 fraud


1:01 AM, Mar. 22, 2012

An Indianapolis attorney and accountant pleaded guilty Wednesday to theft as part of an agreement with prosecutors.

An investigation discovered late last year that $596,000 was missing from accounts managed for clients by attorney Stacy H. Sheedy. She was charged in January.

Sheedy admitted to two counts of theft, according to a release from Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry, and will receive a sentence of up to eight years. Sentencing is scheduled for April 26 in Marion Superior Court.

The missing funds came from a guardianship account and a family trust account for which Sheedy was responsible. Sheedy entered the guilty plea in court Wednesday.

"As an attorney and accountant, Stacy Sheedy had a fiduciary and ethical obligation to protect her clients," Curry said in a prepared statement. "Not only did she fail her clients by her fraudulent conduct, she knowingly and repeatedly abused a position of trust."

Sheedy also has agreed to the release of three seized bank accounts and movie memorabilia.

The guardianship account supported an elderly widow with Alzheimer's disease residing in a nursing home. Grand jury investigators uncovered unauthorized withdrawals and unaccounted-for funds from the guardianship accounts totaling more than $172,000, the release stated. Sheedy made at least 32 unauthorized withdrawals over six months, investigators found.

That discovery led grand jury investigators to also examine Sheedy's role as trustee of a family trust. A brokerage account within the trust was valued at $501,000 when Sheedy became trustee, the release stated, and was valued at $168 in January. Prosecutors alleged that Sheedy made unauthorized withdrawals from the trust account of $412,500.

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http://www.indystar.com/article/20120322/LOCAL/203220373/Indianapolis-attorney-Stacy-Sheedy-pleads-guilty-596-000-fraud

Editor's note:  Now why can't we have some of the crooked lawyers arrested in the Probate Court of Cook County?  FEDs...maybe one or two as an example?  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com