Former attorney pleads guilty to embezzling nearly $200,000 in estate money
A former San Bernardino-based attorney who drained a nearly $200,000 trust account he was entrusted with setting up for clients involved in an estate dispute pleaded guilty Wednesday to embezzlement and money laundering charges, and was immediately sentenced to two years and eight months in state prison.
Martin Edgar Keller, 64, was tasked with placing $206,635.07 into a trust account until the children and other trustees of a deceased woman’s estate could settle how to distribute the funds, according to a declaration in support of an arrest warrant.
The document states that $194,825 was later found to be missing after Keller drained the trust account by writing checks to himself or electronically transferring funds to other accounts he controlled.
The declaration alleges that at least some of the money was used for lease payments for Keller’s San Bernardino office and late fees.
Keller was charged in April with four counts of money laundering and one count each of embezzlement and grand theft. He pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count each of embezzlement and money laundering. The other counts were dismissed at sentencing.
Law enforcement began investigating in 2015, after one of the woman’s sons, a Palm Desert man, told deputies that the money was missing and he believed Keller had embezzled it, the declaration states.
A sheriff’s deputy stated that the last statement he viewed for the account showed that just over $50 was left, according to court documents.
A lawyer representing the woman’s son said in court documents that Keller was declared ineligible to practice law starting in October 2014, about two years after he deposited the money into the trust account. However, the attorney said “Mr. Keller continues to be an involuntarily inactive member of
the Bar” and “has been totally unresponsive to multiple attempts to contact
him.”
The State Bar of California also disciplined Keller for various violations, including misconduct, for allegedly failing to file paperwork in his clients’ cases and ignoring their attempts to contact him, according to disciplinary documents from the State Bar. His law license was suspended twice,
once for 30 days and the second time for six months
