Lori E. Deveny was ordered to pay over $4.5 million in restitution to her victims.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A former Portland lawyer was sentenced to greater than eight years in federal jail Monday after defrauding over 100 shoppers out of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in insurance coverage proceeds, in response to the U.S. District Legal professional’s Workplace.
Lori E. Deveny, 57, was additionally ordered to pay over $4.5 million in restitution to her victims.
“It’s exhausting to overstate the extraordinary impression Ms. Deveny’s crimes had on the various harmless and susceptible victims who trusted her. As a former legal professional, she had a particular accountability to her shoppers and to the general public, however she repeatedly abused this belief and prioritized her personal wants. It is a simply sentence for critical crimes,” mentioned Ethan Knight, Chief of the Financial Crimes Unit for the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace.
“The cruelest factor of all is knowingly offering false hope. Having already suffered losses, Ms. Deveny’s shoppers deserved an legal professional who represented their greatest pursuits. What they obtained as a substitute was somebody who inflicted extra loss,” added Particular Agent in Cost Bret Kressin, IRS Prison Investigation (IRS-CI), Seattle Area Workplace. “At the moment, Ms. Deveny is receiving what she by no means offered her shoppers: an image of actuality that those that select to defraud will face the results of their actions.”
Courtroom paperwork say that between April 2011 and Could 2019, Deveny defrauded no less than 135 of her shoppers out of over $3.8 million in insurance coverage proceeds by stealing shoppers’ identities, forging insurance coverage checks, depositing shopper funds into her private checking account and deceiving shoppers frequently by telling them they might finally obtain compensation for his or her accidents. Lots of her victims have been notably susceptible resulting from their extreme mind and bodily accidents, the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace mentioned.
Deveny’s scheme additionally value Oregon State Bar Shopper Safety Fund, Wells Fargo and the IRS, in response to investigators. Because of the state bar making partial restitution funds to a few of Deveny’s shoppers, their safety fund misplaced $1.2 million, one of many largest losses within the group’s historical past. Wells Fargo reportedly misplaced $52,000 resulting from a solid verify and the IRS misplaced over $621,000 when Deveny didn’t report the cash she stole on her tax returns.
Deveny used the proceeds to pay greater than $150,000 on overseas and home airline tickets, greater than $173,000 on African safari and large recreation looking journeys, $35,000 on taxidermy bills, $125,000 on dwelling renovations, $195,000 in mortgage funds, greater than $220,000 in cigars and associated bills, $58,000 on pet boarding and veterinary prices, $41,000 on leisure car bills, $50,000 for a Cadillac car, and $60,000 on stays at a luxurious nudist resort in Palm Springs, Calif.
“Whereas serving as an legal professional, Ms. Deveny overtly stole cash that ought to have gone to pay for well being take care of her shoppers for critical accidents and illnesses. As an alternative, that cash funded issues like large recreation looking journeys to Africa and residential reworking. She took benefit of people that have been bodily and emotionally hurting by forging insurance coverage checks, stealing the funds and mendacity to her shoppers in regards to the payouts,” mentioned Kieran L. Ramsey, Particular Agent in Cost of the FBI Portland Area Workplace. “These actions not solely obtained her disbarred however are actually placing her behind bars. The FBI applauds our companions at IRS-CI and the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace, as we proceed to convey to justice those that commit this sort of unconscionable monetary fraud that harms the individuals in our shared neighborhood.”
A grand jury returned a 24-count indictment on Deveny on Could 7, 2019, charging her with mail, financial institution, and wire fraud, in addition to aggravated identification theft, cash laundering and submitting a false tax return. She pled responsible to at least one rely every of mail, wire, and financial institution fraud, and in addition plead responsible to cash laundering, submitting a false tax return and two counts of aggravated identification theft on June 27, 2022.
