Salt Lake City lawyer learns his sentence after pleading guilty to bankruptcy scheme
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Jan. 27, 2022 (Gephardt Daily) — A Salt Lake City attorney has been convicted for his role in a bankruptcy scheme.
Eric Singleton, 56, was sentenced Monday to 12 months and a day in federal prison by a Utah District Judge.
Additionally, Singleton was ordered to serve two years of probation after serving his federal prison sentence and was ordered to pay $266,843 in restitution to the victims of his crime.
“In the plea agreement, Singleton admitted that, from May 2016 to September 2017, he made false statements to the United States Bankruptcy Courtthe trustee in bankruptcy and his clients, to facilitate his fraudulent scheme to divert money from clients’ trust accounts and spend the money for his personal use,” reads a statement released by the district’s Department of Justice. from Utah.
“Singleton committed the fraud by advising his clients, ‘SYN’ and ‘CCN’, to transfer approximately $288,000 to Singleton, which came from the sale of their properties, for Singleton to pay his attorney’s fees of $22,000. $ and holds the remaining $266,000 in its clients’ trust accounts.
“Singleton informed his customers that he would keep the money in a safe place to ensure the money would not be taken up by collections. Singleton then informed his customers that he would return the money to them once their file The bankruptcy ended. Singleton then spent the $266,000 for business and personal use.
After Singleton misappropriated the $266,000, he filed three separate bankruptcy proceedings for his clients in United States bankruptcy court, the statement said.
“During these bankruptcy proceedings, Singleton falsely told the court and the trustee that these individuals had less than $50,000 in assets, despite the fact that CCN and SYN had transferred over $266,000 to Singleton prior to the filing. of these bankruptcy cases.”
Following these three separate bankruptcy filings, Singleton filed two of his own bankruptcy filings in an ongoing effort to hide and conceal that he had embezzled $266,000 from his clients and then spent the money on business purposes. and personal, the statement said.
The case was prosecuted by an Assistant United States Attorney in the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Utah and a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Office of the United States Trustee for the District of Utah, and was investigated by Federal Bureau special agents. investigations.