South Carolina Attorney Sentenced For Stealing Client Funds

Michael Timothy Jordan, 45, a real estate attorney from Charleston, South Carolina, was sentenced December 2nd to 25 months in prison, on top of the 11 months house arrest and 5 month in jail already served, for bilking a client out of some $2.35 million. He was also ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution. Jordan plead guilty to one count of wire fraud earlier this year. Authorities say Jordan was attempting to stage his own disappearance by going missing after a solo boat ride deep into the South Carolina marshes. He was arrested on August 3, 2007 when he was caught at the US-Canadian border near Buffalo, New York. Prosecutors say he began looting client trust accounts by transferring funds into his own trust account in or about August 2003. When a client hired him to handle a $2.3 million real estate transaction in early August 2007, prosecutors say he took the money, in part to pay back old clients he had previously stolen from.

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