A Well-Deserved Disbarment

A convicted and imprisoned attorney consented to the revocation of his license and was disbarred by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

BDN Maine Midcoast had this March 2016 story on his conviction.

A Belfast lawyer was sentenced Friday to 30 months in prison for stealing nearly $500,000 from two elderly clients.

In one case, William L. Dawson Jr. placed an 85-year-old Belfast resident in a nursing home for four years while he looted her bank accounts, according to court records.

Dawson pleaded guilty Friday in Waldo County Superior Court to two counts of felony theft and three counts of failing to pay state income taxes. Justice Robert Murray sentenced Dawson to five years in prison with all but 2½ years suspended to be followed by three years of probation.

The theft was uncovered in March 2013 when a teller at Key Bank noticed Dawson was writing large checks to himself on at least a weekly basis from the account of Veronica Pendleton. She alerted her supervisor, and a review of the account was undertaken, as well as that of another customer, 97-year-old Doris Schmidt. In that case, Dawson also was writing large checks on her account, according to Assistant Maine Attorney General Leanne Robbin.

Murray ordered Dawson to pay restitution of $385,000 to Pendleton’s estate and $98,000 to Schmidt’s estate. Both women have since died.

The prosecutor said that after an investigation began, Dawson submitted bills he said explained the checks. But Robbin said the reasons Dawson gave for the billing were “breathtaking.” Even though his office was just a one-minute drive from Pendleton’s home, Dawson would bill her $250 per hour for six to seven hours to go check on the house, pick up her mail and take care of her bills while she was in the nursing home.

A probate court in 2013 removed Dawson’s power over their finances.

Attorney Susan Thiem, who represents the Pendleton estate, said Friday that Dawson had put Pendleton in the nursing home for a temporary medical condition but kept her there for four years until his theft of her money was uncovered. Thiem read a letter from Anne Cilley, who was a friend of Pendleton, in which she said that after the theft was uncovered, Pendleton was able to return home for three months before she died.

(Mike Frisch)