Lawyer Michael Karus robs woman of £400,000, then gets caught.

Dear All

Lawyers come in for a fair bit of criticism as time and time again we see them up in front of a court for robbing their clients.

Lawyers are the Dick Turpins of modern society; they use no gun, just a pen!

Michael Karus, a former lawyer embezzled over £400,000 from a dead woman's estate.

The reason for his largesse with other people’s money; was to pay off his own debts.

He has since found out that this was wrong and has been handed down a three-and-a-half year jail term.

Under section 196 (1) of the Criminal Procedures (Scotland) Act 1995, if you plead guilty then you get a reduction in sentence for not wasting the court’s time.

And since he was caught bang to rights, he jumped at the chance.

Sheriff Derrick McIntyre told Karus;

"This was a grave breach of trust”.

Personally; the theatrics of trying to say something meaningful before the judge shoves three and a half years up him are a bit old hat.

Defence counsel, Ian Duguid QC, in way of mitigation said of his client that he had been in the middle of an acrimonious divorce and his mother was suffering from dementia.

Is that a good enough reason?

Sheriff McIntyre said his starting point was five years in the clink for Karus, but he would reduce that by six months as the guilty plea had saved a lengthy trial. I have to say I would have expected much more than six months off.

He went on to add that Karus had lodged £500,000 with the court to cover the embezzled sum so another twelve months was being deducted for that.

Such a high profile case has attracted the Law Society to act and Philip Yelland, director of regulation at the Law Society, said;

"Honesty is paramount in solicitors' dealings with their clients. Mr Karus has clearly breached this fundamental principle of being a solicitor. Once the society has official notice of his sentence from the courts, we will be able to raise a formal complaint against him to allow us to prosecute Mr Karus before the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal."

Good show that man, what a pity it takes publicity before the Law Society of Scotland gets up off its arse.

If he has the time then he should pop into the Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers site and weed out the rest of the clowns.

Another highly educated person who had it all and blew it!

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University