Lawyer gets 17 years for helping fugitive client with stock scheme
A Texas lawyer convicted in 2014 of helping a fugitive client with fraudulent stock sales while the man was on the run was sentenced Monday to a 17-year federal prison term.
Attorney Patrick Lanier, 67, also was ordered to pay $37 million in restitution after his release, the Houston Chronicle (sub. req.) reports. An earlier Houston Chronicle story provides additional details.
“This is one of the cases that will keep a judge awake at night,” said U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal, noting that dozens had written in support of the Austin practitioner, but also pointing to the more than 500 victims who were fleeced in the schemes. The wife of one victim said her husband committed suicide as a result.
Lanier’s former client, Harris Dempsey “Butch” Ballow, pleaded guilty in 2003 to a federal money laundering charge and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. But when freed on $100,000 bail pending sentencing, Ballow fled to Mexico. There he reportedly lived in resort areas while, according to a 2010 indictment, continuing his claimed stock and real estate schemes with the help of nine accomplices. One victim allegedly lost $5 million.
Lanier, who was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, assisting a federal offender and other charges, helped sell stock purchased by Ballow’s company while Ballow was a fugitive, prosecutors said. Lanier also traveled to Mexico to help Ballow, who used false names, witnesses testified at the attorney’s trial.
Rosenthal described Lanier’s involvement as “not casual” and said the lawyer could have distanced himself from Ballow at any time, but didn’t.
“When his client became a fugitive, that would have been a good time to stop, if not sooner,” Rosenthal said.
Ballow is now serving a 10-year prison term in the money-laundering case but has not been tried in the 2010 case.
The Associated Press and Courthouse News also have stories.
