Attorney Misconduct, Crime, Legal Ethics

Lawyer Sent Fake Bills To Company For 14 Years. Lesson: Check Yo Bills.

Attention, multinational corporations: when paying legal bills, make sure you know exactly what you're paying for.

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handcuff handcuffs businessman crime white collar criminalA former patent attorney (he’s since forfeited his law license) was sentenced to 71 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $4.84 million in restitution as a result of a scheme wherein he sent phony legal bills to his employer. For 14 years.

Jason Throne was a high-level patent attorney working for window-covering giant Hunter Douglas. But apparently that was not enough for him. He devised a scheme whereby he created a shell company, Patent Services Group, and billed between $125 and $300 an hour for his aerobics instructor wife’s “patent expertise.” As the Denver Post reports:

Throne had pocketed roughly $40,000 a month over 14 years by billing and approving payments for bogus work by a Colorado shell company he secretly controlled in his wife’s name.

He used the money to build luxury homes in Steamboat Springs [Colorado] and in Maine, the lawsuit alleged.

In his role at Hunter Douglas, Throne was the one responsible for approving the fraudulent bills he submitted. After approving the expenses, he bypassed the company’s audit checks to ensure the bills were paid and avoided detection. And the work Patent Services Group was supposed to be doing — running patent searches — was part of Throne’s regular duties at the company.

Throne’s plan began to fall apart when the submitted bills became so large they attracted the attention of another employee, who noted she’d never heard of the shell company before.

Throne has pleaded guilty to tax evasion and mail fraud, and the sentence U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello imposed was much harsher than the one initially recommended in a probation investigation report. That report has not been made public.

Attention, multinational corporations: when paying legal bills, make sure you know exactly what you’re paying for. Fourteen years is a pretty long con.

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Patent lawyer who swindled Hunter Douglas sentenced to nearly 6 years [Denver Post]

Kathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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