Biglaw

Former Biglaw Partner Who Spent 20 Years As A Fugitive Loses His Retirement Account Too

After 20 years on the run, his retirement account is the least of his concerns...

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The hits just keep on coming for Scott Wolas, and well, after living 20 years as a fugitive, perhaps that’s to be expected. The former litigation partner at Hunton & Williams (legacy firm of Hunton Andrews Kurth) pleaded guilty to a variety of financial crimes back in 2018, and was sentenced to 81 months in prison. Now, a federal judge has ruled the balance of his Biglaw retirement account should go to the federal government.

But before we delved into this latest turn, a primer on Wolas. He was convicted on charges related to a scheme where he convinced at least 19 people to give him $1.7 million as part of an investment scheme to buy a bar in Quincy, Massachusetts. But a week before the deal was set to close, Wolas pulled a vanishing act, disappearing with the money. Law enforcement tracked Wolas down in Florida and he was arrested in 2017.

But, that wasn’t Wolas’s only brush with financial crimes — nope, that history goes all the way back to the late 1990s and it’s also when he first became a fugitive.

In 1995, Wolas was kicked out of his position in the Hunton partnership amid a scandal alleging overbilling and an outside investment scheme that swindled millions of dollars from investors. In 1997, he was indicted on 119 counts of fraud and grand larceny in New York over an alleged Ponzi scheme, revolving around liquor exporting. That’s right around when he first went on the run, using a series of false identities to elude authorities over the years. By 1999, his financial antics led to his disbarment, and his now-former firm was left to clean up his mess. Hunton paid at least $6 million to investors over his liquor-exporting scheme. Plus the firm settled with a former associate who alleged they were wrongfully fired after pressing for an inquiry into Wolas’s billing practices.

As part of his plea deal with prosecutors, Wolas agreed to forfeit the money in his retirement accounts. However, his ex-wife, Cecily Sturge, tried to have the account transferred to her. According to a decision by District Judge Dennis Saylor of the District of Massachusetts, Sturge had been in contact with Wolas while he was on the lam. She obtained a divorce in 2001 in a Florida court, and Wolas was declared dead in 2011.

As reported by ABA Journal:

Initially, the retirement account was not brought to the attention of the divorce court. Later, with Wolas’ help, Sturge sought to petition the Florida court to transfer the account to her, falsely stating that she did not know Wolas’ whereabouts, and she had no contact with him since 1995, Saylor said.

The Florida court transferred the account to Sturge a month after Wolas was arrested in April 2017, but a restraining order by the Boston court prevented the transfer of the assets.

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As of 2019, the account contained $788,000 from his decade in the Hunton partnership.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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