An Edina lawyer is accused of stealing from the estate of a deceased man for whom he was appointed guardian and conservator.
The Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility filed a petition for discipline against Paul Arthur Moe earlier this month.
The office accuses Moe of using funds from the estate for his own benefit and then forging the financial paperwork to cover it up. He is also accused of an “impermissible conflict of interest” by representing one of the deceased man’s sons and then the other in a related matter.
Moe has been licensed to practice law since 1996.
Moe was appointed guardian and conservator for the estate of Raymond Mattson in February 2010. Raymond died the following February. After the man died one son contested the final account and the case went to a judge. In the summer of 2012 the judge scheduled informal discovery. The son’s attorney made several discovery requests to Moe that went unanswered. In October the judge granted a motion to compel Moe and ordered fines. Finally he turned over some of the financial information from Mattson’s estate, but it was incomplete.
The had not made ledger entries for several outstanding checks that could not be reconciled, and other checks were incorrectly recorded in the ledger. For instance, he said a check was written to the Cremation Society of Minnesota when in truth the check was made out to Moe Legal Services.
Moe is also accused of using Mattson’s remaining funds from the VA Medical Center and a personal bank account for his own benefit after Mattson died. Despite multiple requests, and a court order, Moe has yet to reimburse the estate or pay the $5,000 in sanction that was ordered by a trial judge, the petition says.
Source: http://minnlawyer.com/minnlawyerblog/2013/08/28/edina-lawyer-accused-of-stealing-from-estate/
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