Attorney secretly pocketed clients’ settlements for six years in Tennessee, feds say

Tiffany Pruett was riding in the car with her fiance, John McGee, when they got in a wreck in 2006 while driving through eastern Arkansas, according to federal court filings.

Pruett survived. McGee did not.

George E. Skouteris Jr., a Memphis lawyer, reportedly offered to represent Pruett free of charge to recover the cost of medical expenses and damages for her pain and suffering. He ultimately settled the case for $197,480 — the full amount of which she never saw, Pruett said in court documents.

Now Skouteris is headed to prison.

The 59-year-old disbarred attorney was indicted on seven counts of bank fraud in 2018 after prosecutors said he settled lawsuits on his clients’ behalf and pocketed the cash. A jury found him guilty on all counts after a four-day trial earlier this year, court filings show, and he was sentenced on Nov. 18 to two years and six months in prison.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee announced Skouteris’s sentencing in a news release on Monday, Nov. 22.

A defense attorney representing Skouteris did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment.

In sentencing documents, his attorney pointed to a “convergence of various factors in his life at that particular time” that reportedly “diminished his capacity to practice law” — including the death of his parents and a contentious divorce. He asked for probation or a one-year prison sentence.

Car crash victim left in the dark

Prosecutors said Skouteris defrauded his clients over a six-year period starting in 2007. During that time, he’s accused of settling cases on their behalf and forging their endorsements on settlement checks.

“The defendant violated the trust of his clients by settling their cases without their knowledge and stealing their funds,” prosecutors said in sentencing documents. “In many instances he lied to his clients about the status of their cases.”

Some of those clients were ultimately repaid. But the government said at least one of them — Pruett — suffered serious financial consequences as a result.

In a victim impact statement from 2010 filed as part of a civil lawsuit, Pruett said she has struggled financially since the 2006 accident that claimed her fiance’s life, often relying on one of her fiance’s relatives for help.

“Since the accident, I have been attending classes at Tulane University to obtain a degree which will enable me to obtain a good job,” she said. “My finances are not good, and at times, I am not sure where my next grocery money is coming from. I still have very unpleasant memories of the car accident and feel very vulnerable to the ups and downs of life and the acts of other people.”

Pruett said she was contacted by several lawyers after the crash. Skouteris was one of them, and he reportedly offered his services for free as a “family friend.”

But in the months and years that followed, Pruett said she rarely heard from Skouteris and often had to drag information from him regarding the case. She said he eventually told her sometime in the middle of 2007 about the $197,480 settlement, after which Pruett began receiving small monthly checks from him.

“When this started, I did not understand it, and after a short time I started a long series of many, many conversations with Mr. Skouteris about it,” Pruett said. “I felt like Mr. Skouteris was treating my money like his own, and doling it out to me in small pieces the way that a parent would give a child an allowance.”

She reportedly told him to pay her medical bills with the settlement money and disperse the rest to her account. Instead, Pruett said, she was beleaguered with collection calls from health care providers about overdue bills.

At the time of her impact statement, Pruett said she had received just $96,518 over the course of 27 separate payments — less than half of the total settlement.

A push for prison

A first petition for discipline was filed against Skouteris in 2010, according to documents filed with the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and he was disbarred in 2014.

Court filings show he was indicted on Aug. 21, 2018, and the case went to trial in April. Prosecutors said the jury reached a verdict in less than two hours.

The government pushed for a lengthier prison sentence of four years and three months. In sentencing documents, prosecutors lambasted Skouteris’s defense about personal struggles contributing to the alleged fraud.

“Many persons face life events like those experienced by the defendant without engaging in criminal activity,” the government said.

Prosecutors also told the judge he abused his position of trust as an attorney.

“Lawyers are supposed to uphold the rule of law,” they said. “A lenient sentence in a case in which a lawyer defrauds his clients, would not promote respect for the law. It would arguably promote distrust of lawyers by the public and lead to increased cynicism with respect to members of the legal profession.”

The judge settled on 30 months followed by three years of supervised release. Skouteris is allowed to remain on bond before he reports to prison, the judge said, and he’s barred from opening any new lines of credit without a probation officer’s approval.

Skouteris will also have to pay restitution. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 30 to determine the amount.

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