A former Portland, Oregon attorney was sentenced Monday to eight years and five months in prison and ordered to pay $4.5 million in restitution for stealing insurance payments from 135 clients.
Lori E. Deveny’s actions resulted in one of the largest losses in the history of the Oregon State Bar’s Client Services Fund, which paid out $1.2 million to victims of the scheme, according to federal prosecutors. In response to the fraudulent scheme, the Oregon Legislature in 2021 passed a law that requires insurers to notify both the insured and the insured’s attorney when issuing paychecks.
“While she was a lawyer, Ms. Deveny brazenly stole money that should have been used to pay for her clients’ health care for serious injuries and ailments,” said Kieran L. Ramsey, Special Agent in Charge. from the FBI field office in Portland. “Instead, that money funded things like big game hunting trips to Africa and home renovations.”
Deveny, who is 57, pleaded guilty in June to seven counts of criminal fraud and identity theft. A 2019 federal grand jury indictment charged her with 24 counts.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a court filing that Deveny began pocketing his clients’ insurance paychecks in 2006 or 2007, though the charging documents only cite crimes that began in 2011 and continued until her indictment in May 2019. She forged insurance checks made payable to her clients, deposited the money in her bank accounts, and “tricked the clients into believing they would receive compensation for their injuries,” the office said.
Deveny spent $173,000 of the money she embezzled on “many” big game hunting trips to Africa she took with her husband and $35,000 in taxidermy expenses for hunting trophies. The expenses included $150,000 in plane tickets for trips to Las Vegas and Mexico, $60,000 in stays at a luxury nudist resort in Palm Springs, California, $220,000 in cigars, $58,000 in board for pet and veterinary costs, $125,000 in home renovations and $195,000 in mortgage payments, attorneys said.
“Deveny flew to live an extravagant lifestyle that many people only dream of, while leaving her clients desperate and either destitute or barely able to make ends meet,” the government said in a memorandum on the sadness.
Deveny’s husband, Robert Deveny, committed suicide in March 2018. Prosecutors say she told them she had been a victim of her husband’s “strange sexual inclinations and greed”, but that she continued to embezzle funds even after the death of his “alleged executioner”, the condemnation. says the memorandum. Prosecutors say his motive was “unrelenting and unbridled greed.”
She continued to steal paychecks even after relinquishing her attorney’s license in March 2018 after the Oregon State Bar investigated allegations of misconduct. She repeatedly told her clients that their cases would need more time, prosecutors said.
“The cruelest thing of all is knowingly providing false hope,” said Bret Kressin, a special agent in charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Seattle field office. “Having already suffered losses, Ms. Deveny’s clients deserved a lawyer who represented their best interests. What they got instead was someone who inflicted more casualties.
Deveny also pleaded guilty to 28 counts of aggravated robbery and impersonation in charges in Multnomah County Circuit Court. Sentencing in the case is scheduled for January 26.
Federal prosecutors said Deveny wants to serve any state prison sentence in a federal prison. To do so, she must turn herself in to federal authorities before being convicted on the charges against the state, according to a state court filing.
Top photo: This image, attached to a sentencing memorandum filed by the US Attorney’s Office in Portland, shows Lori and Robert Deveny surrounded by hunting trophies they funded through thefts from accident victims.
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