Ex-KC attorney pleads guilty to money laundering

Former Kansas City attorney Jim Wirken pleaded guilty Monday to a federal money laundering charge.

Wirken, 69, faces up to 10 years in federal prison plus a fine of up to $250,000, U.S. Attorney Tammy Dickinson said in a news release.

“Mr. Wirken accepts full responsibility for his wrongdoing,” said his attorney, J.R Hobbs, of Wyrsch Hobbs & Mirakian in Kansas City.

Hobbs said sentencing would likely occur by late summer or fall.

Wirken, a former president of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association, lost his law license in 2012 after state authorities accused him of having had clients loan him large amounts of money and withdrawing money from client trust accounts to pay personal debts.

According to the U.S. attorney’s office, Wirken admitted that he withdrew a client’s money from his law firm’s trust account without written consent and deposited the funds into his law firm’s operating account for his personal benefit.

The plea agreement says Wirken wrote six checks totaling $116,730 in late 2009 and early 2010 from a trust account for client Chris Pulley. Monday’s plea agreement cited a specific incident in which Wirken transferred $51,000 into the law firm’s operating account, then had an employee purchase a $50,000 cashier’s check from that account, which Wirken used to repay a loan from a different client that was in default.

The transactions with Pulley also had been cited by the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel when it charged Wirken with professional misconduct in 2012. In a written answer at the time, Wirken admitted to making the transactions but denied that he hadn’t repaid his clients or that any dishonesty was involved. Wirken voluntarily surrendered his law license later that year.