St. Louis-area attorney Witt sentenced to 44 months for fraud

A federal judge sentenced St. Louis-area attorney Jeffrey Witt to three years and eight months in prison Thursday afternoon for identity theft, fraudulently taking out a loan on his mother’s house, and stealing from clients.

Senior U.S. District Court Judge E. Richard Webber also ordered Witt to take part in mental health and drug treatment programs and to repay $234,472. Bremen Bank and Trust Co. is owed $60,000 after Witt stole his mother’s Social Security number and driver’s license and had an associate pretend to be his mother to take out the loan. Witt also was charged with draining a trust account that he oversaw of $127,234, and with taking clients’ settlement money.

The sentence ends a wild ride for Witt, who disappeared overseas in November, leaving more than 100 clients in the lurch. His troubles before he disappeared also included an arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence and a legal malpractice lawsuit that ended with a $950,000 judgment.

“The defendant is a thief, through and through,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith said at the hearing.

Witt was arrested March 7 when he returned to the United States to visit a friend for a weekend in New York. Witt, who traveled to the Philippines, Australia, Jordan, England and Turkey, had a return ticket for Istanbul when he was arrested, Goldsmith said.

Witt’s attorney, JoAnn Trog, of Menees, Whitney, Burnet & Trog, said at the sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in St. Louis that his actions reflected his mental health issues, including diagnosed depression. She called him “a clouded, clouded man” and said he faced threats from two clients: an unhappy real estate client who threatened to hurt Witt and his five children and a divorce client that Witt stopped representing and later fingered in an October 2008 Clayton garage bombing that injured an attorney.

Witt said little before his sentencing, asking only that the judge to disregard anything negative said about his parents. Trog had said Witt had a difficult relationship with his parents. It was true he had a difficult childhood, but it’s over now, Witt said.

“They’re good parents,” Witt said.

Witt’s father has died. His mother, Peggy Witt, was at the hearing.

Webber recommended Witt serve his sentence at the prison at Butner, North Carolina, which has a medical center.

A former client, Tania Paradowski, also was in the audience at the hearing. She passed a note to Trog afterwards and told a reporter she had offered to give Witt money for his prison account. Paradowski said she initially paid Witt about $700 to help her with a family law matter. He appeared for her at three or four hearings, and never billed her.

“There weren’t a lot of people sitting on his side,” she said after the sentencing hearing. “But I was.”