Crime & Safety

Lawyer Stole $1.7M from Client's Estate, According to Indictment

Randolph Scott, of Randolph Scott Associates in Warrington, was indicted for allegedly taking $1.7 million from a client's estate.

A Doylestown attorney has been indicted for allegedly taking $1.7 million from a client’s estate over the course of six years. 

According to the indictment, Randolph Scott, 70, of Doylestown, diverted approximately $1,758,193 of estate funds to his Warrington law office accounts. The unauthorized transactions, which Scott carried out through his law practice, Randolph Scott Associates, occurred between 2005 and 2011.

He is charged with one count of mail fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft, one count of tax evasion, one count of attempting to interfere with administration of internal revenue laws and three counts of failure to file income tax returns.

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The estate was valued at more than $6 million at the time of his client’s death in 2005, according to the indictment. Federal law required that a federal estate tax return be filed, which would have resulted in approximately $520,300 being paid to the Internal Revenue Service.

The indictment alleges that Scott did not file the required form in order to maintain sufficient money in the estate to pay its beneficiaries and to avoid detection of the theft.

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The indictment further alleges that after the estate’s executor died in 2009, Scott failed to disclose the death so that the investment account manager would continue to send the executor’s checks to Scott’s law firm.

Scott would then allegedly forge the executor’s signature and deposit the checks into his law firm’s account.

Scott allegedly had the successor executor sign a document renouncing the position of successor executor so that he could continue to forge the signature of the deceased executor and divert money belonging to the estate.

If convicted of all charges, Scott will face a minimum of two years in prison, consecutive to any other term of imprisonment imposed on the mail fraud count, resulting in 31 years maximum incarceration, possible restitution to the IRS in the amount of $520,351, possible restitution to the estate in the amount of $1,758,193, three years of supervised release, a $1.4 million fine and a $500 special assessment. 

IRS Criminal Investigations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Judy G. Smith is prosecuting the case. 


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