After allegedly defrauding an elderly client out of $2 million dollars via a sham real estate transaction, an Atlanta attorney, Bennett Kight, 75, was arraigned before United States Magistrate Judge John K. Larkins and was indicted by a federal grand jury March 16.
Kight was formerly a partner at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. The lawsuit, which was filed last year, claimed Kight stole from trusts he oversaw as trustee for (pseudonym) F.B.
“Kight was trusted to properly manage assets and investments belonging to an elderly client,” said U. S. Attorney John Horn. “This indictment alleges that he instead misappropriated $2 million from her by orchestrating a sham real estate transaction involving his former personal residence.”
According to the indictment, Kight began misappropriating the money when he took over F.B.’s assets in January 2006. The government alleged that, without informing F.B., Kight obtained the money by purporting to sell F.B. his former home; however, no deed transferring title was ever publicly recorded.
Kight’s son ultimately moved into the property Kight allegedly “sold” to F.B. and caused a back dated deed to the property to be prepared and publicly recorded on March 21, 2011. The back dated deed purported to show that an entity owned and controlled by Kight had owned the house since July 2005, which was several months before Kight obtained $2 million from F.B.’s assets by allegedly selling her the property.
Kight then allegedly used the stolen money to pay off the $500,000 mortgage on his former home in Atlanta and to fund investments for his own benefit.
Last year, members of an affluent Georgia family filed the suit on behalf of their now-deceased elderly relative, from whom the Atlanta lawyer is accused of stealing more than $60 million from trusts he oversaw for another client. Sutherland Asbill said last year that Kight retired from the firm in 1999 and provided no legal services on the firm’s behalf to the other clients’ trusts.
According to U.S. Attorney Horn, the charges, and other information presented in court: Kight is a lawyer licensed to practice law in the State of Georgia since 1966. Kight represented F.B. and members of her family and served as a trustee and manager for assets, investments and real estate owned and held for the benefit of F.B. and her family.
The case is being investigated by the FBI.