Ex-lawyer pleads guilty to theft

Agreement calls for $202,697 restitution

Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008

Julian John Izydore has given prosecutors checks totaling $136,000, his lawyer said at Tuesday’s court hearing, where a judge ordered that Izydore remain free on personal recognizance until he is sentenced about three months from now after completion of a presentence investigation.

Izydore, 51, pleaded guilty to committing a theft scheme and using trust money for purposes other than those entrusted to him, violations listed in a plea agreement as including $59,806 he took from the estate to pay a personal debt.

Prosecutors will drop the theft charge and proceed only on the other offense if Izydore pays the rest of the restitution before he is sentenced, according to the agreement submitted Tuesday in St. Mary’s Circuit Court to visiting Prince George’s Circuit Judge Arthur Ahalt.

‘‘Is there any other reason that you’re pleading guilty?” the judge asked Izydore.

‘‘Because I am,” Izydore replied.

Gail Wood’s last will from 1992 nominated Izydore to serve as her estate’s representative, with her sister’s consent, according to a statement of facts filed in the case. Gail Wood died at the end of 2000, and Izydore was appointed the next month to handle the estate consisting mostly of an $839,537 check from an insurance company.

Izydore filed two accountings for the estate in 2002, but the statement of facts alleges they contained false entries including $10,000 in checks listed mostly to health-care businesses that actually were written to other people. Izydore also deposited three more checks from the estate totaling $84,722 into his escrow account for his own use, the statement of facts alleges, in addition to the $59,806 taken to pay his personal debt.

Izydore also had been appointed in 1993 as guardian of a man later admitted to a health-care facility, but despite proceeds received from the client’s federal pension, the statement of facts alleges Izydore used $5,320 from Wood’s estate to pay the man’s overdue account at the care facility.

Izydore’s accountings of the estate falsely listed that a pair of $9,900 trusts for two of Wood’s nephews had been established, according to the statement of facts, and did not list that Izydore had issued an estate check for $475,000 to Wood’s son, the estate’s primary beneficiary whose proceeds were supposed to remain in a trust until he turned 40. Izydore previously had given the heir several cash advances totaling $128,114.

Izydore failed to file federal and state estate tax returns and pay those taxes, and he failed to comply with an orphans’ court order to provide all records from the estate after he was replaced as its personal representative, according to the statement of facts prepared by St. Mary’s Assistant State’s Attorney Daniel White.

Izydore, now living in Georgia, previously was a defendant in a civil lawsuit concerning the estate. He was disbarred last year from practicing law in Maryland and was indicted last summer by St. Mary’s grand jurors.

E-mail John Wharton at jwharton@somdnews.com.