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Lawyer Stole $375,000 from Her Sorority, Kept Money in Shoebox

Summary: A lawyer was caught defrauding her former sorority of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A middle-aged former sorority girl has been sentenced to six years in jail for her unsisterly-like ways.

Lawyer Jennifer Elizabeth Meehan, 40, was tasked with helping the University of Alabama’s Gamma Phi Beta sorority furnish their $14 million house.

Meehan was a former member of Gamma Phi, and she took on the high-profile position of furnishing the home. While the position was a volunteer one, it gave Meehan unlimited access to a large sum of money.

In July, thieving Meehan was convicted of defrauding her sorority. Officials said that she executed a complicated bank fraud scheme where she started an account under a fake business name and then she would submit made-up invoices to the sorority’s holding company. In total, she stole $375,000.

Officials said that when they searched Meehan’s home, they found numerous envelopes full of money in a shoe box. All in all, she had hidden $235,000. When pressed why she had the cash, she said she was starting a scholarship fund. When the authorities were understandably not amused, she tried to laugh it off, like, Oopsie!

“I wasn’t thinking as an attorney but like a … sorority girl,” Meehan told the judge.

The judge did not buy her cutesy act and said that her explanation was “not credible.”

Meehan pled guilty to one count of bank fraud, and she will not only serve six months in jail but undergo mental health treatment, 40 months of probation, and 18 months of house confinement. The sentencing judge also wanted her to be psychologically evaluated because there was no real reason for Meehan’s theft. She did not have money problems or a drug addiction, which were the usual causes of attorney embezzlement.

Meehan’s law license is now suspended. According to Jezebel, she had a prior ding in 2012 when she submitted a fake resume to a potential employer. After this case, her license may be revoked.

Source: Jezebel

Photo courtesy of Jezebel

Teresa Lo: