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Charges Against Legal Assistant Dropped After Spending Over a Year in Jail

By Lynne DeVenny

There are too many news stories these days about legal staff in positions of trust allegedly embezzling money from law firms, but this news story published by the Stuart News has a definite twist.

Florida legal assistant Wandalyn Jackson has been in jail for a year and a half - pending disposition of 139 criminal charges relating to alleged theft from her former employer, attorney Brian Beauchamp - apparently unable to pay her $20,000 bail.

The charges have now been dropped, and she's been released, according to the Stuart News:

The 139 counts against Jackson were a combination of charges of grand theft, petit theft, forgery and uttering, or using, a forged document for each check. The Martin County Clerk of Court Web site indicates that the charges were dropped Monday by the State Attorney?s Office.

My heart sinks when I see convictions of paralegals, legal assistants and other legal staff members for embezzlement and theft from their employers, sometimes exceeding hundreds of thousands of dollars, but in this case, my heart goes out to Jackson, who has spent a significant period behind bars for the alleged theft of $15,000.

I don't know what happened to cause Beauchamp's firm checking account to come up short, but whatever her role, Jackson has paid a stiff price.

Sources: The Palm Beach Post News; Stuart News

Full post as published by Practical Paralegalism on March 06, 2010 (boomark / email).