Federal prosecutors said a well-known La Plata attorney has swindled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the estates of his clients, forged their signatures and entered into some shady deals.
Frank P. Jenkins II, who ran for Charles County school board in 2006, has been charged “by information” with numerous counts of mail and wire fraud, which generally means that a plea deal is in the works because the charges can be filed only with the consent of the defendant. He could face more than 20 years in prison.
Since 2005, Jenkins, 45, cheated or embezzled large sums of money in a variety of ways from at least eight clients, according to court filings.
The profitable career began to unravel last year, when 73-year-old Mary P. Jameson of Bryantown, shortly before her death, hired Jenkins to be the executor of her estate.
When Jameson died, Jenkins told her niece to put her aunt’s estate, about $891,000, into a high-interest account that Jenkins controlled, according to documents filed in Charles County.
The niece, who was a Charles County sheriff’s deputy, visited the bank and learned that there were two accounts for her aunt’s estates listed to the Jenkins Group, each holding $250,000, document said.
When the niece confronted Jenkins, he said he used the estate money to buy property and he wanted to “surprise” the niece after she returned from vacation, documents state.
Jenkins said he was going to return the money after he sold the property for about $500,000, the documents state.
Charles County Sheriff’s deputies then charged Jenkins with the theft of more than $500, and investigators began looking into whether he was involved in additional thefts.
According to the new charging documents:
In 2007, Jenkins also transferred more than $1 million from into his own account and then charged the family $47,000 in legal fees. The money was used to pay off credit cards and pay for hockey tickets to the Washington Capitals.
In 2006, Jenkins took $50,000 that his client owed in judgment and put the money in his own account.
In 2005, he recommended that a family sign a settlement in which they would pay $150,000, but the family refused. When the case was set for trial, Jenkins forged the family’s signatures on a consent judgment, which was entered into the court.
He then wrote a check to the plaintiffs for $100,000 out of his own account and the check bounced, documents said.
