Lawsuit filed against Crawford County deputy prosecuting attorney for deceptive practices

A lawsuit was filed in Crawford County Circuit Court June 5 against the deputy prosecuting attorney assigned to the Crawford County Quorum Court for allegedly taking financial advantage of two special needs adults.

Little Rock Attorney Matthew House filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of siblings Larry Boatright and Loreva Boatright of Alma against Gentry Wahlmeier, Wahlmeier Law Firm and Citizens Bank and Trust, all of Van Buren, to recover money on behalf of “two vulnerable, special needs older adults who were sadly taken financial advantage of by the very people who were supposed to be looking out for their best interests – their attorney and their trustee.”

The lawsuit calls for a jury trial and seeks a variety of relief against the defendants, including compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, costs, and prejudgment and post judgment interest.

Wahlmeier has a private law firm and is listed on the Crawford County website as the deputy prosecuting attorney assigned to the Crawford County Quorum Court. (Talk Business & Politics has reached out to Wahlmeier and the bank for comment. This story will be updated when/if a response is received.)

The lawsuit states that Wahlmeier formerly served as attorney for the Boatrights, and in doing so, “charged a wildly excessive and completely unreasonable attorney’s fee of $197,591.49.”

Barbara Steffen, the sister of the Boatrights, established a Steffen Living Trust in 2016 with the purpose of providing for her siblings along with two other beneficiaries after her death. Steffen died in 2019. Though the Boatrights did not know Wahlmeier, “they employed him (in May 2022) to undertake the very simple task of creating two identical supplemental needs trusts to facilitate their Trust distributions,” the lawsuit states.

The siblings understood that Wahlmeier was charging them a $6,000 “non-refundable” fee to create their two identical supplemental needs  trusts, the lawsuit states. House said this fee was not fair and reasonable. Wahlmeier states his fees are $300 an hour, House said. At that rate, he would have had to spend 20 hours on something that at most takes two hours to complete, House added. He also noted that a “non-refundable” fee is ethically suspect.

“The fact is a supplemental needs trust was never needed, which makes this all worse. What they needed were two tax ID numbers,” House said, noting that could have been resolved on the IRS website in about two minutes.

The lawsuit also states that on or about the same time the Boatrights hired Wahlmeier and agreed to the $6,000 fee, he also had them “apparently sign an Attorney/Client Agreement (separate and distinct from the above-described Attorney/Client Agreement, but dated by Wahlmeier in his handwriting on the same day) purporting to set Wahlmeier’s fee at 33%’of Gross Recovery From Trust.’”

House says in the lawsuit that Wahlmeier deceptively obtained the Boatrights signatures on this document.

“(A) contingency fee makes absolutely no sense in this situation, as there was no underlying dispute as to whether or not Larry and Loreva were entitled to their Trust distributions,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit states that Citizens Bank, which serves as the trustee, paid Wahlmeier the $197,591.49 from the trust. It also took $26,483 out of the trust for administrative fees, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit states that this was for only distributing a car to Loreva and the $197,591.49 to Wahlmeier.

“In sum, the very people tasked with protecting Larry and Loreva and acting in their best interests are instead the same people who actually ended up taking advantage of those disabled individuals and lining their pockets with a collective $224,074.99 ($197,591.49 + $26,483.50) from Barbara’s $700,000+ Trust, expressly designed to provide for the lifetime needs of her disabled siblings and others (not to enrich a lawyer or bank with whom neither Barbara, Larry, or Loreva had any prior knowledge or preexisting relationship),” the lawsuit states.

While Citizens Bank and Trust accepted service of the lawsuit a few days after it was filed, House said Wahlmeier has not yet been served because the lawyer who had been representing him asked that it be held for a few days because of a change in lawyers. He will be served soon, House said. After that, both parties will file answers and either admit or deny the facts, and then the discovery process will begin.

“I’m going to do depositions as soon as possible,” House said. “I understand there are two sides to every story. I’m still trying to figure out what their side could be.”

He said Wahlmeier has not turned over copies of any of the documents or information in the Boatright files as is required of him when new counsel is assigned.