A Portland lawyer has been sentenced to eight years in prison for defrauding clients out of $3.8 million by pocketing their insurance payouts to fund extravagant trips — including stays at a Palm Springs nudist resort and an African safari.
Lori E. Deveny, 57, was also ordered to pay $4.5 million in restitution to her 135 victims after leaving many of them destitute and unable to pay medical bills.
She was convicted Monday of mail, bank and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering and filing a false tax return between May 2019 and April 2011.
Deveny practiced as a personal injury attorney and won millions in payouts for clients who were involved in car accidents or other serious injuries. The money she won was used to provide for their health care.
Lori E. Deveny, 57, was also ordered to pay $4.5 million in restitution to her 135 victims after leaving many destitute and unable to pay medical bills.
In total, she stole $3.8 million in insurance premiums to “fund a lavish lifestyle,” including $173,000 for an African safari, $50,000 for a Cadillac and more.
In total, she stole $3.8 million in insurance proceeds to “fund a lavish lifestyle” — which included spending $173,000 on an African safari, $60,000 on trips to the Desert Sun nudist resort in Palm Springs, $50,000 on a Cadillac and more , according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“It is difficult to overstate the extraordinary impact Ms. Deveny’s crimes had on the many innocent and vulnerable victims who trusted her,” Ethan Knight, head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Economic Crimes Unit, said in a statement.
Kieran L. Ramsey, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Portland field office, said, “Mrs. Deveny brazenly stole money that was supposed to go towards paying for medical care for her clients for serious injuries and illnesses. Instead, the money was used to finance things like big game hunting trips to Africa and home remodeling.
“She took advantage of people who were physically and emotionally injured by forging insurance checks, stealing funds and lying to her clients about paychecks.”
One of her clients, who has not been named, wrote in a victim impact statement that she was “relied on Ms Deveny after a car accident” and was advised by a solicitor that she would “cope with everything”.
“I was instructed not to answer calls from insurance companies and to refer anyone interested in the matter directly to her. At first it calmed me down. But it soon became clear that the sole purpose of this was to keep me in the dark about the progress of the lawsuit,” she wrote, according to court documents obtained by DailyMail.com.
“The psychological impact Ms. Deveny left on me made me too anxious to stand up for myself in legal situations.
However, the victim did not recommend jail as it would be ‘extracting MORE money from people’ and suggested the court should let her ‘go free and fight and starve’.
She also spent patients’ money to go to the Desert Sun nudist resort in Palm Springs, where she spent $60,000.
“This woman does not deserve the slightest decency that prison will give her,” the victim wrote. “I hear Burnside Bridge provides nice shelter and life-destroying substances, just to say warmth.
She was referring to the bridge over the Willamette River, which serves as a shelter for many homeless people and has become the site of several suicides.
Several of her victims said Deveny appeared to be the perfect lawyer and would offer to pick up their medical bills and do the dirty work, but when the payday was approaching, the lawyer stopped contacting them or said the money. were suspended.
Another victim, then 18-year-old Gabriella Davidson, planned to use the insurance money to go to college, but said the money never came.
A fellow victim, Aubrey Hunter, who was in the head-on collision, also said he had to dip into his pension funds after losing his job and said the personal injury lawyer had plenty of excuses.
Another client, Nancy Freyer, said doctors removed her big toe without her permission and hired Deveny to represent her, but she said all the lawyer did was “prey on me at my most painful and vulnerable time in my life .”
“She used me,” she said. “She told me I was a model client, but she let me down.
From April 2011 to May 2019, she was sentenced to eight years in prison for mail, wire and bank fraud, identity theft, money laundering and filing a false tax return.
Deveny intends to foreclose on her $1 million Portland home to help pay restitution, her attorney said.
Because of her crimes, several institutions had to pay partial restitution. The Oregon State Bar Client Security Fund (CSF) paid Deveny’s victims $1.2 million — one of the largest losses for the Oregon State Bar in its history, according to the DOJ. Wells Fargo Bank also lost $52,000 to a forged check, and the IRS suffered more than $621,000 in tax losses when it failed to report money it stole from clients.
Among the millions she stole from her customers, Deveny spent $150,000 on domestic and foreign airline tickets, $35,000 on vets, $58,000 on pet boarding and veterinary expenses, $125,000 on home renovations, $195,000 on mortgage payments mortgages and $220,000 in cigars.
U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman called the lawyer’s actions “calculating and predatory rather than desperate.” He also said he believes her downfall stems from her husband’s suicide in 2018.
Her defense attorney tried to pin the blame on Deveny’s “controlling husband,” who was 16 years her senior, saying he forced her to do things she would never do.
Deveny intends to foreclose on her $1 million Portland home to help pay restitution, her attorney said.
The lawyer apologized to her victims in court on Monday, saying: ‘If I could go back, I would choose a different path.’