By Virginia Lascara
virginia.lascara@insidebiz.com
A Virginia Beach attorney who admitted to misappropriating $2.3 million in escrow funds was sentenced to 71 months in prison last week.
On Dec. 16 in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Judge Henry Morgan Jr. sentenced David R. Flynn, who owns Assured Title of Virginia LLC at 5267 Greenwich Road in addition to his law firm at the same address.
Flynn pled guilty in April to one count of mail fraud and one count of unlawful monetary transactions.
Assured Title is a title insurance company that entered into an agreement with First American Title Insurance Co. to sell title insurance.
Court documents state that 44-year-old Flynn failed to make mortgage payments for more than 12 clients who hired him to close on a real estate transaction or to refinance property between Sept. 13 and Dec. 31, 2013.
Flynn executed his scheme, court records said, "to defraud by receiving substantial sums of money to complete real estate transactions into his escrow accounts and then misappropriating those funds for his own personal benefit."
Flynn used stolen funds to travel to Costa Rica, Miami and the Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas, court records show.
On one occasion, he charted a private jet to travel to the Bahamas. He used the funds to pay for friends to travel with him to the tropical locations.
At the sentencing, longtime friends Dr. David Langille and Caroline English testified about Flynn's abuse of alcohol.
"David drank too much," Langille said in his testimony.
U.S. Attorney Melissa O'Boyle condemned Flynn's actions but credited him for returning to the U.S. and confessing to federal agents that he had misappropriated the escrow funds.
O'Boyle asked for the maximum sentencing of 78 months. Flynn's attorney asked that Flynn serve only 51 to 71 months at a federal correctional institution in Cumberland, Md.
Subsequent to his 71-month prison sentence, Flynn must undergo three years of supervised release as well as substance abuse counseling and mandatory drug tests under the supervision of a court-appointed probation officer.
Once released, Flynn must also pay child support for his son and restitution to the title insurer, First American Title Insurance Co. Flynn will pay $500 per month or 25 percent of his monthly income in restitution.
"I disgraced my friends and family and the legal profession," Flynn said in a prepared statement to the court. "I vow I will once again become a productive member of society...from the bottom of my heart I am sorry to everyone."
