A Texas attorney who represented children in personal injury cases has pleaded guilty to using their legal awards — hundreds of thousands of dollars — for his personal use.
Court records show that John Williams Coates pleaded guilty to felony aggregated misapplication of fiduciary property under a 10-year prison deal.
Assistant prosecutor Gail Van Winkle told the Austin American-Statesman that Coates has returned the $600,000 he had withheld from the Travis County court registry and his clients.
Coates had been approved by a judge to represent minors. He was to accept awards on their behalf from insurance companies.
He was supposed to put the money into a registry, where it would remain until the child turned 18. But the money wasn’t there when some tried to retrieve it.
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.
What Home Age Actually Tells Us About Claims — And What It Doesn’t 
Luxury Homes Are Raising Risks for California’s Insurer of Last Resort 
OpenAI Models Hacked Another Company’s Systems by Mistake 
Waymos Are Way Safer Than Human Drivers, IIHS Finds 
Want to stay up to date?
Get the latest insurance news
sent straight to your inbox.