Law School to Remove Fraudster’s Name From Atrium

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He did donate a bunch of money to Indiana's law school in exchange for this:

atriumPhoto: The Indiana Lawyer.com

But now that he's pleaded guilty to ponzischeming $4.5 million from his clients, having his name on the atrium would not really send the right message, they've decided. Especially since the donation itself may have been stolen client money. 

William Conour made the $450,000 gift to his alma mater during the same time he was spending clients' money on a "lavish lifestyle," including a 25-room mansion in Carmel, according to the Indianapolis Star. He was also making "large charitable donations" at the time, one of which was the gift to the law school. But the money was coming out of settlement funds that belonged to his injured clients, and in time-honored Ponzi style he would replace those funds with money from new settlements, and so on. He settled some cases without his client's knowledge (which violates legal ethics rules) and then kept the money (which also violates legal ethics rules). 

"It was a matter of cash flow when the economy was tight," the guy with a 25-room mansion told the judge when asked why he had done it. "A matter of cash flow" does sound better than "I wanted the money," I guess. It's not really stealing if you're just changing the direction in which cash flows, is it?

Conour will be sentenced in October and a number of his former clients have noted that they will be attending that event. Probably not to offer their support.