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LEWISBURG — A Greenbrier County jury returned a split verdict Friday at the conclusion of a three-day trial in an embezzlement case involving a local accountant.
The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated nearly two hours before finding Jeffrey Einer Lewis, 59, of Renick guilty of embezzlement by a fiduciary, but not guilty of financial exploitation of an elderly person. The embezzlement conviction carries a possible penalty of between one and 10 years in a penitentiary.
Lewis was convicted of embezzling nearly $833,000 from a testamentary trust over which he had control. That trust was set up by the late John R. Dawkins for the benefit of his disabled son, John Kay Dawkins, who is now 75.
Lewis was appointed by a judge to serve as successor trustee for the trust in March 2010 and shortly thereafter accepted an oil and gas lease payment of more than $2.7 million on behalf of the trust. He deposited the windfall in an investment account in Texas in the name of the John R. Dawkins Testamentary Trust and then began writing checks to himself out of that account — one for a “finder’s fee” for having brought the money to the trust and the rest for a series of 13 unsecured personal loans, many of which he then “re-lent” to his son and to the family business, Bill Lewis Motors in Lewisburg.
Making closing arguments before the jury on Friday, assistant special Prosecutor Keith McMillion said Lewis had never discussed with John Kay Dawkins either the receipt of the windfall or the subsequent “loans and re-loans” that the trustee took out of the resulting investment account. Citing a codicil in John R. Dawkins’ will, McMillion told jurors that Lewis was required to “be prudent” in making investments on behalf of the testamentary trust, then asked, “Is it prudent to lend money with no security?”
Defense attorney James Cagle countered with the assertion, “This never should have been a criminal indictment.” He noted that Lewis “repaid the loans” in an amount exceeding $887,000, all paid into the court’s safekeeping because of a pending civil lawsuit challenging the ownership of the Texas trust account.
In addition, Cagle said, “There is no evidence that John Kay Dawkins has gone without.” Later in his summation, the defense attorney reiterated, “John Kay Dawkins lost nothing.”
Lewis began making the loan repayments — including $537,226.85 in proceeds from the 2014 sale of Bill Lewis Motors — beginning about a month after he was indicted on the embezzling charges by a Greenbrier County Grand Jury.
Cagle told the jury, “Jeff Lewis stands before you an innocent man... You would have to determine that he went rogue to convict him.”
Special Prosecutor Eugene Simmons said taking money intended for an individual with disabilities “is one of the worst crimes that a person can do.”
Responding to Cagle’s assertion that if not for the criminal allegations made against Lewis, the loan repayments would have gone back into the trust rather than into a civil court account, Simmons asked the jurors, “Do you think he (Lewis) would’ve repaid the money if he hadn’t been indicted?”
Simmons said, “He took the money (from the trust) and loaned it to himself. He put the property (that was purchased with the money) in the name of his son and took the deed of trust himself. He took $180,000 and bought stock in a company (Bill Lewis Motors) he had an ownership interest in. That takes real gall.”
He asked the jury, “Would any one of you all do what he did?”
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After court adjourned Friday, Simmons said, “I think the verdict was fair.”
First Sgt. W.A. Pendleton, commander of the Lewisburg detachment of the West Virginia State Police, who investigated the embezzlement, expanded upon Simmons’ statement, saying, “It was a fair verdict. The main thing is to be sure Kay Dawkins is taken care of; that’s what his father would have wanted.”
Cagle and Lewis both declined comment.
Cagle advised Greenbrier Circuit Judge Robert Richardson that he would have a motion to present within 10 days of the issuance of the court’s order in connection with the single charge on which his client was convicted.
Richardson set a hearing on that motion for 2 p.m. March 8.
Lewis remains free on bond, pending a pre-sentence investigation.