| When Montgomery County attorney Thomas Angst took the lives of his pregnant wife, 3-year-old son and himself two months ago, he was on the brink of economic and professional collapse.
The 31-year-old lawyer’s law practice was hopelessly behind in payments to scores of creditors, from utility companies to office equipment suppliers, said David J. Schiller, the court-appointed attorney whose job it is to close down the firm.
And he was being investigated by the state Supreme Court’s disciplinary board and the counties of Montgomery and Schuylkill for allegedly embezzling money from clients.
His $250,000 home on a leafy street in Lower Salford Township and the two luxury cars parked out front may have looked impressive. But Angst left behind so little in assets that no one has come forward to identify estate assets, Schiller said.
But there are a couple of plums included in the sad legacy of Thomas Angst, said Schiller: two life insurance policies worth $1.5 million taken out in the name of Angst and his 31-year-old wife, Cynthia.
Earlier this month, that windfall became the subject of a legal battle pitting Angst’s brother, the secondary beneficiary of both policies, against Schiller, who says Angst’s creditors and the clients he allegedly stole from are entitled to the money.
In U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, Schiller said, Robert Angst has sued two insurance carriers, accusing Royal Maccabees and Federal Kemper Insurance of withholding the $1.5 million he believes is due him. The delay, the suit says, is because of a request by Schiller.
And in Montgomery County Court, Schiller said, he has asked that the money be placed in escrow, pending a ruling on who is the proper beneficiary of the policy. Schiller said the insurance companies “are ready and willing to pay the money. It’s just a matter of who they’re going to pay the money to.”
Despite the suicide, Schiller said, both companies have indicated they would honor the policies because more than two years elapsed between the time they were purchased and the time of the suicide.
Schiller said creditors and theft victims should get the money, even though the policies indicate Robert Angst, because the policies were purchased by Thomas Angst with stolen money.
“The thrust is, Angst stole money, took the money, put it into a corporate account and purchased life insurance policies,” Schiller said. An argument can be made that the policies were firm assets, and not personal ones, because they were purchased through firm accounts, he said.
Schiller said Angst, who did a lot of estate work, stole from clients by writing estate checks out to himself. “It appears that the stealing has gone back a couple years,” said Schiller, adding that his findings are based on examinations of the firm’s banking records and ledgers.
Schiller added that he did not want to discuss his strategy, but indicated he would base it on an argument like this: If a man steals money and gives it to his brother, the brother should not be allowed to keep the booty.
Robert Angst’s lawyer, Louis Sinatra Jr., said the origin of the money used to purchase the policies was irrelevant. Robert Angst, a 25-year-old law clerk at the firm, was the beneficiary and should receive the money, his lawyer said. Sinatra said Schiller’s attempt to “follow (allegedly stolen) money into insurance proceeds … is a very difficult thing to do.”
“As far as we know,” Sinatra added, “no one has prevailed in this commonwealth under any theories” similar to the one offered by Schiller. “I think that Robert (Angst) is clearly the beneficiary,” Sinatra said.
Schiller said that in addition to being behind on bills and being accused of theft, Angst also failed to forward $130,000 to the Internal Revenue Service that he had withheld from employees’ paychecks to pay Social Security and other taxes. In accordance with IRS policy, Schiller explained, firm employees will be given full credit for the tax money that should have been paid in their names. However, those employees have also been shorted two weeks of pay. They were due to get their paychecks around the day of the murder-suicide. Schiller said the IRS and the employees should get some of the insurance money.
Before shooting himself, Angst shot his wife and son Loren several times. Authorities said he reloaded three times and fired about 25 shots. The bodies were found in the home’s family room.
Angst had law offices in Skippack, Montgomery County, and in Pottsville, Schuylkill County. Authorities said Angst was being investigated by the state Supreme Court’s disciplinary board for his handling of clients’ money.
The Montgomery County district attorney’s office was also investigating whether Angst misappropriated $700,000 in clients’ money.
In Schuylkill County, Angst was being investigated for possibly misappropriating $143,000 from the estate of a former Pottsville factory worker.
Some of the money was allegedly transferred to Montgomery County banks, according to Schuylkill County authorities, while other amounts were transferred between estates.
Authorities have said that Angst was aware of the Supreme Court investigation and had made a call to the disciplinary board and asked how he could have voluntarily relinquished his license.
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