PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — An attorney who was disbarred in 2020 has been arrested and faces seven charges, after he allegedly failed to transfer nearly $1 million in proceeds from the sale of a house owned by a couple seeking a divorce.
The Chester County District Attorney's Office has charged Thomas Schindler, 61, on seven total counts including theft, forgery and tampering. Authorities say Schindler still owes the couple $570,000.
According to the district attorney's office, the couple agreed in 2018 that the Schindler Law Group would hold money from the sale of their home in an interest-bearing account. Someone bought the house in March of 2020, and $991,504 from the sale entered an account in the name of the law practice.
That money eventually traveled between numerous accounts for which Schindler and a law partner were co-signers, according to the district attorney's office.
Numerous times over the next seven months, one of the divorcing spouses attempted to get money from that account, but authorities say they never received it.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania disbarred Schindler last July in an unrelated case. After that point, neither spouse could reach Schindler to receive the money, according to the district attorney's office.
A Court of Common Please judge ruled in October that all money from the sale of the house had to be transferred to a trust account which the divorcing couple owned. The district attorney's office said that one month after that ruling, no money had been transferred, and the couple contacted Easttown Township Police.
In the next three weeks, $250,000 was transferred to the divorcing couple's account, but not from the account from where the money was legally supposed to originate from, according to the district attorney's office.
This past March, another $170,000 went to the divorcing couple's accounts from one which Schindler owned, according to authorities.
However, the couple still is owned more than $570,000.
A judge has set Schindler's bail at $25,000 with a preliminary hearing set for next Wednesday.
