Law Student Embezzled Over $30k For Drugs and Alcohol
Courtesy of the University of Baltimore law school, here's a good old-fashioned embezzlement story. Twenty-nine-year-old Margaret Oyler was given a 5-year suspended prison sentence and a 3-year probation last week, after she pleaded guilty to having stolen $33,000 from the school's Student Bar Association (SBA).
Looks like she can now join the ranks of other recent "lawyers (or aspiring lawyers) gone bad," such as our Berkeley law bird-beheaders and our wannabe-Hangover lawyer. Although, according to the Baltimore Sun, Oyler never actually graduated from law school. On top of that, with the likely wrath of the state bar's moral character committee, even if she chooses to still pursue a legal career, it doesn't look like an easy road back.
Oyler, who was elected as the SBA's spring treasurer in 2010 and remained in that position until 2012, allegedly used the organization's credit card to write checks for herself and falsified financial statements. She wasn't suspected until the SBA's president at the time, Julius Blattner, looked into summarizing the group's finances for future board members and noticed some obvious irregularities. An investigation was launched, and Blattner said he'd confronted Oyler, who allegedly confessed, but she doesn't remember.
Why not? She was apparently so drunk that she didn't recall. The money that Oyler had stolen from the organization also apparently went to purchase painkiller prescription medications and alcohol. The thefts happened during "an extremely dark period of my life," Oyler said in an interview. Her probation also will include substance abuse rehabilitation and treatment.
Hopefully, Oyler is on the road to recovery. Meanwhile, the current SBA president is looking into remedying the problem of all the stolen money, and hopes to launch a plan soon that will somehow reinvest the money back to where it came from.
Related Resources:
- Law Student Embezzles Thousands of Dollars While Drunk, High (Above the Law)
- Embezzlement (FindLaw)
- Why Do Lawyers Drink So Much? (FindLaw's Greedy Associates)