DICKSON, Tenn. (WTVF) — The Tennessee Supreme Court permanently disbarred a Dickson County attorney Jackie “Jack” L. Garton for stealing from a trust for the daughter of a fallen state trooper.
Garton was the trustee for a trust set up to provide for the 14-year-old daughter of Tennessee state trooper Todd Larkins, who was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer truck in 2005. The trust contained more than $2 million from the settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit.
In a press release, the Supreme Court said Mr. Garton began quietly disbursing trust monies to himself in the form of excessive fees over a period of years. The trust was administered out of the probate and juvenile court of Dickson County. And as the probate judge neared retirement, Garton began taking more trust money.
He persuaded the judge to not only keep the trust transactions from the daughter, who was an adult by then but also issue an order saying that disbursements from the trust could be made without court approval.
It wasn't until the woman wanted to use the trust monies to start her own business after college that she learned of Garton's thefts By then, he had taken more than $1 million from the trust.
Garton was convicted of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and tax fraud, and the Tennessee Supreme Court suspended his law license. After that, a hearing panel of Tennessee’s Board of Professional Responsibility, which regulates lawyers in Tennessee under the authority of the Tennessee Supreme Court, found that Mr. Garton committed multiple violations of the ethics rules, including misappropriation of client funds and engaging in dishonest and fraudulent conduct. The hearing panel and the Board of Professional Responsibility recommended that the Court disbar Mr. Garton.
On Thursday, the Court agreed and entered an order disbarring Garton.
It was the first order to disbar an attorney since the Tennessee Supreme Court changed its rules in January on the discipline of lawyers. Attorneys can no longer ask the Court to reinstate their law license and will never again practice law in the state.
The Supreme Court’s Chief Justice, Jeff Bivins, lauded the rule change: “When lawyers engage in misconduct serious enough to warrant disbarment, citizens should be confident that they will never again have a license to practice law. From now on, Tennessee citizens can have that confidence. The rule change adopted by the Tennessee Supreme Court ensures that lawyers who are disbarred in our State will remain disbarred, and will never again have a Tennessee law license.”
