Singleton gets three years for fraud and theft conviction
By Contributor
Three years in prison now await the former Nelson lawyer who was convicted of fraud and theft from an estate while he was executor.
Marvin Singleton, 78, was sentenced Friday in Nelson Supreme Court. His sentence was down from the up to six years that the Crown had asked for.
After years on the run from the law and legal entanglements in the U.S., Singleton was convicted in Nelson Supreme Court in December of last year of theft and fraud of an estate he was the executor for.
Justice Elizabeth Arnold-Bailey found the 77-year-old Singleton guilty of taking almost $500,000 in the early 1990s that was supposed to go to the beneficiaries of John George.
Singleton left Nelson in 1993 for the U.S. but in 1997 he was charged with misappropriating more than $800,000 from the estates of two of his Nelson clients.
Eleven years after he left, at age 71, a deputy U.S. marshal arrested him in Wichita, Kan., where he was living in a basement suite and working as a part-time college English instructor and librarian.
Singleton was locked up in various U.S. prisons awaiting extradition back to Canada for more than two years. He made his first appearance at the Nelson Courthouse last year in October to face the charges against him.
His 11-week trial wrapped up earlier last year. Sentencing was to be last February although the judge had to rule on a Charter of Rights challenge.
