A disbarred criminal defense lawyer from Ellsworth was sentenced Wednesday to serve 14 months with the Department of Corrections for stealing $190,000 from the estate of a dead client.
Christopher J. Whalley, a Navy veteran who volunteered with various Ellsworth-area nonprofits and for nearly a decade served on the local hospital’s board of trustees, pleaded guilty this past summer to a felony theft charge for taking funds that had belonged to his client’s estate.
Whalley, 65, had his license to practice law in Maine revoked two years ago after acknowledging misconduct in how he managed the estate of Wilbur Knudsen, a Milbridge man who died in October 2018. His law license had been suspended in February 2022 when a Superior Court justice determined that there could be “imminent injury to his clients, the public and the administration of justice” if he continued to practice law.
Whalley’s defense attorney, Walter Mckee of Augusta, said Wednesday that Whalley reached an agreement in July with the state attorney general’s office, which prosecuted the case. Under the plea deal, Whalley agreed to plead guilty on the condition that the charge be reduced to a lesser felony and that he serve no more than 18 months behind bars.
The court on Wednesday imposed a 14-month sentence on the former lawyer.
Whalley repaid the money he took from the estate of his former client, plus interest, in 2022, McKee said.
“It was a longer sentence than Chris hoped for, but he respects the decision, will serve his time, and this chapter will now be closed,” McKee said.
McKee said Whalley likely will be released roughly about halfway through his 14-month sentence by earning credit for good behavior and through the state’s community confinement program, which would allow him to finish his sentence at home while under supervision.
Whalley’s sentence was stayed until Jan. 6, which will allow him to stay home through the holidays before he has to start serving his time.
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frye said Thursday that Whalley’s conduct deserved more than just revoking his law license.
“Mr. Whalley knew he had a fiduciary duty to protect his client’s funds, and yet he diverted those funds to his own use,” Frye said. “It’s not enough to sanction that abuse of trust by taking away his privilege to practice law. His breach of duty to his client fully warrants the Court’s order of prison time. No lawyer is above the law.”
Whalley was reported in 2019 to the Maine Overseers of the Bar, which oversees the conduct of licensed lawyers in the state, by friends of his dead client who complained that Whalley was neglecting his duties as executor of Knudsen’s estate. Whalley transferred $189,375 — more than half of the Knudsen estate’s cash assets of $378,336 — to his business bank accounts, according to documents filed with the oversight panel.
“In these actions, Whalley committed a criminal or unlawful act that reflects adversely on his honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer,” Justice Ann Murray wrote in Whalley’s December 2022 disbarment order.
Whalley previously was suspended by the overseers in 2003, again in 2007 and a third time in 2021 for unrelated violations of bar rules.
In 2014, he was charged with assault for allegedly punching a client’s boyfriend, but that charge later was dropped by then-Hancock County District Attorney Matthew Foster, according to the Ellsworth American.