When a Northern Kentucky attorney was appointed to oversee the estates of two women who died, she not only took lifetime savings and family inheritances, but also betrayed families that put their trust in her, prosecutors said.
Jennifer Zaccheus-Miller, 40, was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in prison in Campbell County Circuit Judge Daniel Zalla’s courtroom. She was also ordered to pay more than $265,000 in restitution to the victims’ families.
“The depth of your betrayal of trust is deep,” Zalla said in court.
Zaccheus-Miller pleaded guilty in February to felony theft counts and admitted to stealing more than $200,000 from the women’s estates she oversaw.
Attorney took advantage of families ‘during their darkest times of grief’
One of the estate thefts occurred over nearly four years and involved more than 200 electronic money transfers totaling $237,662 to Zaccheus-Miller’s bank account, prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum. The other theft happened for almost a year, with $28,000 taken from another woman’s estate.
Prosecutors said Zaccheus-Miller was removed as administrator of the estates after she failed to perform her duties. She also defied court orders to turn over the estate files to new administrators.
“People put their trust in attorneys to perform legal services efficiently and more importantly, ethically,” prosecutors wrote in the memo. They added that Zaccheus-Miller “did neither and instead took advantage of non-attorney beneficiaries and victims during their darkest times of grief and completely depleted the estates’ bank accounts.”
Court records: Attorney tried to flee, was discovered in Kentucky wilderness
According to a document filed in a disciplinary proceeding before the Kentucky Supreme Court, investigators uncovered a letter Zaccheus-Miller sent to a significant other in which she acknowledged guilt for the thefts.
Zaccheus-Miller wrote that “she acted alone; that she had originally intended to replace the funds but sank ‘deeper and deeper’ into the scheme; and finally, detailed that she intended to run away once the thefts had been discovered,” the document reads.
Bench warrants were issued for Zaccheus-Miller’s arrest in May 2024 after she failed to comply with court orders related to her tenure as administrator of the two estates, court records show. She turned off her cellphone and was considered a missing person for several days before she was found in the wilderness of Red River Gorge.
“Jennifer understands and takes full responsibility for her actions and acknowledges that theft of entrusted money is a shameful breach of trust and tarnishes the entirety of the legal profession,” Michael Bouldin, Zaccheus-Miller’s attorney, wrote in a presentence court filing.
Friend recalls convicted attorney struggling with guilt after arrest
Bouldin said that Zaccheus-Miller’s license to practice law has since been suspended and she faces permanent disbarment. She was a practicing attorney in Northern Kentucky for the past seven years.
Zaccheus-Miller was in the midst of a financial crisis in part because she had little of her own clientele, despite taking on clients for the public defender, and earned less than $20,000 per year for the past five years, Bouldin said.
Sheena Baylon, the directing attorney of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy’s Newport trial office and a friend of Zaccheus-Miller, said that she was able to visit Zaccheus-Miller in jail, where the now-disgraced attorney was struggling with guilt over her actions and refusing to eat.
“I had never seen somebody want death upon themselves so much,” Baylon said in court.
Zaccheus-Miller’s attorney asked the judge to sentence her to probation instead of prison time.
However, the families of the women whose estates Zaccheus-Miller stole from disputed the attorney’s claims of remorse and said they were taken advantage of at their most vulnerable, leading them to lose trust in attorneys and the legal system.
Christine Mayhew, an attorney representing one of the women’s families, presented photos in court of Zaccheus-Miller partying while out on bail.
“If she did care about her actions, she would not have stolen from her clients,” Mayhew said.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Kentucky lawyer sentenced after stealing from estates she oversaw