Peter
David Nitschke was an Irvine-based attorney and president of
Lutheran Church of the Cross in Laguna Woods in 2010 when he offered to “help” manage the finances of two elderly sisters he knew from the congregation, after the death of their 95-year-old mother.
But, on Tuesday, Irvine Police arrested the Newport Beach 45-year-old for allegedly embezzling more than $720,000 from the church ladies.
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When the mother died in
March 2010, she left her 65- and 69-year-old daughters, identified as Diane C. and Virginia C. respectively, a Northern
California home and more than $675,000 in bank accounts.
Nitschke is accused of directing the women to give him cashier's checks in the amount of all the
funds left to them in the bank accounts by their mother–and then depositing the more than $675,000 into
his personal bank accounts.
The California State Bar requires attorneys to place such funds in trust accounts for their clients.
The attorney is further accused of stealing $46,000 more by failing to
return funds from a real estate transaction, money that authorities claim Nitschke spent or moved into other
accounts.
Family members inquired about the sisters' funds earlier this year, as they were needed for medical and nursing home
expenses. Nitschke allegedly handed over a bank statement showing all the funds were safely in a client trust account.
But something did not ring true with the family, which contacted the Irvine Police Department in May. An investigation concluded Nitschke's real account with the money closed with a zero balance and that the bank statement dated that
month for the family was fraudulent, according to a joint statement from police and the Orange County District Attorney's office.
The church-leading attorney is charged with two felony counts of
theft from an elder with sentencing enhancements and allegations for
over $100,000 loss, aggravated white collar crime over $500,000, and
property loss over $200,000.
If convicted, Nitschke could get up to 12 years in state prison. He was being held in lieu of $725,000 bail Tuesday, in anticipation of arraignment today in Santa Ana.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.