Portland lawyer Monday was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing $3.8M in insurance payouts for 135 clients to pay for her lavish lifestyle

Lori E. Deveny was ordered to pay $4.5million in restitution to her victims after she was sentenced to eight years in prison on Monday

Deveny, 57, was convicted of mail, bank, and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering, and filing a false tax return between April 2011 to May 2019

She used the money to go on an African safari, remodel her home, vet bills, buy a Cadillac, trips to a nudist resort in Palm Springs, among others 

The scale of the theft left many of Deveny’s 135 clients destitute and unable to pay their medical bills after suffering serious injuries

Deveny apologized to her victims in court on Monday, saying: ‘If I could go back, I would choose a different path’

She has indicated that she intends to forfeit her $1million home in Portland, to help pay restitution

A Portland lawyer has been sentenced to eight years in prison for pocketing millions in insurance payouts belonging hundreds of her clients. Lori E. Deveny used other people’s money to ‘fund her lavish lifestyle’ – splurging on excesses such as trips to a nudist resort, African safari, home remodeling and luxury autos.
The court also ordered Deveny, 57, to pay $4.5million in restitution to her 135 victims after she was sentenced to prison on Monday for defrauding them, leaving many destitute and unable to pay for medical expenses. 
She was convicted of mail, bank, and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering, and filing a false tax return between April 2011 to May 2019. 
Deveny practiced as an injury lawyer, and won millions in payouts for her clients who had been in car accidents or suffered other serious injuries, with the money meant to provide for their healthcare treatment.  
All told, Deveny’s theft cost her victims more than $4.5 million, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). 
The fraudulent counsel used the proceeds of her scheme to pay more than $150,000 on foreign and domestic airline tickets, more than $173,000 on African safari and big game hunting trips, and $35,000 on taxidermy expenses.
She also spent $125,000 on home renovations, $195,000 in mortgage payments, more than $220,000 in cigars and related expenses, $58,000 on pet boarding and veterinary costs and $41,000 on recreational vehicle expenses.
$50,000 went towards the purchase of a Cadillac luxury vehicle, another $60,000 was spent on stays at a luxury nudist resort in Palm Springs, California.
‘It’s hard to overstate the extraordinary impact Ms. Deveny’s crimes had on the many innocent and vulnerable victims who trusted her,’ Ethan Knight, Chief of the Economic Crimes Unit for the US Attorney’s Office, said in a statement. 

Kieran L. Ramsey, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Portland Field Office also said: ‘Ms. Deveny brazenly stole money that should have gone to pay for health care for her clients for serious injuries and ailments. Instead, that money funded things like big game hunting trips to Africa and home remodeling.
‘She took advantage of people who were physically and emotionally hurting by forging insurance checks, stealing the funds and lying to her clients about the payouts.’ 
One of her clients, who was not named, wrote in their victim impact statement said she was ‘referred to Ms. Deveny following a car accident’ and the lawyer advised her that she would ‘deal with everything.’ 
‘I was instructed not to answer phone calls from insurance companies, and refer anyone interested in the matter directly to her.
‘At first this gave me ease of mind. But it soon became clear the only purpose of this was to keep me in the dark with the progress of the claim,’ she wrote, according to court documents. 
‘The mental impact Ms. Deveny left on me has led me to be too anxious to stand up for myself in legal situations.’ 
The victim, however, did not recommend prison as it would be ‘taking more money from people’ and suggested the court leave her to ‘go free and struggle and go hungry.’ 

‘This woman doesn’t deserve the slightest decency that prison will provide,’ the victim wrote. ‘I heard the Burnside Bridge provides nice shelter and life ruining substances just to say warm.’  
Many of her victims said Deveny appeared to be the perfect lawyer and would offer to take their medical bills off their hands and do the dirty work, but as it got closer to a payday, the lawyer would then stop contacting them or say the funds were on ‘hold.’ 
Another victim, Gabriella Davidson, then 18, was planning on using the insurance money to afford college tuition, but she said the money never came. 
A third victim, Aubrey Hunter, who was in a head-on collision, said he had to dip into his retirement funds after losing his job and said the injury lawyer was full of excuses. 
Another client, Nancy Freyer, said doctors removed her big toe without her permission and had hired Deveny to represent her, but said all the lawyer did was ‘prey on me at my most painful, vulnerable time in my life.’ 
‘She used me,’ she said. ‘She told me I was a model client, but she failed me.’  

Deveny was a member of the Oregon bar and as a consequence of her crimes, several institutions had to pay partial restitution.
The Oregon State Bar Client Security Fund (CSF) alone, paid Deveny’s victims $1.2million – one of the largest losses for the Oregon State Bar in its history, according to the DOJ.
Wells Fargo Bank also lost $52,000 because of a forged check and the IRS sustain tax losses of more than $621,000 when she failed to report the money she stole from clients. 
US District Judge Michael W. Mosman called the lawyer’s actions ‘calculating and predatory than desperate.’ He also said he believed her downfall stemmed from her husband’s suicide in 2018. 

Her defense attorney tried to place the blame on his ‘client’s ‘controlling husband’, 16 years older, who made her do things she never would have done, defense said. 
Deveny intends to forfeit her $1million home in Portland, to help pay the restitution, her lawyer said.
She apologized to her victims in court on Monday, saying: ‘If I could go back, I would choose a different path.’