A disbarred lawyer who used millions of dollars in clients’ funds to keep his Atlanta law firm afloat was sentenced Tuesday to just over two years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $3 million.
Matthew Dickason, 48, pleaded guilty in October to a single count of wire fraud as part of a deal with federal prosecutors. He told a federal judge in Atlanta on Tuesday that his “life’s goal” is to earn enough money to pay the restitution in full.
“I want to have a chance to do that,” Dickason said during his sentencing hearing. “I have nothing but regret. I realize the mess that I’ve made. It’s a big one. And it’s scary to think about. The only way I know how to move forward is to work.”
U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May sentenced Dickason to two years and three months in prison as well as three years of supervision upon release. She also ordered him to pay just over $3 million in restitution to five victims, including two individuals, an insurance company and a bank.
“This wasn’t a situation where you had sloppy accounting and it got out of control,” May told Dickason. “You were stealing money from individuals that trusted you and your company to take care of them. That was their money that you were playing around with.”
Dickason Law Group handled hundreds of transactions worth tens of millions of dollars, records show. Dickason’s attorney, Matt Pearce, said Tuesday that Dickason took over the family firm in 2007 after his father died, and then realized it was in debt.
“The choice he made was to try to grow the firm and pay the money back,” Pearce said. “And that didn’t happen, obviously.”
Federal prosecutor Russell Phillips said Dickason used client funds from real estate transactions to pay his firm’s expenses and other clients. Phillips urged the judge to sentence Dickason to about three years in prison to avoid the perception “that the legal profession takes care of its own.”
“I believe that it’s a common feeling that lawyers get away with stuff, that lawyers aren’t held to account,” he said.
One of Dickason’s victims spoke at the sentencing about how he had taken away her inheritance from the sale of her parents’ home. She said she had spent almost $60,000 in legal fees trying to get the money back through a civil lawsuit.
“Matthew Dickason stole from real people that have real lives,” said the victim, who did not want her name published. “We were not just numbers on a sheet of paper with dollar signs in front of them. To this day, it makes me sick to my stomach and depresses me beyond words to have someone steal what my parents spent a lifetime working for.”
Dickason, who now lives in Ohio, said in court that the victim’s statement left him feeling “fairly numb.” Choking back tears, he turned to the victim and apologized to her.
“I think it takes a lot of courage to come here and face someone,” Dickason told the victim. “I don’t blame you at all for the things you said about me. That’s not who I identify as. I do feel like I should be punished.”
Dickason said he has two daughters and helps run a family business in Ohio that employs 13 people.
Pearce said Dickason did not personally use the client funds deposited in his law firm’s trust account and did not set out to defraud anyone. Dickason had no previous convictions and now has a “negative net worth of $40,000,” Pearce said, citing more than $1 million in civil judgments against his client.
Dickason closed the law firm, surrendered his law license and was disbarred in early 2020 while the State Bar of Georgia was investigating 20 grievances pending against him, records show. He had been a lawyer in Georgia since 2003.
In surrendering his law license, Dickason admitted to the Georgia Supreme Court that he had failed to account for client funds and had violated the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct.
The judge said Dickason’s crime showed arrogance and selfishness. She acknowledged that he had accepted responsibility and intended to pay back as much as he could.
“I don’t think you really thought about the consequences of what you were doing and I think you know that now,” the judge said.
Dickason can voluntarily surrender to federal prison authorities within 90 days.
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