A former Merrillville attorney who allegedly stole more than $330,000 from clients is set to go on trial Dec. 12 in U.S. District Court, according to court documents.
On Monday, attorneys for Robert E. Stochel, 63, filed a series of motions to limit or allow certain witness testimony and evidence. Stochel will go on trial over single count of mail fraud involving theft of funds from a grocery store receivership he operated, documents said.
According to court documents, Stochel was appointed as the receiver in 1999 of Tip Top Supermarket after a decade-long lawsuit between the market’s two owners. At the time, Stochel opened a Centier Money Market account for the grocery store and reported the opening balance was $289,670, according to court documents.
Starting in 2001, Stochel illegally withdrew $331,840 from the account for his own purposes, according to the indictment. He would then put his own money into the account whenever a purchase from it was needed to be paid. However, there wasn’t enough money to cover it to make it look like the money came from the account, documents state.
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The indictment said Stochel would cause delays any time he was asked for an accounting of the receivership fund. He would tell the beneficiaries the account had money in it, and presented false accounting sheets, the indictment said.
Stochel drew the wrath of the legal profession over the federal charges.
On June 24, 2015, the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Committee ruled that Stochel had committed “attorney misconduct,” according to the court’s legal opinion. By that time, however, Stochel was no longer practicing law, as on Feb. 6, 2015, the court granted an immediate emergency interim suspension against him stemming from multiple Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission complaints.
Jim Masters is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.