Attorney Accused of Exploiting the Elderly

Online, July 21, 2011 (Newswire.com) - The law office of Campbell Law P.A. filed a lawsuit for civil damages in the Circuit Court of Osceola County, Florida against disbarred-attorney Linda Vasquez Littlefield based on allegations that she and her former husband, Ross Littlefield, operated a criminal enterprise that defrauded elderly clients out of their life savings.

Campbell Law brought this suit on behalf of individuals suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia, as well as their representatives, who claim the Littlefields devised a scheme to fraudulently obtain their assets and then profit from the entrusted assets. According to the alleged victims, Linda Littlefield provided legal consultations to elderly clients applying for Medicaid. During these consultations, she recommended that the elderly clients place their assets into a trust administered by Ross Littlefield, and claimed that, upon their deaths, the assets remaining in the trust would transfer to their estates and beneficiaries. The trust, however, was a non-reversionary trust, so the assets remained in the trust, and under the control of the Littlefields, when the elderly clients died.

"Linda Littlefield's status as an elder law attorney greatly elevates the depravity of this alleged scheme," says Attorney Colin Campbell of Campbell Law, "because lawyers are held to a strict ethical standard designed to foster a legal system in which clients can trust and confide in their attorneys. We will do everything in our power to hold Linda Littlefield accountable for any violations of our profession's high ethical standards."

This is not the first time the Littlefields faced accusations of corruption by former clients. On July 1, 2010, the Supreme Court of Florida disbarred Linda Littlefield for using the credit card of another client suffering from Alzheimer's to fund numerous personal expenses including furniture for her law office and a vacation to Cancun, Mexico. This incident sparked an investigation into the Littlefields, which resulted in the State Attorney's Office for the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida (the same office that tried Casey Anthony) prosecuting the Littlefields on 12 fraud-related criminal charges.

The Littlefields spent the past year defending against these criminal charges, and recently, Linda Littlefield persuaded the State Attorney's Office to drop 11 of the 12 fraud-related counts against her in exchange for a plea of no contest to only one of the counts. Disheartened by the disinclination of the State Attorney's Office to fully prosecute the Littlefields, representatives of the alleged victims took matters into their own hands by seeking justice in a civil court of law with the filing of this lawsuit.