A former top judge in Illinois accused of stealing the life savings of a World War II hero has been ordered to pay back $1.2million.
Patricia Martin, who sat on the bench in Cook County for 24 years, was in charge of handling Oscar Wilkerson Jr’s life savings.
But his family and the state legal disciplinary agency claim she stole $240,000 of his money and sunk more than $100,000 into cryptocurrency, according to ABC Chicago.
Wilkerson was a highly decorated Tuskegee airman and civil rights pioneer who was one of the first black military pilots to fight for the United States in the war before he settled down in Chicago.
He trusted Martin, who is his former wife’s niece, to look after his finances as his health deteriorated but sued her last September and said she took advantage of his old age and hid his retirement money.
The veteran died a day before his 97th birthday on February 8 and Cook County Circuit Judge Anna Demacopoulos ordered Martin to pay $1.2 million on May 24 due to ‘the defendant’s continued unresponsiveness’.
But I thought crypto was the best way toward financial freedom and success. I put everything into bitcoin. Don’t tell me that was a mistake. What about pork bellies and orange juice futures? If a good patriotic christian can’t get rich quick, then what has this country come to?