Howard County Circuit Court Judge Timothy McCrone sentenced a Baltimore woman to three years in prison Tuesday for embezzling more than $127,000 from a distant cousin's estate.
Michelle Denise Davis, 54, was sentenced after she pleaded guilty in March to one count of embezzlement — fraudulent misappropriation by fiduciary.
Davis was appointed personal representative of the estate of Evelyn Scott Martin, 73, of Columbia, after Martin died of breast cancer in September 2011, Howard County State's Attorney's Office spokesman Wayne Kirwan said. When Davis failed to provide the estate's accounting inventories or file an incomplete inventory, both prescribed by law, Davis was removed as personal representative in November 2013 by Howard County's Orphans' Court.
Kirwan said a court-appointed successor later found money missing from the estate and contacted the police.
During the plea hearing in March, Kirwan said the successor fiduciary and police found that between November 2011 and December 2014, Davis wrote 130 checks to herself or to cash, estimated at $127,294, with most checks written after she was removed as personal representative.
Although defense attorney Eileen McInerney sought a suspended sentence, allowing Davis to work and make monthly restitution payments to the estate, McGuinn said that Davis did not put for a "good faith effort" before her arrest.