Oklahoma City Attorney Indicted for Bank Fraud and Using Forged Signature of a United States District Court Judge
TULSA, OKLAHOMA - Thomas Scott Woodward, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma, announced today that John Milton Merritt, 74, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was charged in a 12-count Indictment by a Federal Grand Jury in the Western District of Oklahoma with committing various crimes related to bank fraud.
Merritt appeared before United States Magistrate Judge Gary Purcell in Oklahoma City earlier today on charges of bank fraud, using the forged signature of a United States District Court Judge and money laundering. If convicted, Merrit could be sentenced to up to 30 years imprisonment and a fine of $1,000,000.
The Indictment alleges that Merritt defrauded the Quail Creek Bank in Oklahoma
City by using schemes to fraudulently remove funds from his clients’ bank accounts. From 2005 through 2007, Merritt represented four clients who were orphaned as the
result their parents’ death in a 2002 automobile accident. Merritt allegedly stole more
than $300,000 from the orphans’ trust fund accounts by providing the bank with
counterfeit state court orders. In 2011, Merritt is alleged to have forged the signature of
United States District Judge Vicki Mile-LaGrange on a counterfeit Federal court order to
obtain $130,000 from the trust account of another client, a child who had been injured in
an automobile accident.
Merritt is further alleged to have violated Federal money laundering statutes by spending the funds he had allegedly fraudulently obtained from the Quail Creek Bank. The Indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation that requests Merritt, upon his conviction, be ordered to forfeit $731,451 to the United States for his gain from those alleged crimes.
The charges result from a joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation Division. The prosecution of this case in federal court in Oklahoma City will be handled by Special Assistant United States Attorneys Charles M. McLoughlin and Kevin C. Leitch. U.S. Attorney Woodward’s office was appointed by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General to prosecute the case following the recusal of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Oklahoma.
A Grand Jury indictment is one method of charging a defendant with alleged violations of Federal law, which must be proven in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt to overcome the defendant’s presumption of innocence.
