Shamed solicitor faces jail for taking from pensioner’s will

By Michael MacLeod

A DISGRACED former lawyer who took almost half-a-million pounds from a dead pensioner’s will used the cash to pay off his own debts.

Michael Karus, 48, embezzled £413,052.81 while acting as the executor of the estate of the late Edith Hampton, who died aged 89 in 2003.

It emerged yesterday in court that he used the former teacher’s cash to settle debts in his own law and property firms and even paid off a personal credit card debt.

It was originally thought that the Cancer Research charity was entitled to the huge sum left in Miss Hampton’s will.

But it was only when the charity began to investigate that it emerged she had drawn up a second will for the money to be given to a friend, which Karus claims he knew nothing about.

He was arrested in March last year and yesterday (Mon) announced at Edinburgh Sheriff Court that he paid the Crown £500,000 to be given to the genuine beneficiary – a Mrs June Pirie of Edinburgh.