United States Attorney Thomas Scott Woodward for the Northern District of Oklahoma, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, announced that John Milton Merritt, 74, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, had made his first appearance today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Gary Percell in Oklahoma City on a 12 count indictment handed down by the federal grand jury sitting in Oklahoma City.

Merritt had previously been indicted by the federal grand jury for the Western District of Oklahoma, however, the indictment had been sealed awaiting his arrest. Merritt, with his attorney, surrendered to the U.S. Marshal and special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service/Criminal Investigation Division today.

Counts One through Four allege that Merritt while representing clients who were orphaned by the death of their parents in a 2002 automobile accident developed a scheme to remove funds from the orphan’s trust account that had been funded with the proceeds from the settlement of their lawsuit against a tire manufacturer and auto maker. Count One sets out that in October 2005, Merritt allegedly gave a counterfeited Cleveland County Court Order directing the Quail Creek Bank to fraudulently release $88,288.32 of the orphans’ funds to Merritt. Then Merritt deposited these allegedly stolen funds into his law firm’s, Merritt and Associates, operating account and spent them for the operations of the firm, not for the benefit of the orphans.

Count Two sets out a similar scheme on June 26, 2007, when Merritt submitted a similar counterfeited Cleveland County District Court Order fraudulently directing the Quail Creek Bank to release a total of $131,335 of the orphan’s trust funds to Merritt. Merritt once again deposited them in his law firm’s operating account and spent them for the benefit of the law firm and not the children.

Count Three sets out that on December 18, 2007, Merritt executed the same scheme yet again by supplying another counterfeit Cleveland County District Court Order that directed Quail Creek Bank to release $80,828 of the orphans’ trust funds to Merritt. Merritt then deposited and spent those allegedly stolen funds in the same manner of the first two allegedly illegal withdrawals. This last fraudulent withdrawal left no funds in the orphans’ trust accounts. However, Merritt continued to tell the orphans’ and their grandmother that there were several hundred thousand dollars in the orphan’s trust accounts.

Finally, in April 2011, Merritt set in motion a scheme, set out in Count Four, to once again defraud Quail Creek Bank. Merritt hand delivered to Quail Creek Bank what he represented was an Order of Chief United States District Judge Miles-LaGrange, although he knew it was forged and counterfeited, to transfer $130,000 from the trust account of a minor child, who had been injured in an automobile accident, to Merritt’s attorney trust account. Merritt subsequently deposited those funds into his law firm’s bank account.

Count Five alleges that Merritt, on April 4, 2011, used the forged signature of Chief United States District Judge Vickie Miles-LaGrange to authenticate the counterfeit order to release funds from the injured child’s trust account at Quail Creek Bank.

Count Six through Twelve allege that Merritt engaged in numerous unlawful monetary transactions in violation of federal money laundering statutes by then spending the funds he had allegedly defrauded and tricked Quail Creek Bank into releasing from the orphans’ and injured child’s trust accounts.

Based upon the bank fraud and money laundering allegations found in Counts One through Four there is a forfeiture allegation that asked the Court upon Merritt’s conviction, to order him to forfeit $731,451 to the United States for his gain from those alleged crimes.

The prosecution of this case in federal court in Oklahoma City will be handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles M. McLoughlin and Kevin C. Leitch.

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.

 

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