Former Tacoma attorney pleads guilty to stealing from disabled client

Seattle – A former Tacoma lawyer pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to wire fraud for his embezzlement from a vulnerable client’s trust account, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller. Colby Parks, 65, stole more than $530,000 from a client who received about$1.66 million due to significant permanent injuries she suffered as a passenger in a motorcycle accident. Prosecutors will recommend Parks serve no more than 33 months in prison when he is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones on August 29, 2025.

According to records filed in the case, in 2010 Parks became the trustee for a living trust designed to pay the victim’s expenses after she was severely injured as a passenger on a motorcycle. Initially, the victim’s trust account contained approximately $1.66 million. However, over the first seven years that Parks was the trustee, he siphoned the funds for his own personal use in such large amounts that only $20,000 was left. In 2018, Parks had the victim take out a reverse mortgage on her home and used the proceeds to fund the trust account. He continued to make transfers from the account for his own use. Records from the account show that Parks repeatedly transferred funds to his own bank accounts and then, on the same day or soon thereafter, Parks would make a payment for a personal credit card for the same amount as the transfer. In all Parks made more than 600 transfers of the victim’s funds to accounts he controlled. In October 2017 he made 13 different transfers from the victim’s account to the ones he controlled.

In all, over ten years, Parks transferred more than $880,000 from the victim’s accounts to ones he controlled. He paid himself at least $530,000 more than he was entitled to receive as his fees for trustee services.

By the end of 2019, the victim’s accounts held only $15.  She was forced to sell her home. And even then, Parks diverted proceeds from the sale by claiming the victim owed him money he had advanced to her.

Parks repeatedly told the defendant she was spending too much money, when in fact, the amount that the victim received as cash disbursements was a fraction of the amount that Parks secretly siphoned for himself.

When Washington State’s Adult Protective Services investigated Parks’ representation of the victim, Parks initially claimed he was only paid a flat rate of $24,000 per year. After Adult Protective Services requested supporting documentation, Parks revised his statement and said he was paid varying amounts that averaged over $54,000 per year.  However, Parks collected well over $80,000 per year from the victim.

The Washington State Bar also investigated the matter, and Parks resigned his law license instead of discipline, which could have been disbarment.

The case was investigated by the FBI with cooperation from the Washington State Bar and Adult Protective Services. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Cindy Chang.