An Orange County businessman who served as an executor of wealthy clients’ estates admitted Monday to embezzling nearly $6 million.
David Robert McDonnell, 74, pleaded guilty to a single felony count of wire fraud during a hearing Monday at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana, records show.
McDonnell, through Laguna Beach-based McDonnell Business Services, served as the executor of trusts belonging to clients federal prosecutors described as “high-net-worth individuals.”
His job was to manage the trusts’ assets and, when clients died, sell their assets and distribute proceeds to the beneficiaries of the trusts.
Instead, McDonnell, after liquidating the assets in some of the trusts, diverted the resulting funds into his own personal bank accounts, federal prosecutors say.
As part of his plea deal, McDonnell specifically admitted to misappropriating approximately $5.9 million from four trusts, beginning in 2018 and continuing until January 2024.
In one instance cited in the written plea deal, McDonnell in August 2020 moved $300,000 from a bank account tied to one of his victim’s trust in a bank account in Capistrano Beach to a bank account he controlled at a bank in Laguna Beach.
McDonnell is scheduled to return to court on Dec. 9 for sentencing. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
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