Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 28, 1995                   TAG: 9502280081
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROANOKE LAWYER GUILTY OF EMBEZZLING FOR DRUGS

J. Thomas Meadows, 52, pleaded guilty to three counts of embezzlement at a hearing in Roanoke Circuit Court. But exactly how much he stole remained in dispute.

Chief Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Betty Jo Anthony put the figure at $200,000; a Richmond attorney who represents Meadows maintained the amount was significantly less.

That issue is likely to be revisited May 8, when Meadows is scheduled to be sentenced. He faces up to 60 years in prison on the three felony charges.

Meadows had faced 12 counts of embezzlement spanning a 10-year period that ended in 1993. Under a plea agreement reached Monday, prosecutors dropped all but three charges.

In a summary of the evidence, Anthony said Meadows pilfered money from three bank accounts he established for clients who had hired him to handle their wills or the estates of their deceased relatives.

In a conversation that one of Meadows' clients tape-recorded without his knowledge, Meadows said he took the money "to save himself from bankruptcy," Anthony said.

And, in a conversation with an investigator with the Virginia State Bar, Meadows said he had been abusing alcohol and cocaine at the time of the offenses and that he had lost $100,000 on bad investments, Anthony said.

One of the victims, Al Ritchie of Lake Worth, Fla., has said earlier that he and his wife hired Meadows to handle an estate after both of her parents, who lived in Roanoke, died within a week of each other in December 1991. The following year, Ritchie said, they discovered that $30,000 was missing from a checking account established for the estate.

In addition to the Ritchie case, Meadows pleaded guilty to taking money from the account of Bernard Dungee, a terminally ill man who hired him to prepare a will, and Alex and Mary McNeil.

Meadows, who did not testify or offer evidence during Monday's hearing, was allowed to remain free on bond pending his sentencing. Meadows, a lawyer since 1967 who had most recently run his own practice, surrendered his license to the state bar last year, shortly before he was charged.