The federal government has charged 64-year-old Hollywood bankruptcy trustee Marika Tolz with misappropriating $16 million in court funds -- and ultimately pocketing $2.4 million of it for herself.
Among the funds Tolz allegedly misappropriated was $1 million involved in the Scott Rothstein Ponzi case that she received from the U.S. Marshal's Service. The million bucks came from a charitable contribution Rothstein gave to Holy Cross Hospital during his big-shot days.
Federal court records show that Tolz was moving money from one trust account to another in an attempt to hide her theft.
Tolz is the second court trustee to be recently charged with stealing millions of dollars. Plantation attorney Lewis B. Freeman, who was also one of the South Florida's most respected accountants, was sentenced to eight years in July after he was convicted for pilfering $7 million from court accounts he was appointed to protect over a period of several years.
Understand, these are the people whom our courts, in all their wisdom, have chosen to protect funds for fraud victims. What do they do? Victimize them again. Just goes to show that in Broward Town, criminality is a top-down phenomenon.
