{"id":59908,"date":"2025-12-15T16:44:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=59908"},"modified":"2025-12-15T16:44:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:44:54","slug":"former-polk-lawyer-who-gambled-away-clients-money-gets-25-year-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/12\/15\/former-polk-lawyer-who-gambled-away-clients-money-gets-25-year-sentence\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Polk lawyer who gambled away clients&#8217; money gets 25-year sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" data-dominant-color=\"534b57\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed-4.webp?resize=1024%2C576&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-59909 not-transparent\" style=\"--dominant-color: #534b57; width:510px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed-4.webp?resize=1024%2C576&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed-4.webp?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed-4.webp?resize=768%2C432&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed-4.webp?w=1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Polk County lawyer Jason Penrod did plead guilty to&nbsp;grand theft and money laundering&nbsp;charges for stealing nearly $1.8 million from a client&#8217;s trust fund, which he admitted to gambling away at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino, claiming a&nbsp;gambling addiction&nbsp;as the reason, leading to his disbarment and facing significant prison time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Crime:\u00a0Penrod diverted funds from a client&#8217;s trust, transferring them to his personal account and then to the Hard Rock Casino for gambling.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Admission:\u00a0He confessed to the misuse of funds, citing a gambling compulsion and claiming he intended to pay it back with interest, viewing it as a short-term loan.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Charges:\u00a0He faced numerous charges, including grand theft and money laundering, after the client&#8217;s family filed a lawsuit and the sheriff&#8217;s office initiated an investigation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Consequences:\u00a0The Florida Bar permanently revoked his law license, and he was held without bond, with authorities aiming for a significant prison sentence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Law Firm Closure:\u00a0His firm, Family Elder Law, abruptly closed in 2024, leaving clients confused.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Polk County lawyer Jason Penrod did plead guilty to&nbsp;grand theft and money laundering&nbsp;charges for stealing nearly $1.8 million from a client&#8217;s trust fund, which he admitted to gambling away&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMTJcL3VubmFtZWQtNC53ZWJwP2ZpdD0xMDI0JTJDNTc2JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiRm9ybWVyIFBvbGsgbGF3eWVyIHdobyBnYW1ibGVkIGF3YXkgY2xpZW50cyYjODIxNzsgbW9uZXkgZ2V0cyAyNS15ZWFyIHNlbnRlbmNlIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.wU3Ua2ienzvW3aGaWEhiGLGg1f4TmnQfZXeBPrJng2YMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":59909,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed-4.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[12850],"class_list":["post-59908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-former-polk-lawyer-who-gambled-away-clients-money-gets-25-year-sentence"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59908"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59911,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59908\/revisions\/59911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}