Morgan Hill Lawyer Gets 2 Years For Laundering Money From Stolen Goods

A former criminal defense lawyer from Morgan Hill has been sentenced in federal court in San Jose to two years in prison for laundering money that a client obtained by selling stolen computer software.

Jamie Harmon, also known as Jamie Harley, 57, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh.

Harmon was convicted in 2010 of five counts of laundering money by writing checks to her client or his wife while knowing that the funds for the checks were the proceeds of the sale of stolen property. Harmon’s former client, Christian Pantages, was indicted together with Harmon on Dec. 31, 2008.

Pantages pleaded guilty in March 2010 to charges of conspiring to sell stolen property and conspiring to launder money, and became a prosecution witness against Harmon in her trial in July of that year.

Pantages will be sentenced by Koh on Feb. 18. U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said. Pantages testified at Harmon’s trial that he told her the first time her met with her that his company, Silicon Valley Resale, was in the business of selling stolen computer equipment.

Haag said Pantages also testified that Harmon knew that two checks he gave her totaling $127,550 on Dec. 23, 2003, were proceeds of the sale of stolen property.

Harmon deposited the checks the next day in her attorney-client trust account. The counts of which she was convicted concerned five checks totaling $87,050 that Harmon wrote to Pantages or his wife from that account in January and February 2004.

The trial jury was unable to reach a verdict on a sixth charge that Harmon conspired to launder money, and the trial judge, now-retired U.S. District Judge James Ware, declared a mistrial on that charge.

Harmon will begin serving her sentence on June 30. Koh also ordered her to provide 200 hours of community service work after being released from prison. Harmon was suspended from law practice by the State Bar in 2010 after her conviction.

In a separate proceeding, she was disbarred by the State Bar in 2014 for misconduct in seven cases.

--Bay City News

--Image via Shutterstock

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