Conshohocken Man Sentenced For Stealing $1M From Dead Cousin

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — A lawyer has been sentenced to prison after stealing nearly $1 million from the estate of his cousin who had appointed him as the executor of his will, a Bucks County judge ruled Monday.

Aaron S. Friedmann, 63, of Conshohocken, will spend the next 15 to 30 months in state prison. He must also pay back the $981,023 he stole from his cousin, Dr. Sheldon S. Farber. Farber died in 2013 and had appointed Friedmann executor in 2006.

“You stole the legacy of a very generous and kind man,” President Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. told Friedmann in handing down the sentence.

Friedmann, who practices law in Philadelphia, was in charge of the monetary side of the estate. Shortly after Farber's death, Friedmann wrote out a $200,000 check from the estate to his firm at the time, Disability Law Advocates Group, police said. He then continued to make similar transactions to his personal bank account, making a total of 81 fraudulent deposits, an investigation found.

An investigation into Friedmann began back in March 2017 when another lawyer for a different part of the estate reported the missing funds to the Lower Southampton Township Police.

Friedmann had pleaded guilty back on Aug. 23 to theft by failure to make required disposition of funds, theft by unlawful taking, and related counts.