Kenosha lawyer charged with conspiring to commit bankruptcy fraud

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Federal prosecutors in Milwaukee on Tuesday indicted a Kenosha lawyer who allegedly helped launder $95,000 from a bankruptcy court, trustees and creditors.

Walter Stern, 65, is charged with conspiring to commit bankruptcy fraud between June 1, 2005, and Oct. 13, 2010.

According to the indictment, Stern assisted defendant Norma Leonard-Allen, 64, of Kenosha with hiding $95,000 the woman received in a 2005 marital settlement agreement.

Leonard-Allen received her first installment of $29,000 from the settlement on or about June 22, 2005, the indictment states, but in September she filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the Eastern District Court.

She concealed the $95,000 marital settlement agreement in the bankruptcy petition filed with the court, according to the indictment, and none of the four installment checks Leonard-Allen received were deposited in the sole account she disclosed in the petition.

All four of the installment checks were endorsed to Stern, who in 2007 purchased a CD from Banks of Wisconsin for $86,396.88 in his name and made payable to Leonard-Allen upon his death, according to the indictment.

Leonard-Allen pled guilty to bankruptcy fraud in 2009 and received three years probation.

Indictment (PDF)