Former lawyer gets prison time after posing as BigLaw alum, former football player in quest for jobs

homesafetytechpros — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 07:19:39 +0000

Criminal Justice

Former lawyer gets prison time after posing as BigLaw alum, former football player in quest for jobs

March 13, 2025, 9:00 am CDT

(Image from Shutterstock)

Updated: An Ohio lawyer has been sentenced to 37 months in prison for Social Security fraud after using fake identities in a quest for law firm jobs.

Richard Louis Crosby III, 37, of Mason, Ohio, was sentenced Monday, according to Reuters and a March 10 press release. In addition to serving time in prison, Crosby will have to pay $171,000 in restitution to defrauded firms.

Crosby had used the name Richard Williams while applying to firms and claimed at various times to be a former Marine, a former University of Michigan football player and a Kirkland & Ellis lawyer, according to the press release.

He used fake identities to get job offers with at least seven firms that often offered six-figure salaries and, in some cases, signing bonuses, the press release said. One California firm hired Crosby at an annual salary of $250,000 the month before his federal indictment.

Crosby pleaded guilty to three federal counts of Social Security fraud in July 2024. He had used identifying information for his elderly father, his girlfriend, a dead man and others, federal prosecutors said.

Crosby used the fake identities beginning in June 2021, after he indicated that he intended to resign from the practice of law. Crosby was indicted in the state on theft charges in June 2021 and November 2021, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio. “After his indictments, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio entered an order disbarring Crosby,” the news release states. However, he applied at a second firm in June 2022.

The Supreme Court of Ohio’s directory still lists Crosby as “Resigned-Discipline Pending,” and an employee in the clerk’s office confirmed that he has not been disbarred by the Supreme Court of Ohio.

He pleaded guilty in the Ohio theft cases in May 2023 and was sentenced to probation the next month.

Updated on March 14 to note that while the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio refers to him as disbarred, the Supreme Court Of Ohio Attorney Directory refers to him as resigned with discipline pending.

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Codefendant of ex-MLB player admits to role in shooting

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 22:33:58 +0000

Left, center: Samantha Scott, Danny Serafini (Placer County Jail). Right: Serafini pictured exiting a plane in handcuffs following his extradition from Nevada to California (Placer County Sheriff’s Office).

The co-defendant of a former MLB player has admitted to her role in the deadly shooting of the baseball player’s in-laws in their California home.

Samantha Maria Scott, 34, pleaded guilty on Feb. 6 to a charge of being an accessory to a felony in the shootings of Robert Gary Spohr, 70, and Wendy Louise Wood, 68. Scott’s co-defendant, former MLB pitcher Daniel “Danny” Joseph Serafini, 51, is set for a jury trial in the case in March.

Robert Spohr was the father of Erin Spohr, Serafini’s wife. Scott was reportedly a friend of Erin Spohr’s and the family’s former nanny.

Spohr was fatally shot on June 5, 2021, at his Lake Tahoe-area residence. Deputies found him dead from a single gunshot wound. His wife had also been shot but was taken to a hospital, where she recovered from her injuries. She died by suicide a year later.

After the initial shooting incident, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office shared two videos of a “hooded male wearing a face-covering and a backpack walking to the residence several hours before the homicide occurred,” Law&Crime reported. One of the videos showed a man with a backpack outside the Spohrs’ residence, and the second added footage of the suspect walking on a sidewalk by water.

“The information and evidence detectives gathered led them to identify Serafini and Scott as the suspects; both suspects are known to each other and to the victims,” authorities said.

Serafini and Scott, described as a close friend of Serafini’s wife, were eventually arrested.

Serafini made a name for himself as an MLB pitcher, but after his professional career ended, his apparent financial woes began. The former bar owner appeared with his wife on the show Bar Rescue. One episode, “Take Me Out to the Bar Game,” which aired in 2015, began with the story of how Serafini’s $14 million earnings from his playing career dwindled after a series of failed investments and a “bitter divorce,” a situation only made worse by the nosedive in the success of what was then known as The Bullpen at Aspen Glen, located in Sparks, Nevada.

On the episode, Erin Spohr is heard commenting about how she noticed a change in Serafini’s personality and missed her old husband, as the failing bar left him $300,000 in debt and in danger of losing his parents’ home.

“My parents were so proud of me at one time for being a successful baseball player and now I’m thinking what a disappointment I am to everybody,” Danny Serafini is also heard saying on the episode, his voice quivering.

After the bar’s makeover, the establishment was renamed Oak Tavern, but it has since closed. A 2016 tweet from the Oak Tavern’s account on X claimed the show “screwed the pooch big time lol.”

Adrienne Spohr, Erin Spohr’s sister and the daughter of Robert Spohr and Wendy Wood, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in June 2023 against the defendants and her sister. In the lawsuit, Adrienne Spohr accused them of “malicious, despicable, cruel, and unjust conduct” making them liable for damages after the “senseless murder” of Robert Gary Spohr and the eventual death of Wood.

“My parents had been incredibly generous to Daniel Serafini and Erin Spohr throughout their marriage,” she said. “Despite being pressed for my opinion, I cannot comment on my sister’s level of involvement at this time.”

In a countersuit, Erin Spohr, who has not been charged in the murders, alleges her sister manipulated their mother to cut her out of the inheritance.

Scott’s sentencing date has not been set.

Matt Naham contributed to this report.

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Former lawyer gets prison time after posing as BigLaw alum, former football player in quest for jobs

Former lawyer gets prison time after posing as BigLaw alum, former football player in quest for jobs

Codefendant of ex-MLB player admits to role in shooting