Pittsburgh estates attorney facing charges in alleged embezzlement scheme

A Pittsburgh attorney already suspended from practicing law for mishandling client funds is facing criminal charges that he stole more than $230,000 from three estates and improperly charged for his services.

Gordon D. Fisher, 76, will have a preliminary hearing on April 25 on charges of theft by failure to make deposit of funds received, misapplication of entrusted property and theft by deception.

He declined to comment Thursday following a hearing in Orphan’s Court.

A criminal complaint filed against Fisher accuses him of acting improperly with regard to three separate estates.

The first case involved the estate of Caroline Brayley, a retired professor from the University of Pittsburgh who died in 2016. In that matter, investigators said Fisher was hired to represent the executor of the estate and diverted $77,122 into his own private bank accounts over a series of 15 different transactions.

The complaint also accuses Fisher of billing fraud in that case, saying that he improperly charged more than $37,000 for representing the executor.

The complaint said Fisher had the estate bank statements sent to his office and not to the executor, which investigators said was an attempt to hide his misappropriation of funds.

They called what he did evidence of an “embezzlement scheme.”

In another estate, that of Ann Power Wardrop, a well-known arts advocate in Pittsburgh, Fisher was to serve as co-executor. However, investigators said he improperly redirected $49,000 to himself through a series of 23 withdrawals.

In the most recent case, Fisher was appointed to serve as executor and listed as the attorney in the estate of Thomas A. Smith, a pastor who was 88 when he died in 2019.

The complaint said Fisher transferred a combined $120,370 from Smith’s estate over 18 transactions to his own accounts. Investigators said Fisher also directed a $10,000 bequest from the estate to Calvary Episcopal Church of Pittsburgh and paid for a dog fence with Smith’s estate funds.

Smith’s will designated that his estate be split evenly between a scholarship fund in his name in Penn State’s Department of Dairy and Animal Science and a church in Oxford, Mich., the complaint said.

On Thursday, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph K. Williams III removed Fisher from serving as the executor on Smith’s estate, citing his ongoing criminal charges and suspension by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board.

Under board rules, Williams said, a suspended attorney must resign all appointments to roles such as personal representative, executor and administrator.

Fisher argued during Thursday’s hearing that the rule did not apply in a temporary suspension.

“I have the right to continue to serve as a fiduciary,” Fisher said. “The temporary suspension has never been heard — likewise with the criminal complaint.”

The judge was not swayed.

“Mr. Fisher, what I’m looking at is your history of infractions with the disciplinary board,” Williams said, citing two previous cases there. “I believe I would be negligent to let you proceed or hold any funds. You will not act in any fiduciary capacity or hold any funds as of today.”