The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Knovack Jones. This former attorney gets the knucklehead for swindling the estate of Pauline English to the sum of approximately $300,000.

MIAMI -- A former South Florida lawyer has pleaded guilty to stealing $300,000 from a client, and she said she lost the money in an e-mail scam, news partner NBC 6 reported on Tuesday.

Knovack Jones, a lawyer for nearly 25 years and a former prosecutor, is accused of stealing the inheritance of the English family. Jones was the lawyer for the estate of Pauline English, a nurse who died in 2001, leaving an estate of nearly $400,000.

A common thief or is she? This story gets better.

About $300,000 of that inheritance is now gone. Jones, who operated a law office in Haleah, testified that the money was funneled into a variation on the Nigerian e-mail scams.

Jones, who has since been disbarred, pleaded guilty to one count of grand theft and one count of forgery. Prosecutors are asking that Jones be sentenced to nine years in prison, NBC 6 reported.

Jones said a Nigerian doctor contacted her in 2001.

"He had a contract with the government of $38.6 million, and he needed my participation," Jones said.

The pitch was typical: Put up a little money in return for eventual millions.

Jones testified that she took $300,000 from the English's trust account, hoping to reimburse it quickly.

A con artist herself getting conned. It would be poetic except for the fact that the money didn't belong to Jones to start with.

Prosecutor Gail Levine said the whole scam story is irrelevant.

"How she spent it -- if she spent it partially on herself and partially on her family, if she spent it all on herself, if she chose to go to Las Vegas and gamble it for $12 million -- it really isn't relevant," Levine said.

*****

Because Jones is broke and disbarred, she is on a modest payback schedule. English's family would get its money in 20 years under the schedule.

The prosecutor said Jones has already skipped some payments in the last few months.

*****

The prosecutor grilled Jones, asking how she could be so naïve and so careless. Jones said the scammers were very good and that she was stressed out over work and distraught over her husband's bout with cancer.

The "I or a family member have cancer excuse". Its been heard before, its as bogus now as it was then. Besides being a con artist, shyster lawyer and low-life liar, Knovack Jones is our knucklehead of the day.

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