Local & State Headlines

Americus lawyer indicted

• An Americus attorney was granted a "voluntary indefinite suspension" of his Georgia bar license by the Georgia Supreme Court earlier this year.

Susan McCord &
J.D. Sumner

ALBANY — The former lawyer for the family of Ginny Crisler, an Albany woman killed in an unsolved 2004 hit-and-run incident, has been indicted on charges he forged documents in connection with the case.

Paul Owen Farr was released as attorney for Scott, Timothy and Geoffrey W. Crisler in December 2006, just days after the three adult brothers filed a wrongful-death suit against the owners and manager of an Albany shopping center parking lot where their mother was struck and killed Dec. 14, 2004.

The Americus lawyer who previously served as Sumter County attorney was granted a “voluntary indefinite suspension” of his Georgia bar license by the Georgia Supreme Court earlier this year.

District Attorney for the Southwestern Judicial Circuit Cecilia Cooper, who obtained an indictment against Farr Tuesday on two counts of first-degree forgery, said Thursday that a bench warrant had been issued for Farr’s arrest.

Cooper said she believed Farr’s motivation to issue the fraudulent documents was to “cover his tracks” in light of an ongoing investigation by the bar association.

In his petition to the Georgia Supreme Court for a voluntary suspension, Farr cites a mental capacity for which he is receiving treatment, and said that he ceased the practice of law in December 2006.

Despite a $10,000 reward offered to find the driver of a white, late-1990s model Chevrolet Lumina believed to have struck Ginny Crisler, who was 57, in the parking lot of Hunter’s Mill Shopping Center on Old Dawson Road, the family is still waiting for answers.

After the incident, Lois Crisler spoke with a woman who said she owned the car that struck Ginny, the mother of her three grandsons.

“She called me and wanted to come see me,” Lois Crisler said. “She said she had a handicap... Either she was driving or somebody else.”

But the woman never showed up, the district attorney’s office said they did not know of her, Lois Crisler said.

The three sons filed a wrongful death suit against the parking lot’s owners, George McIntosh and Langdon Flowers and a company under contract to manage the shopping center, Walden and Kirkland.

The suit alleged the owners and manager “knew or should have known” that vehicles used the parking lot as a “cut-through” between Dawson Road and Old Dawson Road.

In January 2007, Farr was replaced by Gregory Melton, Alison Sosebee and Craig Webster as counsel for the Crislers.

But the Crislers had another matter to contend with — a suit filed by Farr’s father-in-law, Dick Haugabook, for return of his money Farr had sent them by electronic transfer, Melton recently said.

Farr had filed and prepared documents “as if he was actually processing, negotiating and concluding a settlement” in the wrongful death suit, Melton said.

The second count of the indictment against Farr says in late November, 2006 he wrote “a release of all claims” that was signed by Scott Crisler “with intent to defraud Dick Haugabook.

The other count said Farr wrote a letter “allegedly for the Bank of Zurich,” a fictitious bank, for $1,000,045, with the intent to defraud Sumter Bank & Trust.

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