Attorney Bonnie Roadarmel was well-connected and well-heeled, flying first-class to Paris and shopping at Hermes, Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld.
Married to a former supervising prosecutor in the state Attorney General’s Office, Roadarmel was a partner at a top Orange County legal firm who specialized in insurance law.
By contrast, her former boss, Stephen Kanne, an attorney who retired from a successful real estate law practice in Century City, lived a much more spartan lifestyle, but not by choice.
In May 2021, Kanne, 89, discovered why, in the words of his 74-year-old wife, Claudia, “we were always broke.”
Roadarmel, who had volunteered decades earlier to manage the couple’s finances for free, had allegedly siphoned more than $500,000 from them in just the past 10 years, according to documents Kanne supplied to police and the State Bar of California.
Some of their money went to pay down multiple American Express cards in Roadarmel’s name, as well as one in the name of her husband, Paul Roadarmel, documents show.
The evidence was solid. Bonnie Roadarmel, 62, pleaded no contest in Los Angeles County Superior Court on May 23 to two counts of felony elder abuse with a fraud enhancement. She had been charged with nine counts.
Roadarmel was sentenced to four years in state prison, but that term was suspended in favor of a sentence of one year in county jail, which could be further reduced for good behavior.
She is in custody at the Century Regional Detention facility in Lynwood and due to be released on Nov. 27. Her law license as well as that of Paul Roadarmel are listed as “inactive.” A notice alerting consumers to Bonnie Roadarmel’s felony case is listed on her bar profile.
Text apology
In a text message to Stephen Kanne, Bonnie Roadarmel apologized and said her husband knew nothing of her misdeeds.
“I’m sorry for what I did to you and Claudia. There’s no excuse for my action,” Roadarmel texted on May 24, 2021, a week after he…
Read the full article here