He had pleaded guilty in July to defrauding clients over the past decades.
Following his guilty plea, the Indiana University announced that it will be removing Conour's name from the atrium of McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis and hand over to his victims the $450,000 donation the school received from Conour.
Prosecutors said the lawyer ran a Ponzi scheme for decades where he did not deposit appropriate funds into client trust accounts and spent them himself. He later tried to replace the money with funds won from subsequent settlements.
Conour's victims included orphans, people with permanent medical needs, widows, and even his own daughter.
Facing the court, Conour apologized to his clients and said, "The fault and culpability of this conduct is solely mine … They trusted me to represent them and to protect their interest and I failed … My apology is a weak substitute for their loss."
Conour did not receive the maximum sentence as the federal court took into account that a shorter sentence would give him a chance to work and repay his victims. The court also took into account his previous lack of criminal history.
However, many of his victims were not happy with the lenient sentence, and as the Indianapolis Star reports, a widow who lost her husband in a workplace accident and is still to receive the $165,000 settlement which disappeared into Conour's pocket, feels he should have got the maximum sentence.
