When she did not turn up at her scheduled hearing for sentencing the court issued an arrest warrant and she was arrested and jailed. During her sentencing this week, she claimed being, "alone with God has changed my soul forever." However, the judge said that the attorney's history shows she shows remorse for her actions only when "the consequences have been forcibly and irrevocably" imposed on her.
The court found that from 2005 through 2008 Gerideau-Williams had submitted numerous fraudulent mortgage applications including several using the identification information of her elderly aunt, Barbara Hatter of Harrisburg, whose credit was ruined by the unpaid debts.
She kept taking money from clients for work, but did not do them. She took money to file title changes, but did not carry out the work creating a mess of faulty titles. On one instance, one of her clients, who was having trouble making loan payments approached her, Gerideau-Williams said she would accept the payments and address the loan. She began accepting payments, while on the other hand she promptly filed an unauthorized bankruptcy keeping her client in the dark.
Lisa Gerideau-Williams told the court, "If I could turn back the hands of time, I would do everything so differently."
Though the defense argued for leniency, the judge was not convinced and said a "slap on the wrist would send a dangerous message to those tempted to follow in her footsteps."
