With the stunning indictment that came down on his head late last week, Robert Tunnell Jr.'s days as a high-flying lawyer-turned-investor have likely come to a close.
Last Thursday, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco handed Tunnell a laundry list of charges accusing the 72-year old former attorney of bilking his investors out of millions of dollars.
The court, which charged Tunnell with nearly two dozen counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering, alleged that he "falsely told investors that he invested money as a favor, because he likes to help people, that he was highly successful as an investor and that he would not and did not receive any financial gain for doing so."
In reality, Tunnell, a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, took $10 million from his investors--a group primarily comprised of his friends and family members--and promptly lost the vast majority of it.
This incident is not the first time Tunnell has been surrounded by the specter of ethical and financial improprieties. He had to resign from the California State Bar Association in 2001 under a cloud of allegations that he embezzled $300,000 from the law firm where he was working.
KTVU reports:
The [indictment]...alleges he defrauded clients by failing to tell them he resigned from the State Bar amid charges of theft; falsely telling them he was putting their money in conservative, safe investments; falsely reporting phony gains; and failing to tell them he was using their money to repay other investors.
Tunnell is currently free on $10 million bail.