Douglass Jennings, disbarred tax lawyer, gets 34 months

In the packed federal courtroom of Judge Gonzalo Curiel yesterday (April 5), attorney John Douglass Jennings Jr. was sentenced to 34 months in prison, while his wife Peggy, who worked in real estate, got four months behind bars. She had been charged with bank fraud and aiding and abetting. She was ordered to pay J.P. Morgan Chase, a huge New York financial institution, $1.45 million. Her lawyer portrayed her husband as the one controlling her.

Her lawyer husband, earlier disbarred, ran a tax firm in La Jolla. He

boasted that he knew legal loopholes and ran a “faith-based” operation. Judge Curiel criticized him for getting clients through that religious pitch. He was charged with concealmenet of bankruptcy assets and aiding and abetting. He is to pay $1.45 million to his victims.

In 2013, bankruptcy court Judge Louse DeCarl Adler charged both Jennings and his wife with “embezzlement and larceny” in a transaction, “with fraudulent and felonious intent.” Their actions were “willful and malicious,” said Adler. The Jennings filed for Chapter 7 (liquidation) bankruptcy in 2012.

Their posh Rancho Santa Fe home is on the market for $3.9 million, down from $4.2 million.