VERO BEACH — Mary Kincaid didn’t lose a down payment on a house when Ira Hatch closed Coastal Escrow Services on Sept. 4, 2007, but counting her among the victims would be accurate. She lost her job and received a stigma in the process from having worked for Hatch and being a whistle-blower.
The former bookkeeper for Hatch supplied evidence of what she believed to be wrongdoing to the Florida Bar, which led to Hatch’s voluntary disbarment.
“That’s my mom,” Kincaid’s adult son whispered, pointing at the witness stand during one of the many 5-minute sidebars where attorneys approached the bench to debate an intricate rule of evidence. “This has been so hard on her, she can’t get a job.”
In a job market with nearly 15 percent unemployment where it’s easy to hire a bookkeeper who didn’t work for a man facing 46 felony charges for grand theft, money laundering and racketeering, Kincaid has found it difficult finding work.
Kincaid, a soft-spoken woman appearing to be in her late 60s was the person who discovered $150,000 missing from the trust account of Hatch & Doty P.A. on Aug. 9, 2007. As the bookkeeper for that trust account, she was responsible for knowing how much money was there on a daily basis and paying bills for clients of the firm.
When an unexplained $150,000 check drawn on the trust account shorted the balance and Kincaid could not pay out a settlement and doctor bills for a personal injury client of Hatch partner Kevin Doty, Kincaid knew things were very, very wrong.
“It was just part of the trust fund, everybody’s money was being used,” she said. “It should not have been. It should not have happened.”
After several minutes of legal wrangling, the defense convinced the judge to have the last part of Kincaid’s comments stricken from the records and the jury was asked to disregard the statement.
As further evidence that things were falling apart financially at Coastal Escrow in the weeks and months preceding the close of the business, Kincaid also testified to records showing that tens of thousands of dollars were paid out to law firms from the trust account for real estate closings because Coastal Escrow was unable to refund clients’ down payments placed in escrow.
“Coastal Escrow didn’t have enough to cover a closing and they had me take a trust account check and said they would pay me back,” Kincaid said.
Armed with printouts from the firm’s bookkeeping program Perfect Practice, Kincaid accompanied Doty to meet with representatives from the Florida Bar. Hatch found out about the meeting when Kincaid mistakenly forgot to end a cell phone call to Hatch and he overheard a conversation between Kincaid and Doty discussing the matter.
The state will finish questioning Kincaid after court resumes at 9 a.m., with the cross-examination by the defense attorney Eisenmenger to follow.
Eisenmenger has already tried to challenge the documents to which Kincaid had testified, stating that they are only printouts from the bookkeeping program itself and not the total record, and not the official bank statements, which would be the “best evidence” for the state to present.
Repeatedly, Senior Judge James Midelis overruled these objections.
Other witnesses expected to testify today include more alleged Hatch victims and former law partner Doty.
The trial takes place in Courtroom 1 at the Indian River County Courthouse.
