- - Florida lawyer who gambled away clients' money gets 25-year sentence

Gary White, Lakeland LedgerDecember 16, 2025 at 3:46 AM

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A former Florida lawyer accused of stealing nearly $2 million from clients' accounts, pleaded guilty Dec. 12 to charges of grand theft and money laundering.

Polk County Judge Cassandra Denmark sentenced Jason Penrod to 25 years in prison followed by 15 years of probation, according to the State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit.

Penrod pleaded guilty to two counts of grand theft and 19 counts of money laundering. Grand theft involves amounts of more than $100,000.

Penrod, 48, was founder and owner of Family Elder Law, a firm with offices in Lakeland, Lake Wales and Sebring. The company specialized in estate planning, asset protection, Medicaid and nursing home care, probate and estate administration and special needs protection and planning.

Family Elder Law abruptly closed its offices in July 2024 with no warning to clients.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd holds a photo of Jason Penrod during a news conference on Sept. 5, 2024. Penrod, founder and owner of Family Elder Law, pled guilty Dec. 12 after being charged with grand theft and money laundering.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office arrested Penrod in September 2024 on a charge of grand theft. In January, prosecutors added about 30 counts of money laundering.

A filing from the State Attorney’s Office accused Penrod of a second instance of stealing money from a client’s trust fund. Between February and April 2024, he knowingly used or sought to use more than $100,000 belonging to Mary Ann Sparks and/or the Kurt Sparks Living Trust, the filing alleged.

Penrod lost more than $1.7 million while gambling on multiple visits to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office asserted. Penrod described himself as a gambling addict, according to a letter included in a civil lawsuit against him.

A former associate attorney discovered Penrod’s misuse of client funds and reported him to The Florida Bar, PCSO said. Penrod then reported himself to the Florida Supreme Court for misuse of funds from two clients, the agency said.

Penrod petitioned the Supreme Court for disciplinary revocation with leave to apply for readmission. But The Florida Bar permanently revoked Penrod’s law license in November 2024, effectively disbarring him.

Penrod had been in jail on $500,000 bond since his arrest.

Judgment in civil lawsuit

Copies of Penrod’s bank records showed that he had wired more than $1.2 million to the Hard Rock and had withdrawn more than $24,000 from ATMs at the casino, PCSO said. The State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit alleged that Penrod engaged in money laundering through financial transactions intended to conceal the theft that was the source of the money or to avoid transaction-reporting requirements. The counts covered a period from April 2023 to April 2024.

Even before his arrest, Penrod faced a civil lawsuit filed in Polk County by the adult offspring of a client who has since died. In the suit, Charles Anderson and Sherry Prevoznik accused Penrod of stealing nearly $1.8 million from the trust fund of their father, David D. Anderson.

In the complaint, Anderson and Prevoznik said that Penrod traveled to Pennsylvania and confessed to depleting the trust fund and using the money to gamble at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino. He proposed repaying the money over 10 years.

The complaint quoted from a letter in which Penrod described himself as a “raging” gambling addict.

In June, Judge Michael McDaniel issued an order granting partial summary judgment and damages of $1.75 million.

Penrod’s former business partner, Dennis Scovazzo, filed a lawsuit in June accusing him and related companies of breach of contract and other injuries. In the complaint, Scovazzo alleged that he discovered in 2021 that Penrod was losing business and personal funds through gambling.

The two signed an employment separation agreement, but Penrod failed to remove Scovazzo’s name from a joint credit card account and other liabilities, the suit claims. Scovazzo incurred tax liabilities, a dramatic drop in his credit score and collection attempts from credit card companies, the suit said.

Gary White can be reached at [email protected] or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk County, Florida lawyer who stole clients' money gets 25 years

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