Over a two-year period culminating in 2014, Levant, a personal injury and criminal defense attorney in Philadelphia, had stolen close to $2 million from a dozen clients, friends or family members. “My world crumbled when I was informed that all of my money no longer existed,” Johnson says. He did the same with proceeds from the sale of her home, she testified. Instead of investing her settlement, Levant stole the money and lost it gambling, Johnson told the court.
“I felt truly blessed to have such a dear friend in my life and felt I could always depend on him to be by my side both professionally as my lawyer and personally as my friend.” Levant assured me that with his help, expertise and advice, my settlement would be invested wisely and my future would be financially secure,” Johnson says. One decade later Johnson was back in court to testify at his sentencing hearing. When Johnson sued for medical malpractice after her legs had been amputated in 2005, Levant had been the lawyer who procured a substantial settlement for her. She had entered the courtroom in a wheelchair.Īt one time they had been close. Harry Levant turned to face his former client Donna Johnson. “I have a moral obligation to try and put myself out of business,” Harry Levant says of his new career as an internationally certified gambling addiction counselor and therapist.
