Shady Lawyer Shawn Harju Accused of Enabling Fraud Scheme
Recent article in Law360 describe recently filed litigation against a Washington attorney by the name of Shawn Harju. Harju has been sued for enabling aninvoice scheme that led to fraudulent $20 million dollars financing for her purported clients. Law360 provides a copy of the lawsuit and a criminal complaint filed by prosecutors in California. In another recent lawsuit against another Shawn Harju client (Defenders Northwest, LLC and its purported owners, Brian and Michele Hall of Gig Harbor, Pierce County, Washington) similar allegations have been made. Harju has not responded to multiple inquires for comment for this editorial.
The lawsuit described in Law360 was filed in King County Superior Court in Seattle, Washington, where Shawn Harju used to work as a construction defects litigation lawyer in her previous law firm.
The Equinox law firm and Shawn Harju were escrow agents for the allegedly fraudulent financing transactions, according to the complaint and the Law360 article. The case is Highmore Financing Co. I LLC v. Equinox Business Law Group PLLC et al., case number 24-2-14405-6, in King County Superior Court.
Allegedly Shawn Harju and her law firm accepted payments from a private equity fund and conspired with Harju’s clients to fraudulently disburse payments to several companies owned by or associated theminstead of paying a computer equipment supplier, Law360 and the complaint alleges.
During the due diligence period, the alleged fraudsters submitted false financial information, fabricated bank statements and fabricated corporate documents, according to the complaint. After Shawn Harju and her cohorts/clients got a hold of the money, they altered invoices for the computer servers and ancillary equipment, including falsely inflating the billed amounts by millions of dollars, the complaint states.
Shawn Harju’s purported clients were indicted in 2022 on wire fraud and money laundering charges in federal court in California, according to open-source i