Wichita financial adviser with gambling addiction stole client’s $800K, goes to prison

A retired financial adviser with a gambling addiction who stole more than $800,000 from a woman is headed to prison for more than three years, the district attorney said.

Walter “Bud” Hollis, 73, of Wichita, was sentenced Tuesday to 38 months in the Kansas Department of Corrections after previously pleading guilty to felony theft, District Attorney Marc Bennett said in a news release. In addition to prison time, the judge ordered Hollis to pay the victim more than $820,000.

The conviction stemmed from the embezzlement of money in two trust funds belonging to one of his clients between 2014 and 2018. As part of his January plea deal, a second charge of mistreatment of an elder person was dismissed.

Hollis managed the money for a 75-year-old retired widow who trusted him to oversee her estate after her husband died. Bennett said the woman told a judge that the theft “destroyed her sense of security in retirement and denied her children and stepchildren their inheritance.”

During a sentencing hearing in Sedgwick County District Court, Hollis asked Judge Jeffrey Syrios for probation. He blamed his crime “on a difficult upbringing and a gambling addiction,” according to the news release.

This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 5:51 PM.