Former Kit Carson Deputy Convicted Of Draining Brother's Estate

DENVER, CO – A Denver jury convicted a former law-enforcement officer of stealing money from his dead brother's estate and using it for personal expenses, including buying guns and a pickup truck and transferring tens of thousands to his teenage son's bank account.

Larry Duane Fisher, 61, was found guilty Dec. 6 of felony theft of an amount between $100-$1 million, the Denver District Attorney's Office said. Prosecutors said Fisher drained a bank account set up for his older brother Floyd W. Fisher's care after his brother's diagnosis with Stage IV lung cancer and death in 2015.

Fisher was charged with theft from the account, which was drained of more than $200,000 down to $13.59, an arrest affidavit said.

Larry Fisher, of Wray, formerly worked as a deputy for the Kit Carson Sheriff’s Office from 1979 to 1997, according to the DA's office.

According to an arrest affidavit, Larry Fisher was named by his brother as "durable power of attorney" shortly after Floyd Fisher's cancer diagnosis at age 77 in July of 2015.

Larry Fisher was charged with selling a Sherman County, Kansas, property that had been in his brother's wife's family "for generations" to help pay for Lloyd Fisher's medical care and expenses, the affidavit said. Funds of $189,227.02 from the sale of the property in September, 2015 were placed into an account for the “the sole purpose of [Floyd Fisher's] care and benefit and to pay his medical bills,” the affidavit said. Lloyd Fisher died on Dec. 28 2015.

Larry Fisher allegedly changed the address on the account to his home address in Wray, Colorado, the affidavit said. He began to withdraw money from the account and transfer it to several different accounts, including a $60,000 transfer to an account in his teenage son's name.

Larry Fisher also allegedly promised his niece, the daughter of Lloyd, to file a probate case with the state after his brother's death, prosecutors said. But in August of 2016, Hilda Fisher-Polacek, Floyd’s daughter, was appointed the executor of her father's estate after finding that her uncle had not filed any probate case with the court.

Fisher-Polacek found out her uncle had paid $44,904.60 cash for a new Toyota truck in November of 2015 and had purchased multiple guns with her father's money. The total amount of money from the account spent on her father's medical care was $13,192.15, which included the cost of his funeral, $4.870.00, she told investigators.

In in May, 2017, she filed a complaint with the District Attorney's Economic Crime Unit accusing her uncle of theft from an at-risk person. An arrest warrant was issued for Larry Fisher on Oct. 10, 2017.

A total of about $207,000 was taken illegally by Larry Fisher, prosecutors said.

Fisher's next court date for sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 28,2019.

Correction: This story was originally published with the incorrect booking photo.

Image via Denver County District Attorney's Office

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