The San Jose Trial Court sentenced Costa Rican attorney Carlos Roberto Loría Quirós to 8 years of prison and ordered he returns a total of $41 million USD that corresponded to the inheritance of German citizen Wolff Ulrich Schneider who had investments in the country.

This case dates back to 2004 when Schneider passed-away of natural causes while he was in Belgium; his investments in Costa Rica were, at that time, handled by lawyer Mario Carazo Zeledón, who served as administrator and representative.

After Shneider’s death, his wife Petra Schneider (from whom he was separated at the time of his death) asked Carazo for her husband’s property, however, due to the inexistence of a will, Carazo didn’t proceed; later, Petra and Shneider’s mother Elfriede Schwarzkopf-Schneider were named the heir in equal shares (50-50%) by a Court in Hamburg, Germany.

At this point because of the confusion in the legal situation Petra hired attorney Carlos Roberto Loría to represent her.

The legal process carried on to get the inheritance back, recovering some of the properties that apparently had been sold while others had been placed by Carazo in a trust. In total, according to the sentence of the court, there were a total of 25 properties located in the counties of Osa and Quepos in Puntarenas, some of them with access to the beach. Carazo, was also investigated during the process but the charges against him were dismissed.

At some point during the process the corporation Deco Asesorias S.A. was created by suggestion of Loría with Petra and Elfriede as partners and stock holders, and this company had the rights to claim the inheritance; when Elfriede passed away, the sole stockholder was Petra. Yet, with time this corporation ended up under the control of Carlos Loría and his wife of last name Bedaña, this may have had something to do with the restriction of foreigners owning beach property.

The court considered that Loría is guilty of embezzlement through the use of Deco Asesorias; during the trial, the lawyer claimed that the money and land were part of the payments owed to him for his legal services.

Loría, 70-years-old, is currently serving preventive imprisonment in the San Sebastian Prison, while the sentence is firm. He was also sentenced to pay the expenses of the trial and to reimburse over $236 thousand to criminal attorney Francisco Castillo since the court determined that he was not paid for his professional services.