Woman Held in Theft of Insurance Settlement

A former Beverly Hills attorney was arrested Thursday on suspicion of stealing a $380,000 life insurance settlement from two Inglewood brothers who were shot and killed while awaiting that settlement from their mother’s estate, Inglewood police said.

Angela Wallace, 41, was booked at Twin Towers Correctional Facility Thursday in lieu of $380,000 bail on suspicion of grand theft.

Police said Wallace had received a two-year suspension from the California State Bar in 1999, and was still barred from practicing law when she represented herself as an attorney to Jontrae Byrdsong, 18, and his brother Howard Byrdsong, 20.

Inglewood Police Det. Jeff Steinhoff said Wallace agreed to act as a trustee for the pair, whose mother, Los Angeles Police Officer Shiree Arrant, died of natural causes in June 2000.

The insurance company sent Wallace a check, which she deposited into the older brother’s account, but the money later disappeared, Steinhoff said.

“The Byrdsongs never knew they had the money. They were not aware it had been deposited into the account until after it had disappeared,” he said.

After the death of Arrant, the Byrdsong brothers had moved in with family friends Garrette and Regina Martin on a middle-class street in Inglewood.

On June 6, 2001, a man dressed as a postal worker knocked on the door, pistol-whipped Martin, and shot and killed both brothers.

The killer has not been found.

Inglewood detectives declined to say whether Wallace is suspected in connection with the slayings.

Wallace, a graduate of USC Law School, got her license to practice in California in 1988. In September 1999, she received the two-year suspension and was placed on five years’ probation after agreeing to seven counts of misconduct in six cases, according to State Bar of California records.

The State Bar Court had found that Wallace “commingled funds, allowed the misappropriation of client funds, and committed acts of moral turpitude,” according to the California Bar Journal, the state bar’s official publication.

Wallace resigned from the State Bar with charges pending against her in May 2001.

Her arraignment is scheduled for Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court.