Mortgage attorney charged with stealing from elderly clients

The Acworth man is accused of taking more than $400,000 and is charged with forgery and exploitation.

MARIETTA — An Acworth attorney is behind bars for allegedly swindling elderly couples out of nearly $400,000, arrest warrants show.

Anthony Eugene Cheatham was arrested on charges of forgery, theft by taking and exploiting the elderly, jail records show.

According to warrants, the 61-year-old acted as closing attorney for a couple purchasing an Acworth home along Rose Arbor Drive in 2012. Cheatham allegedly took the money but failed to pay the mortgage held by Wells Fargo. The couple notified authorities after receiving foreclosure notices from the bank earlier this year.

Warrants allege Cheatham made 40 mortgage payments totaling nearly $80,000 between August of 2012 and July of last year to avoid detection. The home was supposed to be paid for shortly after the couple closed on it, but the mortgage defaulted with an outstanding balance of $179,928, warrants show. Cheatham is accused of using white-out to alter a wire transfer slip that he then showed to his clients to make them believe their home had been purchased.

He is also charged with taking nearly $190,000 from another couple for the sale of their home along McEver Woods Drive in Acworth back in 2016 and falsifying computer records to cover it up. He is being held at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center on a $165,220 bond, jail records show.

ABOVE: Kayla Gosset-Smith sits in one of the PAWS play enclosures Sunday with her one-eyed shelter dog Phemus, named after the mythological Cyclops Polyphemus, while a friend looks for a dog to adopt.

ABOVE: Corrections officer Cody Waters (left) shows Jackson Fowler, 9, the shelter’s 10-year-old red-tailed boa constrictor Esmerelda during a free dog and cat adoption day Sunday at PAWS.RIGHT: One of the few small dogs remaining at PAWS Sunday gazes forlornly out of its cage during the last few hours of a three-day “Free The Shelters” adoption event.