Keith Nicholson’s lawyer told him not to worry. The man holding the money from the sale of his family’s home was an officer of the court, she said, and would never risk disbarment or jail by touching it.
By the time Nicholson’s divorce was final, almost all of it was gone.
Lebanon attorney Stephen Girdwood drained nearly $500,000 that he held in escrow for the Nicholsons’ divorce, according to New Hampshire’s Attorney Discipline Office. The money went into a planned sports and music complex in Orlando, Florida, and into his own accounts, an investigation by the discipline office found. By the end, less than a thousand dollars was left.
Girdwood later confessed to Lebanon police, who referred the case to the FBI. While the criminal investigation remains ongoing, Girdwood has filed for bankruptcy, protecting his assets. Meanwhile, Nicholson, 64, and his ex-wife, Athena Nicholson, 65, are living on Social Security.
As soon as Girdwood walked into the courtroom on the morning of Sept. 22, Nicholson, who was waiting in the gallery, turned to face him.
Nicholson flew from Florida to testify about personally losing roughly $300,000. He arrived at Concord Probate Court an hour early. Girdwood didn’t acknowledge him.
Rather than a criminal trial, this hearing was on Girdwood’s fitness to continue practicing law in the state.
In a unanimous decision, a four-member hearing panel chaired by former Supreme Court Justice Peter Fauver ruled that the evidence supporting multiple misconduct allegations brought by the discipline office in January was “clear and convincing.”
Girdwood, through his attorney Gary Apfel, called no witnesses and invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.
“This man stole all of my money. I don’t even want to call him a man,” Nicholson said on the stand before the hearing panel. “He had no thought process on who he was going to hurt.”
Girdwood was placed on interim suspension from practicing law in New Hampshire in January and has since been placed on interim suspension in Vermont and in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire, the Valley News previously reported.
The panel has 60 days from the Sept. 22 hearing to issue a recommendation on sanctioning, Sara Greene, chief disciplinary counsel at the Attorney Discipline Office, told the Valley News in an email.
First, the hearing panel must issue a recommendation on sanctioning, which will be turned over to the professional conduct committee at the attorney discipline office, Greene said. The professional conduct committee will then review the record and likewise make a recommendation regarding sanction to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court will determine the final sanction.
“Only the Supreme Court can issue an order of disbarment,” she said. “This process could take a few months.”
‘He would not dare touch that money’
As part of divorce proceedings in 2nd Circuit Court-Lebanon Family Division beginning in May 2022, Nicholson and his then-wife, Athena, agreed to sell their marital home and hold the funds in escrow.
The agreement stipulated that Girdwood, who represented Athena Nicholson, would act as the escrow agent and hold the sale proceeds, which totaled $487,000, until it was time to disburse them.
In 2024 and 2025, Athena Nicholson, who also testified before the hearing panel, emailed Girdwood several times about the escrowed funds.
Keith Nicholson, his anxiety mounting as the divorce dragged out, repeatedly asked his attorney, Laura Dudziak, about the state of the funds, requesting a monthly accounting.
Each time he raised suspicions, Nicholson said in an interview with the Valley News ahead of the Sept. 22 merits and sanctioning hearing, his attorney demurred.
“He is an officer of the court,” Nicholson said his attorney told him. “He would not dare touch that money. If he did, he would be disbarred and he would be thrown in jail.”
In January 2025, a final default divorce decree was issued, awarding Keith Nicholson 60% of the sale proceeds, $292,000, and Athena Nicholson 40%, $195,000.
When Dudziak made multiple attempts to obtain full or partial distribution of the funds from Girdwood following the final decree, she couldn’t get straight answers.
In November 2025, Girdwood emailed Dudziak a copy of a letter he claimed to have mailed previously, with a purported check enclosed for Keith Nicholson’s $292,000. Dudziak never received the check and followed up again.
A month later, Dudziak told Girdwood that if he didn’t provide the check, she would be forced to file a motion for contempt, which she did on Dec. 3 as Girdwood didn’t respond.
A hearing was held Jan. 8. Girdwood did not appear.
He instead went to the Lebanon Police Station to confess.
“Nobody believed me. Why? Because I’m just a dumb construction worker?” said Nicholson, who used to own KAN Contracting in Enfield with his then-wife. “I had, at one point in time, 50 employees. I’m a pretty good judge of character.”
Where the money went
As of October 2022, the ending balance of Girdwood’s trust account was about $641,000, consisting of the Nicholsons’ $487,000 and funds of $150,000 held on behalf of another client, Richard Balagur, according to bank records reviewed by the Attorney Discipline Office.
Balagur, owner of Balagur Associates, had retained Girdwood in various legal matters. Girdwood also leased office space at Balagur’s 20 West Park Street building in Lebanon.
When the final decree in the Nicholson divorce was issued in January 2025, the balance in Girdwood’s trust account was $985, according to the discipline office.
“(Girdwood) indicated that the bulk of the money he had taken from clients, he had given towards an investment company that he was a part of,” Lebanon Police Detective Brady Harwood stated in a police report.
ADO investigators discovered that, in April 2023, Girdwood made “an unauthorized outgoing international wire transfer from his practice’s trust account to HSBC Bank Hong Kong in the amount of $300,320.”
The disbursement consisted of $200,000 of the Nicholsons’ escrowed funds, which was not authorized, and $100,000 from another client, Richard Compton, who had authorized the use of this amount toward a joint venture.
Girdwood made the wire transfer on behalf of an investment company called Frozen Lake Sports and Entertainment, for which he and Compton were officers and directors.
Frozen Lake was incorporated by Girdwood in December 2020 with a mailing address in Orlando, Florida, according to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office.
The initial HSBC Bank Hong Kong transfer of $300,000 was canceled, and Girdwood then made a wire transfer of roughly the same amount to a Merrill Lynch account owned by the president of Frozen Lake, Bruce Weissman.
Girdwood formerly represented Weissman in a lawsuit against his former business partner, Louis A. Fucci Jr. In 2011, Fucci Jr. was convicted of a failed murder-for-hire plot targeting Weissman.
In June 2023, Girdwood made two more unauthorized wire transfers from the Nicholsons’ escrowed funds, totaling more than $50,000.
Compton and Weissman “stated that (the) concept for Frozen Lake was to build a multimillion-dollar sports and music complex in the Orlando, Florida area,” investigators learned in interviews with both men.
Neither Weissman nor Compton verified the source of the funds Girdwood invested, instead relying on his representation that they came from clients who wished to invest.
When detective Harwood inquired why Girdwood invested in Frozen Lake, Girdwood explained that there was a business plan and “a Canadian investor” who was going to put up “one billion dollars for the development project, but they were looking for initial investors to put equity into the initial start-up.”
Girdwood was trying to provide the “seed money,” Harwood wrote in his report, “so that the corporation could provide approximately $200 million to secure this Canadian investor.”
Frozen Lake had a loan agreement with a “foreign investment group,” he added.
“He also indicated that he had a contract with Frozen Lake which indicated that Girdwood was planning on receiving his investment back with an additional 100% profit,” Harwood stated.
Weissman, in an interview with the Valley News, was shocked by the turn of events.
“Girdwood seemed like the most logical man I knew,” Weissman said. “I wish I could have fixed it. I’m going to try and fix it.”
Where is the money now?
According to Girdwood’s confession to Lebanon police, the escrowed funds were stolen by an investor in Singapore.
“We got screwed by the group in Singapore,” Weissman said. “We thought we vetted them. We did the proof of funds. They had $60 million in their account. In retrospect, we should have flown over there. But what are we going to do?”
The total investment that was lost was $500,000, he said.
“Not just (the Nicholsons). I’ve lost so many friends over this,” Girdwood said.
Bob Buchan, a U.S.-based, Canadian-born businessman and principal of Mynizaga Capital, introduced Weissman to the group posing as the Singapore company, Dankhim Investment, according to Weissman.
“Supposedly there’s investigations and these people were caught,” Weissman said, though he was unable to say who was leading the investigation.
Efforts to reach Buchan were not successful.
Weissman, who said he was not under any investigation, plans to “reimburse everybody.”
“We’re still trying to raise the money,” he said.
Keith Nicholson told the Valley News he never heard from Weissman.
Lebanon police referred the case to the FBI, Police Chief Phillip Roberts previously told the Valley News.
“In keeping with long-standing Department of Justice policy, the FBI cannot confirm or deny the existence of an investigation,” Kristen Setera, spokesperson for the FBI Boston Field Office, told the Valley News.
More missing money
Between June 2023 and November 2025, Girdwood continued to deplete the Nicholsons’ escrowed funds, making unauthorized transfers totaling more than $130,000 from his practice’s trust account into his own account, according to bank records the attorney discipline office reviewed.
From October 2022 through February 2025, Girdwood also made online transfers of more than $220,000 into his business account without client designation, according to the discipline office.
The investigation also found more commingling in December 2024, when Girdwood made online transfers of about $15,000 from his personal funds to his practice’s trust account to cover a case settlement.
From September 2022 to September 2025, Girdwood also deposited $57,000 in unearned retainers directly into his business account, according to the discipline office report.
Trust Account Compliance certificates submitted by Girdwood for reporting periods covering June 2022 through May 2025 falsely represented that he conducted monthly reconciliations and that he was never out of trust in a client matter, according to the ADO.
Speaking with Harwood in January, Girdwood lamented that his bookkeeping over the past few years was “horrific.”
Girdwood also admitted to taking an additional $70,000 from the Nicholsons’ escrowed funds to reimburse “an unknown client,” Harwood stated in the police report.
Efforts to reach Harwood were unsuccessful.
Bankruptcy
Girdwood did everything he could to cover his tracks, Keith Nicholson said about the misrepresentations of the escrowed funds during the divorce proceedings, along with trying to “wipe out” his debts in a May bankruptcy filing.
In his Chapter 7 petition filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Hampshire, he is claiming liabilities of $1.2 million and assets of $560,000 and more than 30 creditors.
Girdwood said he is working as a clerk at BJ’s Wholesale Club in West Lebanon, according to the petition.
“I don’t care if he’s pounding nails for a living,” Nicholson said. “He should be paying me. All of his wages should be garnished.”
Potentially dischargeable debts in the Chapter 7 petition include the Nicholsons’ escrowed funds.
In August, 20 West Park and Godfrey Road Holdings, both managed by Richard Balagur, filed an adversary suit claiming $50,000 in escrowed funds are not dischargeable as they were also embezzled by Girdwood, along with more than $9,000 in unpaid rent.
Balagur Associates declined to comment.
The federal investigation remains ongoing, according to Nicholson.
“If it were me I’d already be in jail,” Nicholson said. “I’ll tell you what I told the FBI: ‘I’ll go and steal $300,000.’”
‘Everything I had left’
Both Keith and Athena Nicholson told the hearing panel at Girdwood’s merits and sanctioning hearing that they are living on Social Security and that they have applied for the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s Public Protection Fund.
“You’re only allowed to get funds that you’ve lost,” Keith Nicholson said. “I’m not allowed to get attorney’s fees. I’m not allowed to get interest.”
Athena Nicholson testified that she paid Girdwood between $14,000 and $16,000 in the divorce proceedings, which dragged on for roughly four years. Keith Nicholson paid $60,000 out of pocket in attorney’s fees, he said. He still owes his attorney, Laura Dudziak, about $25,000.
The couple may not be entitled to any funds until the Supreme Court issues its order on Girdwood.
At the Sept. 22 hearing, Athena Nicholson testified in tears that there’s “no system in place where escrow accounts can’t be attacked like this.”
Keith Nicholson told the hearing panel that he’ll never hire a lawyer again.
Nicholson repeated what his attorney told him during the divorce proceedings: give Girdwood the benefit of the doubt, or he’d be disbarred and locked up if he misappropriated the money.
“If you’re blue-collar, you get a lot of time in jail,” Keith Nicholson said on the stand. “If you’re white-collar, it’s a cakewalk.”
As Girdwood left the courtroom after the hearing, he declined to comment when approached by the Valley News.
“This was my whole life. This was my retirement,” Keith Nicholson said. “This was everything I had left.”
