A former Upper Arlington lawyer pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of theft and tampering with governmental records for stealing death benefits intended for a child. Lindsey T. Burt, 33, of Berwyn Road, could be sent to prison for as long as 4 1/2 years or placed on probation when she is sentenced on May 21 by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Laurel Beatty.

A former Upper Arlington lawyer pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of theft and tampering with governmental records for stealing death benefits intended for a child.

Lindsey T. Burt, 33, of Berwyn Road, could be sent to prison for as long as 4 1/2 years or placed on probation when she is sentenced on May 21 by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Laurel Beatty.

Assistant Prosecutor Kimberly Bond said Burt was supposed to file paperwork with the probate court to recognize the child�s father as guardian after the child�s mother died. The parents weren�t married, and the father, Mark Chapa, lives in Texas.

Instead, Burt altered a document to make it appear as if she was the child�s guardian, and she sent it to the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, where the child�s mother had worked. From April 2008 to April 2013, the retirement system deposited death benefits totaling $67,183 in Burt�s personal savings account.

Bond told the judge that Burt used the money �to make her life easier.�

Defense attorney Bradley Koffel said after the hearing that his client didn�t use the money to enrich herself. She sometimes sent checks to Chapa, with those payments totaling more than $12,000, he said.

The rest of the money, more than $54,000, has been repaid in restitution.

Koffel said Burt spent about $10,000 over the years to balance her checking account.

The theft �was a gross form of attorney incompetence� but not an attempt to support a lavish lifestyle, he said.

Burt, who also is represented by S. Michael Miller, voluntarily gave up her law license in 2011.

jfutty@dispatch.com