Attorney Justin Crawley Faces Felony Theft & Forgery Charges

Justin Crawley was reportedly looking to get into the cutting horse business. (Terry Ropp, Courtesy of Ozarks Farm & Neighbor)

Northwest Arkansas attorney Justin L. Crawley left a trail of unpaid bills in the months before he was charged on April 11 with felony theft of property and forgery, court records show.

The bills included those for items like a Ford F-450 truck and a tractor. He also owed nearly $26,000 in unpaid rent and late fees for his law office in Springdale.

And then there was the $130,425 check for 83 head of cattle that never cleared the bank.

“I think that he was trying to play too big for his britches, and just got way ahead of himself,” said Cade Hammen, an owner of Four State Stockyards of Exeter, Missouri, who sold Crawley the cattle. “I think he tried to swing with too big of a bat and struck out.”

Crawley, 36, bought the livestock in March 2024, but the check he used was returned twice for insufficient funds, according to a lawsuit filed April 11 in Washington County Circuit Court.

Hammen said Crawley was “way over-leveraged, and was trying to do too many big things at once without enough capital.”

Crawley was trying to break into the cutting horse business, and “you just have to have a lot of money to play in that world,” Hammen said.

Crawley was also having trouble with his main occupation, legal work. “I fired him, if that tells you anything,” said attorney John Everett of Farmington.

The men had separate practices, but Crawley had an office in the same building as Everett and used the Everett Law Firm letterhead in legal correspondence.

“I told him to find another place to practice law,” Everett said. “I just told him to get out of here.”

A former client of Crawley said she had hired him to represent her in a slip-and-fall case against Sam’s Club in 2021.

“He just didn’t do what he said he was going to do, and he dropped the ball on everything,” the client said on the condition that she wouldn’t be identified by name. She said the Sam’s Club case is still pending. “Finally, we had to fire him and hire somebody else.”

Crawley stands accused of “a broad pattern of alleged criminal activity dating back to 2020,” according to an April 10 news release from the Prairie Grove Police Department.

Investigators said they interviewed dozens of people and entities and found “evidence that he used deceptive practices to fraudulently obtain money and services from at least 24 identified victims.

“These victims range from individual law clients and small businesses to banks, property managers, and agricultural enterprises,” the news release said. “Allegations include the use of deception and fraudulent misrepresentations to obtain funds, failure to repay debts, and the misappropriation of money.”

Several alleged victims said that Crawley used his position as a lawyer and his “charismatic personality to gain trust,” the release said.

In some cases, Crawley allegedly used money from one person or business to repay another debt, “creating a pattern of financial misrepresentation and unsustainable transactions,” the news release said.

Crawley might face additional charges as the investigation continues with local, state and federal agencies, the news release said.

“This case represents a significant breach of trust and a deliberate abuse of professional authority,” Prairie Grove Police Capt. Jeff O’Brien said in the news release. “Mr. Crawley used his reputation and community involvement to create opportunities for fraud, impacting individuals and organizations across Northwest Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.”

O’Brien declined to comment further on the case.

Crawley has not entered a plea; his court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday.

Crawley now lists his office in Bentonville, but messages left at his phone numbers and emails were drew no response.

Collection Lawsuits

The first public sign of financial trouble for Crawley came on Jan. 11, 2024, when Legacy National Bank of Springdale sued Crawley to collect nearly $37,000 he allegedly owed for a loan that he took out in April 2022 to buy a 2018 Ford F-450 truck.

Legacy said Crawley didn’t make the $1,470 monthly payment due Sept. 1, 2023.

Crawley filed a counterclaim against the bank.

By May, both sides had dismissed their cases.

Legacy’s lawsuit, filed in Washington County Circuit Court, was the first of four collection suits filed against Crawley.

It was during 2024 that Crawley bought the 83 head of cattle for his spread, The Crawley Ranch, just north of Tulsa from Four State Stockyards.

The cattle were going to be used to train cutting horses, which are highly trained to separate cattle from a herd, said Hammen, an owner of the company. A good cutting horse can fetch between $40,000 and $80,000, and Crawley had about 25 horses at his ranch, Hammen said.

Cutting is its own sport and attracts top prizes of up to $100,000 in competitions.

Hammen said that Crawley never mentioned to him why he wanted to get into that line of business. “He wanted to be a cowboy,” Hammen said. And those in the cutting horse sector are in an elite class, he said. “I would say the cutting industry is probably right below horse racing,” Hammen said. “It’s pretty high-end people with a lot of money.”

He said he thought Crawley wanted people to consider him a “real big shot.”

Hammen also said Crawley struck him as a person who didn’t like to admit defeat. “So I think he just was trying to fake it until he made it, and it caught up with him before he made it,” Hammen said.

Becoming an Attorney

Crawley told Ozarks Farm & Neighbor, a newspaper aimed at cattlemen and livestock producers in southwest Missouri, northwest Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma, that he came from North Carolina where he earned a specialized law degree in agriculture and food law.

He also attended the University of Arkansas School of Law.

Crawley received his attorney’s license to practice in Arkansas in June 2016.

He said he worked with attorney Steve Tennant of Farmington. He told the paper in 2017 that “our speciality is working with rural people in all legal matters.”

Crawley told the newspaper that he took his first step in the farming world by buying 107 acres in Prairie Grove in January 2017.

“I spent a year planning for poultry farming, but found this beautiful spot with excellent grass, good water and an infrastructure that includes a working pen, a barn and a workshop,” he said. “I have creeks, ponds, wells and city water.”

He said he had 51 cows, about half of which were purebred Red Angus.

“Once I decided to do this I started geeking out and studying everything I could find, especially from the industry leaders,” he told the newspaper. “True to my nature, I am using a highly analytical and holistic business approach.”

He said his long-term goal was to have “superior Red Angus genetics so that I can sell breeding stock while maintaining a commercial herd as well in order to maintain a diverse operation.”

Meanwhile, Crawley’s law practice was in transition.

After about two years with Tennant, Crawley moved to Everett’s office building. Everett represented Crawley in his divorce in 2022 from his wife. The couple had married in December 2018.

Law Practice

Crawley’s law practice involved everything from divorces to contract disputes.

But he faced criticism from an opposing attorney in a 2021 case in which Crawley was representing three plaintiffs injured in an auto accident.

In January 2022, the defendant’s attorney, Justin Bennett of Fayetteville, filed a motion asking a judge to require Crawley to hand over discovery information in the case, including medical records.

In a Dec. 14, 2021, email to Crawley, Bennett wrote, “I have received your purported discovery responses on behalf of your clients. They are deficient, and I believe you know that.”

Crawley began representing the plaintiffs in 2020. “Yet, according to your responses you have not obtained a single medical record for any of your clients that might be related to the accident,” Bennett wrote. “Considering this is a personal injury lawsuit, I find that shocking.”

Crawley responded eight days later. “On a professional level, my office has been in the process of packing documents up for a move to another office,” he wrote. “I have also been in a heavy trial mode for the past few weeks.”

He added that he was offended that Bennett had suggested that Crawley intentionally provided incomplete discovery.

“That is not the case,” he wrote and assured Bennett that he had all the documents that were available to him.

“I would never withhold discovery in these cases; that does my representation no good,” Crawley wrote.

In 2024, the couple settled their case with the defendant out of court, and the remaining plaintiff’s lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed.

Everett said he was not pleased with the way Crawley practiced law.

“That’s why I asked him to get out of here, for a variety of reasons,” he said. “And I don’t really think I ought to tell you what they are.”