A Florida estates attorney is being sued following a shooting in Montana by the attorney's 81-year-old client. The suit claims that attorney David Gilmore should have known that his client, Thomas Kyros, posed a threat to the mother of a child prodigy with whom Mr. Kyros had become obsessed.
"Gilmore had sufficient information to provide local law enforcement with information regarding his client to prevent Mr. Kyros from committing a crime, or to prevent a death or substantial bodily harm to another, including Mr. Kyros himself," the lawsuit states.
Mr. Kyros, a Greek immigrant living in New Port Richey, Florida, became obsessed with Promethea Pythaitha who, in 2005, at age 13, became the youngest person to graduate from Montana State University. Mr. Kyros contacted Ms. Pythaitha and her mother, Georgia Smith, in 2007, giving them $9,000 in financial assistance after a car accident. He then began badgering them, according to officials, insisting that Montana State, where Ms. Pythaitha, who is now 19, continued to take classes, was not good enough for her and that she should leave home to attend an Ivy League college.
Mr. Kyros traveled to Montana late last year and on January 17, 2011, shot Ms. Smith five times outside the home where she and Ms. Pythaitha live. Responding to a 911 call, sheriff's deputies killed Mr. Kyros at the scene. Ms. Smith survived but suffered permanent injury from her wounds.
Immediately after shooting Ms. Smith, Mr. Kyros had tossed Ms. Pythaitha a satchel containing cash and a document naming her as the beneficiary of a trust that would pay her $50,000 a year to attend a number of named colleges but that provided that the fund not disperse any money for Ms. Pythaitha’s education in Montana “while her mother, Georgia A. Smith is living.”
Ms. Smith and Ms. Pythaitha filed a lawsuit against the Kyros estate in March. Mr. Gilmore has now been added to the lawsuit on the grounds that he was allegedly negligent in failing to notify Montana authorities that Ms. Smith and Ms. Pythaitha were in danger. According to the lawsuit, Mr. Gilmore knew Mr. Kyros “was insane at the time of his actions, had in his possession information regarding Mr. Kyros’ animosity towards Ms. Smith and Mr. Kyros’ many ruminations about her death.” The suit also contends that Mr. Gilmore knew Mr. Kyros was in Montana more than a month before the incident, and that as attorney for the Kyros estate and as its trustee, is “making money off the estate of Thomas Kyros as a result of (his) death.”
For the amended complaint in Smith v. Estate of Kyros, click here.
For an ABA Journal article on the suit, with links to local coverage of the case, click here.
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