by Alex Appel
Kristin Exner, a Connecticut lawyer and state-appointed conservator, made headlines last year when another attorney petitioned to have her disbarred. That petition followed two instances in which she sold houses owned by people whose estates she controlled to the co-owner of her real estate business. The houses were allegedly sold below market rate and then resold by her real estate company for a profit.
The complaint was forwarded to a local grievance panel by the Statewide Bar Counsel’s Office on Feb. 26. In the meantime, Exner will not be appointed to manage new cases in the Milford-Orange Probate Court, according to court documents.
In addition to that petition, court records show that three Connecticut nursing homes have accused Exner of neglecting eight people in conservatorships by failing to maintain their Medicaid benefits. These nursing homes have not received payments for care, one of Exner’s responsibilities as a conservator, allegedly shorting them almost $195,000, which they are seeking to recover via lawsuits.
Exner tells a different story. She calls these suits “baseless,” “frivolous,” and says they “have no merit.” Court records show that the lawyer who filed the petition to have Exner disbarred has represented multiple people in suing Exner, and defended a woman who was ultimately removed from a conservatorship that Exner took over.
This investigation provides an overview of the role of a conservator, a summary of the issues documented at the Norwalk-Wilton Probate Court, and the allegations made by nursing homes currently working their way through Connecticut’s judicial system.
An Appointed Power
A conservator is someone appointed by a probate court judge to oversee the personal or financial affairs of an incapacitated adult who is deemed incapable of competently managing on their own. According to a report published by Connecticut’s Probate Court Administrator Workgroup, conservators are most often relatives; however, if a court determines that an adult needs a conservator but cannot find a relative or close friend who is fit to manage that adult’s affairs, a judge may appoint a third-party lawyer.
That’s where Exner’s role as a state-appointed conservator comes in.
Exner is one of hundreds of lawyers in the state whom judges appoint to manage conservatorships. Like other lawyers in this line of work, she is either paid by the conserved person via their financial assets or through a state fund. As is required by law, if she is working for a person with an estate, she charges an hourly rate for the work she does to manage the conservatorship and then submits the invoices to a probate judge for approval. Once the invoices are cleared, she can receive payment.
If a person is indigent, Exner receives compensation through the Probate Court Administrative Fund, which has taxpayer money that is appropriated to the Judicial Department. In those instances, there is a flat rate of $90 a month, with an additional one-time payment of $1,300 to handle Medicaid applications, which her case files indicate is substantially less than what she charges in her private practice.
Conservatorship can be controversial in Connecticut and across the country. In the past few years, there have been highly publicized instances of conservators abusing their power.
There are even some high profile celebrities that were placed under conservatorships, including Britney Spears, whose parents allegedly forced her to have an IUD and prohibited her from getting married, former Beach Boys member Brian Wilson whose conservator Eugene Landy who gave him unnecessary psychiatric medication and had him monitored 24-7, and former NFL quarterback Michael Oher, the player who inspired “The Blind Side,” who claimed that his conservators lied to him to get him to sign away his rights by claiming he was being adopted. In all of these cases, the conservators extracted millions of dollars from the conserved people over the course of many years.
But most instances of conservatorship abuse do not involve millionaires or celebrities.
There are an estimated 1.5 million adults and $273 billion under the control of guardians or conservators in the United States.
“The extent of elder abuse by guardians [and conservatorship] nationally is unknown due to limited data on key factors related to elder abuse by a guardian, such as the numbers of guardians serving older adults, older adults in guardianships, and cases of elder abuse by a guardian,” a 2016 report from the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) found.
The lack of transparency and comprehensive understanding is, in part, due to a lack of comprehensive documentation of the various types of elder abuse committed by different types of guardians, including conservators. However, the GAO researchers did find indications that financial abuse is the most common form of elder abuse in guardianship.
No one has accused Exner of abusing any of her conservatees, but she is facing multiple charges of negligence. Additionally, she is accused of selling two houses that were a part of estates she managed, including one that was in a conservatorship, to a man with whom she co-owned a real estate company.
Exner declined to comment on the house sales because they were a part of ongoing litigation.
The Norwalk-Wilton Probate Court District
Inside Investigator reviewed the files for 16 open conservatorships Exner manages in the Norwalk-Wilton Probate Court District. This is not a comprehensive list of her conservatorship cases, and Exner did not respond to a question about how many conservatorships she is managing in total.
Filings show that Exner charges $250 per hour for her services when she is managing someone who has an estate, and one of her paralegals charges $150 an hour. For one of the conserved people she is managing—a 72-year-old man with depression, benign prostatic hyperplasia, and who thinks he has dementia, even though his medical evaluations do not indicate that—her law firm was paid $13,800 for services rendered in a two-year period between April 2023 and May 2025.
That man’s files contain an email exchange between him and Exner during her annual check-in, and the notes from that check-in. According to those documents, both he and Exner are happy with the conservatorship arrangement.
Some of her other cases are more complex.
Sometimes she made decisions that the conserved individual did not like.
For example, Exner sold the house of one of the conserved persons under her care, against that woman’s wishes. The house in question had plumbing and structural issues, which the woman could not afford to fix, according to Exner’s report. Even though the woman was financially supporting her two adult sons, who lived in the house, prior to becoming conserved she had not paid her bills for months leading up to the sale. Finally, the home was facing foreclosure. Exner was appointed as the conservator, paid the bills, and by the time Exner sold the house, the woman had already moved in with her granddaughter.
Almost all of the people identified by Inside Investigator whose affairs Exner managed needed help managing their healthcare. All but three people under her care in the Norwalk-Wilton district suffered from dementia or severe mental illness when they were assigned a conservator.
Of the three conserved people who Exner managed without dementia or documented mental illness, one of them was a brain-dead homeless man who was brought to Norwalk Hospital after he was discovered unconscious in a bush. He was on a ventilator for several weeks but was not responding to treatment. The staff at the Hospital could not find a living relative, nor any documentation that stated whether or not he wanted to be resuscitated. Hospital officials petitioned the court to appoint a conservator, who wound up being Exner, then advised Exner to tell them to take him off life support. She did.
The second was a woman who did not have any documented mental illnesses, but she was flagged for conservatorship when she refused medical treatment at a hospital. Exner was appointed to her case to get her medical treatment. According to filings in her conservatorship case, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) opened a case into that woman’s child because of suspected domestic violence. A Motion for Advice submitted by Exner states, “the Conservator has a reasonable belief of domestic violence and abuse in the home against (her), and that she is not capable of making decisions for her safety and well being.”
The last person was a 79-year-old woman of sound mind who petitioned the court to voluntarily enter a conservatorship last year because she needed help re-applying for Medicaid.
Even though Medicaid is legally guaranteed for people below a certain income threshold, it can be difficult to obtain.
In 2012, a group of 5,000 Connecticut residents sued the Department of Social Services (DSS) for taking too long to process Medicaid applications. State law required most Medicaid applications to be processed within 45 days, but thousands of people had to wait longer. The class-action lawsuit was settled in 2014, and as a part of the settlement, the state had to commit to hiring 109 more people to help process applications and to process at least 92% of Medicaid and short-term care applications within the statutory timeframe by 2016. The state was given a two-year extension to meet that deadline, but fell behind. In 2018, only 85% of applications were processed on time.
Things turned around shortly after. By 2022, 98% of Medicaid applications were being processed within 24 hours of submission. However, submitting the application is only one step in the process. To get Medicaid for assisted living, a person needs to submit financial documents from the previous five years to prove they qualify for help. It can take months to gather the paperwork needed to apply for Medicaid.
While attorney fees vary, typically, the type of lawyer who practices elder law charges between $200 and $250 per hour.
The consequences for not obtaining Medicaid can be dire.
There are only six reasons that a nursing home can evict a patient, and non-payment is one of them. A home is required to give residents 30 days’ notice before eviction, and a resident or their representative can appeal. These appeal processes can drag on for months, but at the end of the day, state officials cannot force a nursing home to continue to care for a nonpaying resident.
The lawsuits against Exner show that homes will keep a resident despite months, and sometimes years, of non-payment. If a resident has a pending application for Medicaid, a nursing home legally cannot evict them. However, during this time, debt can accumulate.
Sometimes, this debt can be paid retroactively from portions of the person’s estate. One of the nursing homes that is suing Exner is trying to access the estate of a deceased man whose conservatorship she managed. Since she was his legal representative in life, she is automatically listed as a defendant, even though she is no longer managing his estate. That man has a daughter, who is also being sued.
In the worst-case scenario, a resident is evicted.
One of Exner’s conservatees was evicted from a nursing home in 2023, before she managed his case. The man, who had severe medical conditions, was homeless for a period of time and lived in various hospitals until Exner found a home where he could live. This conservatee was determined to be not of sound mind and couldn’t make decisions for himself.
Less than a year ago, Exner became a conservator of that 79-year-old woman who was of sound mind. When Inside Investigator reviewed the court records in mid-February, it was not clear if Exner had yet successfully helped the woman reapply for Medicaid. The records also did not contain any invoices. The conserved person continued to live at the nursing home she resided in when she voluntarily asked to be placed under a conservatorship, Wilton Meadows Nursing & Rehabilitation in Wilton, until Feb. 9, according to a social worker at the center. She left the nursing home to live with her family.
The social worker said that Exner and her office were “nothing but excellent and responsive,” and “we had no issues or problems working with them.”
But not every nursing home has had positive experiences with Exner.
Nursing Home Allegations
Inside Investigator found four lawsuits filed by nursing homes against Exner in the state of Connecticut. Three of them, which were all filed in 2023, are still ongoing. Those three each contain allegations that Exner neglected people under her care by mismanaging their Medicaid payments and applications.
The three active lawsuits came from the Waterbury Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation, the West Haven Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation, and the Southport Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation. Together, these lawsuits allege Exner improperly managed Medicaid applications and payments made to eight senior citizens.
All three lawsuits were filed by attorney Taruna Garg at Harris Beach Murtha Attorneys at Law. Each lawsuit starts with a list of 19 identical lines outlining the responsibilities Exner had to ensure the people in her care had Medicaid, and why that was important. Then, it repeats those 19 lines when it outlines each “count” of negligence it accuses Exner of. In each lawsuit, there is one count per resident in Exner’s care.
“In connection with her appointment as conservator of the estate of the wards referenced herein,” each lawsuit states, “Exner has been granted both the duty and authority to enroll in, apply for, and claim benefits from federal or state benefit programs, including Medicaid. At all relevant times herein, Exner knew or should have known that public assistance would be required to cover the monthly cost of services provided by Plaintiff for the care, comfort, and maintenance of her wards, including lodging and meals. Exner was obligated to perform her duties within a reasonable time given the circumstances of each ward… Exner has failed to fulfill her statutory obligations to timely apply for and obtain benefits, among other actions, on behalf of her ward.”
Exner categorically denies these claims.
“Those allegations were part of frivolous lawsuits that have either been withdrawn or are in the process of being withdrawn, and are factually false,” Exner said in an email. “In every instance where I am appointed conservator, my sole priority is the welfare of the person to whom I have been appointed.”
Some of the claims made by the nursing homes have already been withdrawn. Each complaint was amended multiple times. All Centers removed Exner’s former employer, Gallo & Associates, LLC, as a defendant, modified language in the complaints, and made additional revisions to remove counts of neglect.
The Waterbury Center revised its initial complaint twice, in addition to removing Gallo & Associates as a defendant. It struck three counts of negligence and revised the alleged dollar amounts lost in one case. The nursing home initially calculated that a patient owed $112,000 in debt, but increased the estimated debt to $139,000.
The West Haven Center also made two revisions that each removed a single count of alleged neglect. The Southport Center also submitted two revisions that withdrew two counts of neglect.
When withdrawing one count of neglect, the Southport center also withdrew an allegation that Exner transferred $100,000 from a resident’s bank account to her employer, and that she charged improper rates.
Garg filed a separate lawsuit for each nursing home before combining the three into one lawsuit.
Online judicial records show that Garg filed for three extensions to provide evidence of these claims, and Exner applied for one extension of time to plead. Garg attempted to get a default decision against Exner for “failure to plead,” but that was rejected.
Garg did not respond to questions.
“I have no comment on those cases,” Garg said.
But there are other records in the Norwalk probate files that indicate persistent problems with Exner.
In 2023, the Business Office Manager at the Southport Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, Marcia Henry, emailed the probate court, asking Exner to be removed as the conservator of a resident mentioned in the lawsuit, although the allegation of neglect was later withdrawn. The email stated, “I have attempted to reach out to Attorney Exner on numerous occasions via calls to her office in which I would speak to [a] representative who would transfer to her voicemail with no return call. I have sent numerous emails with no response. (The resident Medicaid application) has been down since 07/19/2013 due to lack of supportive documents such as bank statements and [updated] gross pension benefits needed from the conservator. This is a serious matter now that the resident has no medical insurance coverage and owes the facility money.”
When asked about this email, Exner said, “[He] remains a client for whom I am serving as conservator, and we remain in regular contact. I was not familiar with those claims, but I can tell you based on my knowledge of the case that they are baseless.”
Exner has also had other issues with nursing homes.
Another facility, the Mary Wade Home in New Haven, is suing Exner and the daughter of a deceased former resident, whose conservatorship Exner managed. The Mary Wade Home is accusing Exner of failing to get Medicaid for the conserved person and claimed that he owed them over $80,000 by the time he died. The Mary Wade Home filed the lawsuit to try to get some money from his estate, according to court filings.
The petition for discovery states that Exner was applying for Medicaid on behalf of the conservatee when he was admitted to the home, but that application was later denied. The complaint states that staff at the Mary Wade Home tried to collect payment for the year that he lived there, but no payments were sent.
Exner say these claims are “incorrect.”
“His Medicaid application was not denied,” she wrote in an email. “As with all of my clients in which I am appointed conservator, my sole goal is to maintain their dignity, keep them safe and try and help them make their lives more livable. That was the case here as well.”
The Ludlow Center for Health and Rehabilitation also sued Exner, accusing her of failing to apply for Medicaid on behalf of a resident and, consequently, not paying the nursing home for their services. The home won a default judgment because she failed to plead.
Garg has represented at least one other nursing home in a case against a different conservator, the Connecticut Judicial Branch’s online portal shows. In the lawsuit, the Plaintiff won a default judgment because the conservators failed to plead.
Damon Kirschbaum, the lawyer who filed for Exner to be disbarred, has had multiple run-ins with Exner. This includes one lawsuit where he represented a woman who was removed from a case that Exner took over. The former conservator, Rachel Menti, was initially designed by the conserved person himself. But she was removed when his family made numerous allegations of misconduct against her, and she was caught lying about her relationship with him to the staff at a hospital. Menti, who had no familial relationship to the man, told staff at a hospital that she was his daughter.
Conclusion
None of the nursing homes who have sued Exner for negligence evicted the residents they claim owe them money.
According to the most up-to-date court documents, the Southport nursing home calculates its current losses at around $36,454.85. The nursing homes in West Haven and Waterbury calculate their losses at around $20,000 and $139,000, respectively.
The nursing homes’ court filings each accuse Exner of trying to remove residents from their care in response to their complaints.
Each of the three active lawsuits against Exner simultaneously claims that “harm and losses are anticipated to continue accruing” if the residents remain in their care, and that Exner is “retaliating” against them by moving residents out of the facilities “in an effort to cause additional harm.” Inside Investigator was not able to confirm the current addresses of the four residents listed in the lawsuit.
Last year, Exner tried to persuade the Connecticut General Assembly to give conservators qualified immunity “for actions taken in good faith and in accordance with court orders,” according to a testimony she submitted.
A Trial Management Conference for the three lawsuits filed by Garg is scheduled for the morning of November 10, 2026. If a settlement is not reached, the case will move to a jury trial. A jury selection date has already been set for November 19, 2026.
One of the lawsuits filed by Kirschbaum, in which his client is accusing Exner of mismanaging his mother’s estate when she was his conservator and selling her house to her business partner, has a hearing scheduled for the morning of Monday, March 23.
“This is an ongoing case and therefore I am unable to comment,” Exner said in an email.
Full Article & Source:
Accused of Neglect: Connecticut conservator faces disbarment and lawsuits
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