by Byrhonda Lyons
When Bruce Knopf needed someone to oversee his brother Vinyasi’s
special needs trust in 2012, he said, he turned to Donna Bogdanovich
because she was licensed by California.
As a professional fiduciary, Bogdanovich was paid to manage Vinyasi’s money.
But over time, she stopped paying the bills, and the consequences
piled up. His car broke down. He faced eviction. “There were times I
went without food,” said Vinyasi, who legally goes by one name.
So he turned to the Professional Fiduciaries Bureau, the place
Californians are supposed to rely on in situations like these. Vinyasi
filed a complaint in June 2019, alleging that Bogdanovich had not paid his rent and was “habitually” late paying his other bills.
The bureau didn’t take action against her at the time, and Vinyasi said he eventually became homeless.
It turns out that Vinyasi wasn’t alone. The bureau started getting complaints about Bogdanovich just months after the agency awarded her a license, giving her the authority to control the finances and lives of vulnerable people deemed unable to take care of themselves.
Over the years, the bureau fined her multiple times for not providing records during an investigation and operating with an expired license. In fact, about a year before Vinyasi’s complaint, someone warned the bureau that Bogdanovich was transferring money between client accounts, but the complaint didn’t go far. The bureau closed the complaint because it didn’t have contact information for the alleged victim. Bogdanovich maintained power over Vinyasi’s life.
Years later, even after police stepped in and arrested her on charges of stealing
$2.5 million of her clients’ funds, Bogdanovich maintained total
control over Vinyasi’s finances for nearly 10 more months before she resigned.
Two decades ago, the California Legislature designed the Professional Fiduciaries Bureau after a Los Angeles Times investigation
showed judges were not preventing abuse and insider dealing. The state
gave the bureau the responsibility to license fiduciaries, enforce the law and uphold ethical standards.
An ongoing investigation
by CalMatters, based on a review of probate court records, agency
documents and interviews with scores of affected families, found that
the agency has failed to fulfill its vital promise to protect Californians, even as the state’s population ages.
It hasn’t stopped conflicts prohibited by its own code of conduct or
outrageous behavior by California fiduciaries, frustrating desperate
families trying to protect their loved ones and hold on to their family
wealth.
The information it maintains on fiduciaries is often kept secret or
is sometimes inaccurate, giving the people who rely on the industry
little information about who they should — and shouldn’t — trust. The
agency operates largely on an honor system, leaving it to fiduciaries to
report publicly whether they’ve been removed from a case for
misconduct.
The bureau itself has puttered along with no leader and a few
employees. Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t filled its open chief position for a
year and a half. In fact, it has just one employee at the moment,
because two of its other three positions are also vacant, an agency
spokesperson told CalMatters. The bureau oversees nearly 900 licensed
fiduciaries; it said it also gets support from its parent agency, the
Department of Consumer Affairs.
In 2025, the agency received 174 complaints.
The bureau can fine and cite fiduciaries for violations such as late
annual statements and inaccurate information relatively quickly. In
2025, the bureau took 58 days, on average, to issue a citation.
However, seriously punishing a fiduciary usually takes longer. That same year, the bureau took, on average, more than two years from the time of a complaint to suspend, revoke or surrender a license.
The bureau has revoked the licenses of five fiduciaries since 2022, according to the agency’s annual reports.
“Why put up a false front that they’re there to serve a purpose? They
don’t serve any purpose,” Vinyasi said. “Even if you couldn’t fix the
problems, at least erase the lie that they’re there to do something,
because they don’t do anything.”
CalMatters tried to speak with someone at the agency for over a year
for this series, but the Department of Consumer Affairs would not make
anyone available for an interview, citing its open director job.
Newsom’s spokesperson, Izzy Gardon, said in an email that the governor is “actively recruiting to fill the position.”
Bogdanovich’s scheme didn’t unravel until a victim went to the Los Angeles Police Department in 2022.
All told, she pleaded no contest
to taking more than $160,000 from Vinyasi and over $1 million from her
other clients, court records show, continuing to funnel their money to
her accounts even after the bureau placed her on probation.
At the bureau’s request, the court suspended Bogdanovich’s license weeks after she was arrested, while the agency waited for a hearing to revoke her license. The suspension didn’t remove her from any of her appointments.
The bureau’s records indicated that Bogdanovich was managing 24 open
cases and $2.8 million in assets while she sat in jail, a bureau
investigator told the court in a March 2024 letter. The state eventually revoked Bogdanovich’s license four months after her arrest.
In response to questions, agency spokesperson Monica Vargas said in
an email that “the Bureau must do its due diligence to gather facts and
collect evidence to take action against a license.”
Bogdanovich eventually was sentenced to four years in jail and four
under supervision. She did not respond to CalMatters’ request for an
interview.
For years, as the bureau investigated Bogdanovich, she avoided serious punishment simply by not cooperating, according to the bureau.
At the time, the agency didn’t have the authority to revoke a license for refusing to respond to an investigation.
The Legislature closed that loophole in 2023. At the same time, the bureau got the Legislature to further restrict the information it can share with the public.
The bureau cannot share publicly:
- Whether the fiduciary has a business or family relationship with
companies hired with their clients’ money and any details about that
connection.
- Whether a court has found that a fiduciary breached their duties.
- Case numbers or details when a fiduciary was removed or resigned from a case or agreed to a settlement after a dispute.
Instead of receiving details that would show a fiduciary’s past
issues, the public can only see a document that’s essentially a wall of
black ink, with only yes-or-no boxes that may or may not be accurately
checked.
 |
| The Professional Fiduciaries Bureau redacts most of the information on
its members’ annual statements, significantly limiting what it shares
with the public. Illustration by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters |
A
2021 law
is supposed to require courts to notify the bureau if judges punish
fiduciaries for abusing their license, but it only goes into effect if
the lawmakers fund it. They haven’t, according to a spokesperson for the
Judicial Council, the policymaking body of California courts.
Carole Herman, an advocate who helped start the bureau, said the
Legislature should take a look at it. “They’re insufficiently staffed
and funded,” Herman said. “Nobody is really monitoring like they
should.”
She thought the bureau would provide strong oversight. “But that’s not how it turned out,” she said.
‘I plead the Fifth’
If you read Leyla Zabih’s annual statements, you’d have no idea she resigned as a conservator after a family objected to her spending and then didn’t follow a court-approved settlement agreement.
Nancy Encarnacion’s family and Adult Protective Services had worked
together to move the 83-year-old to assisted living in 2019 because she
and her husband couldn’t afford 24-hour home care.
Later that year, Zabih petitioned the court
to be Encarnacion’s conservator, saying that Contra Costa County Adult
Protective Services had notified her that Encarnacion wasn’t capable of
taking care of herself.
Zabih told the court that Encarnacion
was at risk
of being kicked out of the facility if she didn’t have a conservator to
manage her care and finances. Probate law requires that
family members be notified when someone files for a temporary conservatorship, but Zabih requested an exemption, citing
medical and financial emergencies.
Encarnacion herself wasn’t outright against the conservatorship, but
she didn’t want Zabih in charge after finding her to be “rude and
bossy,” Encarnacion’s attorney told the court.
A judge approved Zabih’s petitions. Encarnacion’s relatives, on the
East Coast, said they were taken aback by how quickly they lost control
of Encarnacion’s life.
After the family complained about Zabih hiring an unlicensed contractor to remodel Encarnacion’s home, court records show
Zabih denied it. She portrayed the family as meddling, saying “the
steady stream of negative and critical input we receive from Nancy’s
extended family has become extremely counterproductive.”
A few months later she conceded the family was correct about the unlicensed contractor, court records show.
The family grew concerned after learning
that Zabih sold Encarnacion’s Chevron stock at a significant loss, paid
for 24-hour care while Encarnacion lived in a care home that provided
nursing services, and fell behind on paying the rent to the facility,
according to an objection that family members filed with the court.
Barreling towards an expensive legal fight, the two sides agreed to a settlement:
Zabih would file a final accounting of Encarnacion’s money and resign.
The elderly woman’s niece would take over and not report Zabih to the
bureau.
Even though the bureau’s rules prohibit licensed fiduciaries from entering into agreements that limit someone’s ability to file a complaint, Judge Susanne M. Fenstermacher approved the settlement in November 2020. Zabih resigned, and Encarnacion died about a month later.
In 2022, court records show, Zabih was not adhering to the agreement.
She had not filed a final ledger of Encarnacion’s money, forcing the
case back to court.
The court found that Zabih was “in breach” of the settlement
agreement and ordered her to explain why the court shouldn’t report her
to the bureau for “failure to account and failure to comply with a
Court-approved settlement agreement,” a temporary judge wrote in November 2022.
She filed the
final accounting a month later.
Zabih requested $9,000 in addition to $13,000 she’d already received in compensation.
The family objected and alleged
that Zabih employed one of the registered nurses it used for
Encarnacion’s care and didn’t disclose the relationship. The court
record does not reflect that Zabih responded to the objection, and she
did not respond to CalMatters’ question about it.
Fenstermacher did not approve Zabih’s accounting of Encarnacion’s money and denied Zabih’s request for additional pay, saying in an order that “the compensation requested did not benefit the conservatee or her estate.”
The
family also asked Fenstermacher to report Zabih to the bureau for
“failure to properly account, provide receipts and invoices, disclose
affiliate relationships with caregivers/agents she hired, and comply
with the terms of a Court-approved settlement agreement,” according to
the order. But Fenstermacher scribbled out that entire paragraph in the final order.
“I feel like Leyla Zabih should not be a professional fiduciary,” said the family’s attorney, Cara Lankford, in an interview.
As all of this unfolded, Zabih’s annual statements to the bureau made no mention of it.
When asked on her 2021 annual statement if she’d resigned or settled in a case where a complaint had been filed, she checked “no” in response to both questions.
When CalMatters asked Zabih why she didn’t tell the bureau about her resignation, she said, “I plead the Fifth.”
She stood by the care she gave Encarnacion. “I miss Nancy,” she said.
The agency said it relies on its fiduciaries to be transparent.
“Licensees attest to the information they’ve submitted is truthful
and accurate,” Vargas said. “If the Bureau becomes aware of information
provided that was not accurate, it will open an investigation.”
Encarnacion’s family eventually filed two complaints against Zabih,
for hiring an unlicensed contractor and not following the court-ordered
agreement.
The bureau cited her in 2023 and 2024
for not filing timely annual statements and operating with an expired
license. The citations do not mention her failure to report the
settlement or her resignation.
In an interview, Zabih blamed her
late annual statement on covid-19, saying she was busy “out holding your
parents’ and grandparents’ hands during the pandemic.”
‘I’m not practicing, I’m just finishing’
While late annual statements are often deemed a minor citation, cases
reviewed by CalMatters show that fiduciaries who face disciplinary
action for more serious offenses often have a previous record of filing
late, inaccurate and incomplete annual statements.
Take Iris Hecker, for instance. She had submitted late annual statements to the bureau for nearly a decade.
But the bureau didn’t start investigating until someone complained about how she handled a case in 2022.
That year, Hecker approached Betty Stagnaro while she was in a
nursing home receiving rehabilitation for back pain, according to an account Hecker gave to the bureau. Stagnaro, who was 93, had dementia.
Hecker told the state
that the nursing home administrator and a private care manager found
the friend whom Stagnaro had designated to make her medical decisions
“very difficult to work with” and asked Hecker to take over. She said
the home wasn’t being paid for Stagnaro’s stay.
Hecker had Stagnaro sign documents to make the switch from the friend.
Unlike conservatorships, which are public and are overseen by a judge, agreements like these are typically private and don’t automatically have court oversight.
However, there were multiple issues with the documents that Stagnaro signed, according to the bureau’s investigation.
A patient advocate or ombudsman was not present to witness the
signature at the nursing home, as they are supposed to be under state
law.
Hecker also didn’t have anyone assess whether Stagnaro was fit enough to sign documents, investigators found.
But the signature put Hecker in charge of Stagnaro’s finances and health care.
Within three months, Hecker sold the elderly woman’s condo and got rid of her personal belongings. She also isolated Stagnaro from her friends while hiring people to provide her with companionship. She later admitted to lying to a bank to create a trust account for Stagnaro, even though the woman didn’t have a trust, according to the bureau’s investigation.
In addition, Hecker paid herself $65,000 in advance fees
and admitted to the bureau that the amounts she withdrew from
Stagnaro’s accounts as advance payments were “excessive,” according to
the bureau’s investigation. She also submitted inaccurate invoices, charged Stagnaro for duplicate services,
and billed Stagnaro for her time dealing with an investigation the San
Mateo Police Department and the county ombudsman were conducting over
her handling of Stagnaro’s case, according to the bureau.
Hecker provided “no credible support for the fees she collected against the advance payments,” the bureau found.
Around the same time, the bureau audited Hecker’s license and
discovered that, in addition to her late statements, she had previously
worked with an expired license for over a year, according to bureau records. The bureau fined her $5,000.
Hecker told CalMatters that “there was no impropriety.” She said she
believes the bureau is important because “there’s a lot of abuse.”
Hecker said that she was “too tired to fight” the bureau’s accusations,
and she agreed to surrender her license at the end of 2024.
But
that didn’t stop her from working as an unlicensed fiduciary, which
someone can do under very limited circumstances, according to state law.
Even
though the settlement required her to resign from her positions and
confirm her resignation with the bureau, it’s unclear whether she ever
did. Those records are not public, and the bureau would not answer
questions about Hecker.
Last month Hecker signed a document selling her now-deceased client’s San Francisco home for $2.25 million.
When asked about it, Hecker said, “I’m not practicing, I’m just finishing.”
Full Article & Source:
‘A false front’: The California agency failing to stop conservatorship abuses
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