Judges Do Little to Help

Gary Nichols had seen enough.

As his attorney dueled with other lawyers over how fees would be charged to his mother's trusts, Gary decided a prolonged fight would only deplete her savings. So he told attorney Thomas Asimou to "shut down" the case.

Later, when sanctioning Asimou for ethical violations for his claims about a fee deal among the attorneys involved, Judge Karen O'Connor would call his withdrawal "quite telling." He had "distracted (from) the true focus of the case - resolving the issues in the best interest of Dixie Nichols," she said.

But Gary believed if the judge really cared about his mother's interests, she would have intervened to slash the attorney fees.

"It was and remains my perception that my mother's assets and estate, and her interests, were not being adequately protected by her attorneys," Gary told the court. "I recall that I used the term 'bellying up to the bar' to describe my perception."

O'Connor had raised the possibility of a criminal probe when she removed Gary's sister, Nancy Cork, as her mother's guardian and conservator. The judge ordered Nancy to account for expenses to "allow the parties to discover any alleged financial exploitation," which is a crime. Asimou argued that such a finding would have prevented Nancy from paying her attorney's fees out of her mother's assets. Nancy was never charged with a crime. With the settlement, she agreed to step down as her mother's trustee and relinquish her inheritance and any say in her mother's finances.

O'Connor explained in an e-mail: "No financial exploitation was proven in this case, nor was there an agreement by the parties that it existed."

Asimou appealed the $46,000 fine to the Arizona Court of Appeals alleging the judge abused her discretion.

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Maricopa County Probate Court - Judges Do Little to Help