Conservator's Theft Prompted 24 State Audits

In my Sunday column I returned to a subject that I have explored for the past five years - the power that court-appointed guardians and conservators exercise over their wards, and how that power can be abused. One of the good things that has emerged from the revelations of wrongdoing by a small number of these people has been a new emphasis on oversight by the state court system.

After the staff discovered the discrepancies in one account at Alternate Decision Makers, Inc., in the spring of 2013, the state chose 24 accounts at random for auditing, according to Kyle Christopherson, a court system spokesman.

Christopherson provided each of those audits to me. Ten of them found some kind of problem, some as minor as missing documentation, others indicating potential thefts of assets.

There there was the case of a Brooklyn Park woman who was briefly under guardianship before regaining her rights earlier this year. During that time, the audit points out, fees for the guardian, attorney and accountant totaled more than $50,000, and the guardian authorized a home renovation project for the ward for $45,000. The auditor recommends a judge order the refund of any fees "that the court determines to be unreasonable and unnecessary for the benefit of the protected person."

Since the court system began its centralized audit program in the summer of 2012, about 14 percent audits find evidence of loss that judges should consider in a subsequent hearing, according to Christopherson.

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Conservator's thefts prompted 24 state audits

See Also:
Lawyers Still Unraveling Depth of MN Conservator's Stephen Grisham's Theft