By Michael Hewlett Winston-Salem Journal
A Winston-Salem
lawyer who is routinely assigned to handle estates denies allegations
that he committed fraud and took $1.4 million from the estate of a woman
who was declared mentally incompetent, according to court papers filed
last month.
Bryan Thompson was named as one of the defendants in a lawsuit filed Oct. 20 in Forsyth Superior Court by Reginald Alston, a Winston-Salem attorney representing the estate of Mary Thompson. (The two are not related.)
Bryan Thompson was named as one of the defendants in a lawsuit filed Oct. 20 in Forsyth Superior Court by Reginald Alston, a Winston-Salem attorney representing the estate of Mary Thompson. (The two are not related.)
Mary Thompson, a former nurse and
businesswoman, died Oct. 2, 2014. Her brother, Calvin Brannon, the
administrator of her estate, died last month, according to an obituary.
The lawsuit alleges that Bryan
Thompson illegally obtained guardianship of the estate because Theresa
Hinshaw, an assistant court clerk who has since retired, violated state
law in declaring Mary Thompson mentally incompetent in May 2007. The
lawsuit says Hinshaw scheduled a hearing for April 26, 2007, but the
case was never called.
Hinshaw then signed an order May 1
appointing Bryan Thompson guardian of the estate. She signed a second
court order May 3 declaring Mary Thompson mentally incompetent.
The lawsuit also alleges that
Bryan Thompson; Fred Flyn, an attorney appointed as Mary Thompson’s
guardian ad litem; William Speaks, the attorney for Mary Thompson’s
niece; and several Forsyth County court clerks “formed an association or
RICO enterprise for the purpose of taking assets from numerous Forsyth
County citizens without entered orders of incompetence or duly filed
guardianship appointments.”
The lawsuit alleges a pattern of racketeering activity.
On Dec. 16, Mary Whitlatch, an
attorney representing Bryan Thompson, filed an answer to the lawsuit and
several motions, including one to dismiss.
Whitlatch denied allegations that Bryan Thompson committed fraud and stole assets from Mary Thompson’s estate.
She also filed a motion for sanctions against the plaintiff as well as counterclaims.
She also disputed Alston’s allegations that Mary Thompson’s estate was worth anywhere near $1.4 million.
The lawsuit alleged that Bryan
Thompson illegally obtained $2,000 a month from Mary Thompson’s
retirement and Social security payments and used his guardianship to
“trick third parties into buying Mary Thompson’s real estate for his
improper purposes while not paying taxes on all such property.”
Whitlatch said in her answer that
Bryan Thompson used assets from Mary Thompson’s estate to pay for her
medical care and other needs.
Whitlatch argues that Bryan
Thompson sold seven of her properties to raise enough money for her care
because Mary Thompson had too much debt and expenses and not enough
cash.
“I think the main thing is that
Bryan Thompson was appointed in his capacity as public administrator,”
she said in an interview Tuesday.
Whitlatch said that Bryan
Thompson has to file paperwork showing how he has spent an estate’s
money, and assets and he is held accountable by the court system on how
he handles someone’s estate.
According to Whitlatch’s answer,
public administrators, by state law, have the “power to perform in
reasonable and prudent manner every act that a reasonable and prudent
person would perform incident to the collection, preservation,
management, and use of the ward’s estate” to accomplish what is
necessary legally and in the person’s best interest.
Whitlatch also said that a number
of Mary Thompson’s properties were sold while her estate was in
bankruptcy. Bryan Thompson had nothing to do with those sales or the
bankruptcy proceedings, she said.
Some of Mary Thompson’s properties were not sold and still belong to her estate, Whitlatch said.
Alston declined to comment
Wednesday, but in the lawsuit he alleges that because the clerk’s orders
were not file-stamped and recorded, the appointment of Bryan Thompson
as guardian was illegal.
Susan Frye, the clerk of Forsyth
County Superior Court, who also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit,
said in an interview in October that it had been the standard practice
in 2007 for clerks not to file-stamp orders that had been prepared and
executed by representatives in the clerk’s office.
Whitlatch said Bryan Thompson was
not aware of this practice. After the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled that
Hinshaw’s order of incompetency was never entered because it didn’t have
a file-stamp, Whitlatch said Frye, using her authority under state law,
went back and had the orders properly recorded.
Full Article & Source:
Winston-Salem lawyer denies allegations of fraud with woman's estate
1 comment:
He must deny. That is part of the process. We'll see what happens in court.
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