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| Sally Cicerone faces an accusation by state regulators that could take away her license. |
State regulators have accused an Orange County probate conservator with transferring tens of thousands of dollars without consent from the financial accounts of a former client who died.
An accusation filed this month by the state Professional Fiduciaries Bureau alleges Sally W. Cicerone of Laguna Hills repeatedly transferred money out of financial accounts for the Santa Barbara-based Brouhard Trust even though she no longer represented the client, and failed to notify the probate court.
The state bureau, represented by the California Attorney General’s Office, could suspend or revoke Cicerone’s license to work as a fiduciary if the charges are sustained. The bureau is not seeking criminal charges.
Cicerone, one of the most prolific conservators in Orange County, did not return a telephone message seeking comment.
According to the accusation, Cicerone had transferred more than $63,500 out of the client’s trust and placed it in her attorney’s trust account without proper consent. She also closed out the client’s checking account and transferred the $33,574 balance to her attorney’s trust account. When notified of errors and poor record-keeping, she charged thousands of dollars to correct it, the complaint said.
Cicerone and her attorney, who is not named in the accusation but identified as Jeffrey Vanderveen in a separate appellate ruling, also charged $3,425 in traveling fees to attend a court hearing on the improper transactions in Santa Barbara.
Cicerone works in a field that is unfamiliar to most people, the probate system. The court system, when operated correctly, protects the elderly or mentally disabled from being exploited by family or friends. However, the system can be abused by high-priced conservators, lawyers and other professionals who drain the estates and isolate the clients from their friends and families.
State records show Cicerone managed $26.7 million in client assets in 2017.
State regulators aren’t the only ones with complaints. Among those unhappy with Cicerone is the family of late Orange County Superior Court Judge Betty Lou Lamoreaux, whose name adorns the county’s family law complex.
Among the family’s complaints: Cicerone waited four months to get a
replacement for Lamoreaux’s broken wheelchair. And even then, the new
chair didn’t fit and quickly broke. Cicerone billed $700 for her time.
Other documents show Cicerone billed $250 to visit Lamoreaux and take delivery of a new leather recliner in April 2017. But in a sworn declaration, Cicerone contractor Julie Sebestyen testified that it was she who visited Lamoreaux and monitored the chair delivery, not Cicerone.
Cicerone also had a system that allowed her to miss visits with Lamoreaux, but still charge for them, according to a court declaration by Sebestyen.
“Petitioner has already demonstrated that she inflates her time and thus fee requests, bills for services she has not performed, bills for services performed by others, intentionally and fraudulently falsified her time sheets … and neglected the conservatee,” Lamoreaux’s family alleged in a court declaration.
Cicerone and her attorney, Neil Knuppel, denied the allegations in the Lamoreaux case, calling them “false and misleading” in court documents and insisting they were made by disgruntled and spiteful former workers.
Similar probate problems are occurring throughout the nation, with some officials calling for massive reform of the system.
“It’s happening again and again. It’s like a plague on our senior citizens,” said Berkeley Vice Mayor Ben Bartlett in a previous interview.
“We need to turn the operation upside down. What you see is an incentive to work up attorney fees,” Bartlett said. “There is no incentive to preserve the liberty of the person. We need greater oversight with more opportunity to challenge.”
Other documents show Cicerone billed $250 to visit Lamoreaux and take delivery of a new leather recliner in April 2017. But in a sworn declaration, Cicerone contractor Julie Sebestyen testified that it was she who visited Lamoreaux and monitored the chair delivery, not Cicerone.
Cicerone also had a system that allowed her to miss visits with Lamoreaux, but still charge for them, according to a court declaration by Sebestyen.
“Petitioner has already demonstrated that she inflates her time and thus fee requests, bills for services she has not performed, bills for services performed by others, intentionally and fraudulently falsified her time sheets … and neglected the conservatee,” Lamoreaux’s family alleged in a court declaration.
Cicerone and her attorney, Neil Knuppel, denied the allegations in the Lamoreaux case, calling them “false and misleading” in court documents and insisting they were made by disgruntled and spiteful former workers.
Similar probate problems are occurring throughout the nation, with some officials calling for massive reform of the system.
“It’s happening again and again. It’s like a plague on our senior citizens,” said Berkeley Vice Mayor Ben Bartlett in a previous interview.
“We need to turn the operation upside down. What you see is an incentive to work up attorney fees,” Bartlett said. “There is no incentive to preserve the liberty of the person. We need greater oversight with more opportunity to challenge.”
Full Article & Source:
State moves to discipline Orange County probate conservator accused of improperly removing money
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