Friends remembered Wilma Williams as fiercely independent, but a stroke left her in a wheelchair and reliant on hearing aides as large as headphones the day her attorney arrived with a plan to divvy up her $1.7 million estate.
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| © Family photo Wilma Williams |
Machen said the will represented the wishes of a woman who was like a sister to him and who he helped for years. He claims he watched as she affixed a scribbled signature to the document in a Fairfax County rehabilitation center on July 31, 2018.
Williams died 10 days later, and her relatives said they were stunned to eventually learn that Machen was poised to reap a $1.5 million windfall while they would receive modest bequests. They couldn’t believe the will truly represented Williams’s desires and decided to challenge it in court.
They say the case is a particularly brazen example of the financial exploitation of the elderly, a problem that is rapidly increasing as the senior population grows. The number of people aged 65 and older is projected to double between 2018 and 2060, according to government figures. Various estimates put their losses from fraud between $2.9 billion and a staggering $36.5 billion each year.
Wilma Williams fits the profile of a prototypical target. A MetLife study reports that twice as many elderly women are taken advantage of as men and that most victims live alone, like Williams did. Her case is likely to be a preview of many to come.
Machen maintains he did nothing wrong.
“Finding out Wilma’s will was written by her attorney leaving himself the majority of her estate was a gut punch,” said David Williams, Wilma’s nephew. “That really made me very determined to see justice done for my aunt.”
Appreciation, then suspicion
David Williams said he was elated when he opened a letter in October 2018 saying that he would receive $30,000 from Williams’s estate. He remembered his aunt fondly but never expected to be named an heir.
The letter from an attorney named Mark Kellogg on behalf of Machen never mentioned that Wilma Williams’s estate was worth $1.7 million, or that Machen drafted the will himself and was to receive an exponentially larger sum.
David Williams said his eye caught on one line that left him dumbfounded and wondering how it could be legal.
“It made a statement to the fact that if you contest the will or even complain about the administration of the estate that you are cut out of the will completely,” Williams said.
His joy curdled into suspicion. He Googled Machen.
One of the first results left a pit in his stomach: “Robert B. Machen . . . Unethical Attorney” read a Web page someone had built that meticulously listed alleged misconduct by the lawyer dating back years.
Machen has a criminal record. In 1988, he was convicted in federal court in Virginia for doctoring ledgers during an investigation of an IRS employee, according to court records. That IRS employee: Mark Kellogg. Kellogg was never charged in that case and denies any wrongdoing in Wilma Williams’s case.
Machen said he had “nothing to do” with altering the financial documents and was wrongly convicted.
Machen’s law license was suspended but then quickly reinstated after he served a prison sentence. Machen managed to hold on to it in the intervening decades, despite subsequent reprimands by the Virginia State Bar, including one for engaging in “conduct for personal advantage, involving deceit.” Machen denies wrongdoing in those cases.
Williams said he called his sister to warn her about what he had found, only to discover that she and every other niece and nephew had already returned a release from legal action Machen asked them to sign in order to get their bequests.
Alarmed, the family members reached out to a lawyer named Mark Obenshain. Obenshain said he sent a letter to Kellogg, asking about the size of the will, who wrote it and Williams’s mental state at the time. Obenshain said while there were communications, no answers were provided to those specific questions.
The family decided it was time to challenge the will in court.
A legal fight
Obenshain told a Fairfax County jury at the outset of the trial in December that their evidence would detail an elaborate scheme by Machen to subvert the last wishes of a dying woman. He said it was a blatant conflict of interest for Machen to author a will that would make himself a millionaire.
“This case is about forgery and fraud and right and wrong,” Obenshain said in his opening statement.
Machen’s attorney countered that his client had been a trusted caretaker for Williams, one who repeatedly offered a lifeline when she needed it over the years. Naming Machen an heir made sense.
Early witnesses told jurors Williams had a secret.
She spent so frugally many thought she was on a fixed income, but the retired administrative assistant who lived in a modest split-level home in Annandale was a savvy investor who had built a fortune.
She didn’t tell her family, scattered across the South, or Machen, a family law attorney she had known since the 1980s, when he helped her navigate a separation from her husband. They remained friends afterward.
Williams suffered a stroke in July 2018 and was admitted to a Fairfax County rehabilitation center, where Machen was a regular visitor. It was there, in Machen’s version of events, that Williams handed him a handwritten will one day that named him a beneficiary.
Machen said in an interview that he was stunned. At the time, he said he never expected his bequest to add up to much: He didn’t know about Williams’s nest egg and expected end-of-life care to eat up much of her estate.
“I had no idea what Wilma had,” Machen told The Washington Post. “All during this time she never talked about finances.”
That changed one day while Machen was visiting Williams.
Laurie Flint, a friend of Williams’s, came by with a stack of Williams’s mail that included a statement detailing her investments, she testified during the trial. Flint testified that Williams told her on several occasions that she trusted Machen but to keep an eye on him.
“She really didn’t want to let anyone look at that statement, but over the course of the next half an hour or so, Mr. Machen eventually talked her into letting him take a look,” Flint told the jury.
Machen said he discovered that Williams had upward of $1 million in a UBS account, which he said jump-started an effort to draw up a better will. Machen said he reached out to Kellogg to draft the will but never followed through.
Machen said in an interview that he was pressed for time because they were trying to move Williams to a nursing home, so he penned the update himself. The will shows he named his son as a possible heir and included the “no contest” clause that caught David Williams’s attention.
Machen and an old friend grabbed a stranger at the rehabilitation center to be the third witness to the signing on July 31, 2018. While Machen and the friend testified at trial that Williams willingly signed the will, the stranger offered a different story.
Toni Foreman testified in a deposition played for the jury that Machen presented himself as Williams’s son, a claim Machen denies. Foreman testified that she was never told she was witnessing a will signing and never saw Williams actually sign the will.
Medical records listed Williams as “alert” that day, but Foreman said she barely spoke as she sat in a wheelchair in her room.
“[Williams] just sat there listening to her music, looking blank and smiling,” Foreman testified.
Machen testified that he told his son the same day that he had named him as a possible heir and executor of the will and gave him power of attorney over Williams, in case Machen passed away. His son was flabbergasted — “Dad, what the hell,” Machen testified his son told him. The same day the son resigned as power of attorney. Obenshain said it did not appear Machen had informed his son of his plans to include him in the will beforehand.
The jury deliberated for about six hours before returning a verdict. They sided with Williams’s family and nullified the will. Machen is appealing the ruling to Virginia’s Supreme Court. A court may ultimately decide how to split up Williams’s estate.
The family is gratified by the ruling but still devastated. Machen is still licensed to practice law.
They say family heirlooms went missing from Williams’s home during a period when she was in poor health and various people entered her home. One of those was the flag that draped the casket of her husband, who was buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Machen said he suspects a crew cleaning up Williams’s home took the items.
“I would love to have some of those mementos so I could hand them down to my son,” David Williams said. “That was part of our family history.”
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She needed a will. A lawyer named himself the main heir to her $1.7 million estate.
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