Barb Dowski, right, and her sister-in-law, Becky Moore, outside the courtroom.
Bryan Oller
For years, Andria Beauvais stole money from people
whose assets were entrusted to her, some through court orders, with the
idea she would act according to their best interests.
Her thefts went undetected until a daughter of one of her victims became suspicious and delved into her mom’s holdings only to discover Beauvais had siphoned off more than $100,000 from her estate.
Barb Dowski did a lot of leg work running down bank records to document those thefts from her mom’s accounts and presented her research to authorities in 2018.
Turned out, Dowski’s mother, Barbara Moore, was far from the only victim.
Beauvais was charged in 2019 with 16 felonies connected to her activities as a conservator, sometimes under the auspices of the 4th Judicial District Court, which appoints conservators to act on behalf of incapacitated persons.
On April 8, Beauvais, 51, was sentenced, after about a half-dozen victims or their guardians expressed outrage at Beauvais’ predatory exploitation of her powerless victims. All pleaded that Beauvais be sent to prison for six years, the maximum allowed under a plea bargain in which she pleaded guilty to one count of theft in exchange for the District Attorney’s Office’s dismissal of the remaining charges.
Robert Boucher told the story of his son, since killed by a drunk driver a few years ago, who had received a sizable amount of money after he was severely burned in a fire as a 5-year-old. As an adult, he struck out on his own, with Beauvais as his conservator. Despite Boucher’s efforts to monitor his son’s estate, Beauvais “was able to steal large sums of money” — about $18,000 — demonstrating her utter disregard for the well-being of her clients, he said.
“Because of her callous greed,” he told District Judge William Moller, “she somehow felt she was entitled to their money for her own personal gain.”
Others gave equally poignant pleas that she be punished with prison time.
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| Barbara Moore as a young woman Courtesy Barb Dowski |
As for restitution, an order is due within 91 days of sentencing, after the prosecution submits a proposed restitution order.
But punishing Beauvais doesn’t address the underlying problem in Colorado, says Patrick Mazza, who’s licensed as a fiduciary in California and advocates for similar requirements in Colorado. He says the Beauvais case underscores the need to require fiduciaries and estate conservators to be licensed.
“The problem in Colorado is that fiduciaries don’t have to be licensed,” he says. “Basically, anybody can get into the field.”
As previously reported by the Indy, the probate system allows just about anyone to become a conservator, court oversight is lax, records and proceedings aren’t open to the public, and law enforcement is skittish about second-guessing conservators’ actions, which often appear to be sanctioned by the courts.
In short, the probate courts offer fertile ground for unqualified people and unscrupulous lawyers to raid accounts of those who can’t speak for themselves. They game the system both legally, through exorbitant but rarely scrutinized fees, and illegally, through outright theft, embezzlement and fraud.
Bringing a bad actor to justice is rare. At the time she was charged, Beauvais was one of only three conservators criminally charged in the state from 2013 to 2019.
The facts in Beauvais’ case, as investigated by Colorado Springs Police Department detective Robert Campbell, a veteran officer, are spelled out in a 13-page affidavit in which he says the thefts included her transferring $402,439 of clients’ money into her accounts from May 2013 to January 2018.
Of that, her thefts from Moore came to $118,677 via 27 checks written on Moore’s account from June 2013 to December 2017.
She also stole money from nine others, ranging in age from 31 to 97, under conservatorships in which she had a hand. She wrote checks to herself but claimed in annual conservator reports filed with the court that the payments went to nursing homes, a community college, medical providers, an auto repair shop, other caregivers and gift cards. In one case, she deposited a check from a protected person’s account into her own Navy Federal Credit Union account labeled “Sheehan’s Pixie Dust Dynasty Trust.”
On April 8, Dowski spoke in court about why Beauvais should do time in prison.
“The evidence in this case shows that had I not uncovered the crime, Andria Beauvais would have continued to steal even more from my mother and would have put my mother in a Medicaid facility, with no remorse for doing so, as she did with other elders and protected persons under her care,” she said.
As if stealing wasn’t enough, when Dowski began investigating, Beauvais used $5,000 of Dowski’s mom’s money “to have her attorney threaten me with legal action,” Dowski said.
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| Barbara Moore later in life Courtesy Barb Dowski |
Her mom was a Vietnam War widow — her dad Thomas was killed in action — who raised three kids and was left with no life insurance or savings to rely on. She returned to teaching at age 43 and taught for another 28 years.
Suffering from Alzheimer’s, Moore came under the conservatorship of Beauvais. She died at age 94 on April 14, six days after Beauvais was sentenced.
Dowski told the Indy later that she considers the case “a complete and total travesty of justice.” She says the judge and the DA’s Office, which bargained the charges down to one count and dismissed the rest, including several charges of theft from at-risk people, “have set a dangerous precedent in El Paso County.
“The first thought that entered my mind as we left the courtroom is that there is no real protection for those persons classified as at-risk in El Paso County,” she says.
Dowski and others pleaded that Moller impose the full six-year prison term.
One woman alleged Beauvais was guilty of “continued thefts” with clients’ royalties flowing into Beauvais’ bank accounts even after her status as conservator was terminated. Another, noting she stole from disabled persons, said, “She needs to be incarcerated.” And another noted that while those whose estates she pilfered were powerless to know of it or do anything, Beauvais bought herself a nice home. Records show she purchased a house in Gleneagle for $355,000 in August 2014, paying $71,000 down, after starting her criminal activity as documented by investigators.
Speaking on Beauvais’ behalf, her boss, Kelly Brewer, described her as a “hard worker,” and the “linchpin” of the process-server/litigation support business.
“Everything goes through her,” Brewer said. “I trust her implicitly with our business.”
Attorney Jeremy Lowe testified on her behalf, saying he’d gotten to know her over the last three years and found her to be “incredibly remorseful.”
Beauvais told the judge her husband was addicted to drugs and drained her bank accounts whenever he could; she also had to fund medical bills for her grown son who was injured in an assault and didn’t have health insurance.
“If I could go back and undo what has been done, I would,” she said. “I can’t explain why I did it.... I’m embarrassed beyond words.”
But prosecutor Andrew Herlihy argued that she be incarcerated for the full six years.
“The effects of these crimes were far-reaching,” Herlihy said. “On its face, it seems like a first-time felon, but what we have in reality [is criminal activity] since 2013, and this could be a continuing theft as recently as last year.” He said the Castle Rock Police Department is currently investigating a case against Beauvais.
“It’s way more than a mistake,” he added. “It was a concerted effort to drain as much money as she could from at-risk persons’ accounts.” He pegged the amount owed at up to $600,000 or more.
Beauvais’ defense attorney Shimon Kohn disputed that amount, saying it’s actually “a fraction” of that and declined further comment.
Despite pleas by victims, Judge William Moller, appointed to a judgeship in mid-January, ordered Beauvais to serve 90 days in jail, after which she’ll be subject to 10 years of economic probation, meaning her probation officer could monitor every financial transaction she makes.
“There’s no amount of punishment that will make the victims whole,” Moller said, adding, “I think I have to provide a pathway in some way for the victims to be made partially whole.”
When victims groaned at Beauvais not being sent to prison, Moller said, “While I see some of you disagree, that’s the best I can do.”
Mazza, the licensed fiduciary, spoke at the hearing in favor of prison time, noting he represents a former client of Beauvais, who saw a large part of his estate “eliminated” by her thefts.
After the hearing, he told the Indy this case’s message to the community should be for more oversight. While the courts do an “excellent job” of monitoring court appointed cases, he says most trusts are not court-monitored.
He also dispelled the notion that professional conservators comprise most of the bad actors in the arena of conservatorships when, in truth, a large percentage of questionable activities involve family conservators, not professionals, and many frauds are committed by family members against their own loved ones’ estates.
“Conservators who do the right thing can save an estate a tremendous amount of money,” he says, while acknowledging some do take advantage of at-risk persons.
“This field needs to be taken a look at, no doubt about it,” he says. “It’s in licensing you get oversight. Then you have a monitoring entity that requires qualifications for a field that really needs a high level of qualifications, and some people don’t have it, and that’s what I believe causes the problem.”
Mazza notes the requirements in California are rigorous, including educational requirements, training, demonstrated skill sets and testing.
“There are no barriers to entry [in Colorado],” he adds. “Fiduciaries can control millions of dollars of assets. In the state of Colorado, you have to be licensed to cut hair or give a massage, but don’t have to be licensed to handle millions of dollars of assets.”
For Rick Black, who founded the Center for Estate Administration Reform, Cornelius, North Carolina, after he and his wife worked for years to wrest control of his father-in-law’s estate from a conservator’s clutches, the Beauvais case should sound alarm bells.
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Andria Beauvais, extreme left, enters the courtroom for her sentencing hearing. |
“Every Coloradan, and every American should take heed of the story of the Barbara and Thomas Moore family and the fraudulent adult guardianship of Barbara,” he says via email.
“Beauvais is a predator fully embraced by system insiders,” he said. “She preys on the vulnerable and their loved ones with ease, creating the ever important conflict to maximize litigation fees. The adult guardianship system in Colorado is severely flawed. It has lost its ability to protect anyone. It is a profit center for the Bar that ensures every attorney who uses it and disguises its true intent will be protected and rewarded by the estates of their victims.”
As for any push for licensing, there hasn’t been any in Colorado. House Bill 22-1271 proposed by Rep. Kim Ransom (R-Douglas County) would require conservators to report to families certain events, such as a ward’s change of address, admission to a medical facility or death. It also would require a care plan be drafted and reviewed annually. But the bill doesn’t address licensing.
Meantime, Beauvais’ legal problems aren’t over. A civil lawsuit was filed March 17 on behalf of a trust, accusing Beauvais of theft, breach of fiduciary duty and conversion of assets. Beauvais, who’s representing herself, in her answer denied the claims, saying she followed directions of an attorney.
When Beauvais is released from jail this summer — slated for June 22, three weeks early due to “good time served” and “an additional 15 days miscellaneous credit per statute,” the Sheriff’s Office reports — there’s nothing preventing her from resuming work as a conservator.
Her online LinkedIn profile lists her occupation as “professional fiduciary.”
1 comment:
Freeze all Conservatorships And Guardianship Applications in all States then Abolish Them.
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