In a courtroom drama reminiscent of a Hollywood blockbuster, former A-list attorney Tom Girardi
finds himself in the spotlight again, but this time not for defending a
celebrity client. Instead, he faces questions of his own mental fitness
to stand trial over charges of stealing a staggering amount from his
firm’s clientele.
Girardi Fraud Case: Judge’s Latest Verdict
U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton, who seems to have become
Girardi’s biggest courtroom adversary in this saga, ruled that he must
appear in a Los Angeles court on Aug. 23. Echoing a crescendo in a
thriller, this order comes on the heels of Girardi’s failed attempt to
postpone the hearing, and the judge dismissing one of his key expert
witnesses, pushing the narrative closer to its climax.
Girardi Fraud Case: A Battle of Claims
Amidst the mounting tension, Girardi’s defense team paints a poignant
image: an 84-year-old disbarred lawyer, battling Alzheimer’s, unfit for
the pressures of a trial. Yet, prosecutors aren’t buying the emotional
subplot. They argue he’s feigning his condition to dodge the limelight
of what’s being touted as one of California’s most infamous legal
debacles.
Girardi Fraud Case : Alzheimer’s & Conservatorship
It’s a plot twist that could be straight out of a script – Girardi,
diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, was placed under the conservatorship of his
brother, Robert Girardi, in 2021. This happened right after the dramatic
crumble of Girardi Keese. Subsequent acts saw federal grand juries from
Los Angeles to Chicago indicting him with 13 counts of wire fraud and
four instances of criminal contempt.
The Trial Before the Trial
Before the main act can commence, Judge Staton is set to assess
evidence concerning Girardi’s mental capacity. The climax of this
prelude? Determining whether Girardi can grasp the gravity of the
allegations against him and play an active role in his defense. Should
he be deemed incompetent, the entire case could take an unexpected
detour, potentially impeding the government’s quest for justice.
Britney Spears and Sam Asghari at the Los Angeles premiere of “Once Upon
a Time in Hollywood” in 2019. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Britney
Spears’s husband, Sam Asghari, has filed for divorce citing
“irreconcilable differences” after a year-long marriage that many of her
fans saw as a symbol of the pop star’s legal fight to control her own
life.
The
couple has been separated since July 28, according to a petition
Asghari filed Wednesday in the Superior Court of Los Angeles. He
requested that Spears pay for spousal support and attorney’s costs but
stated that he“has yet to determine the full nature and extent
of the separate property assets and obligations of each party.” Spears,
who became instantly famous with her debut album “ … Baby One More Time”
in the late 1990s, is estimated to be worth roughly $60 million.
Asghari,
a model and actor, met Spears while playing her love interest in a
music video for “Slumber Party” in 2016. The couple delighted fans with
social media selfies and got engaged in September 2021 — weeks before
Spears succeeded in dissolving a 13-year conservatorship
that had granted her father extensive control over her finances and
personal life. Fans who helped fuel the “Free Britney” movement were
outraged over the conservatorship, which Spears said prevented her from
getting married or having children without her father’s consent.
Spears and Asghari announced in May last year that they had lost a child
early in her pregnancy. They held a storybook-style wedding at their
home outside Los Angeles the next month, with a horse-drawn carriage and
a star-studded guest list including Madonna and Donatella Versace, according to Harper’s Bazaar.
But
the honeymoon period didn’t last long. A TMZ documentary this year
suggested their marriage was in trouble and alleged that Spears “got
physical” with her new husband. In an Instagram video he later deleted,
Asghari lashed out at media outlets for obsessing over Spears’s
personal life, which included a mental breakdown and hospital stays in
the 2000s that prompted the conservatorship.
“Now,
all of a sudden, after 15 years, she’s free after all those gaslighting
and all those things that went down, now you’re going to put her under a
microscope and tell her story? No. That’s also disgusting,” Asghari
said.
Asghari is Spears’s third husband, after Kevin Federline, whom she was married to from 2004 to 2007.
Her
first marriage, to childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander, lasted less
than 72 hours in 2004. Alexander was charged with trespassing after he
crashed her wedding with Asghari last summer.
Representatives for Spears and Asghari did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A prominent Memphis couple with a longstanding
relationship to former NFL player Michael Oher want to end a
conservatorship that he’s challenging in court, their lawyers said.
Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy intend to enter into a consent order to end
the conservatorship, lawyer Randall Fishman told reporters on
Wednesday.
Oher filed a petition Monday
in a Tennessee probate court accusing the Tuohys of lying to him by
having him sign papers making them his conservators rather than his
adoptive parents nearly two decades ago.
Oher, now 37, wants a full accounting of assets considering his life
story produced millions of dollars, though he says he received nothing
from the Oscar-nominated movie “The Blind Side.” He accuses the Tuohys
of falsely representing themselves as his adoptive parents, saying that
he discovered in February 2023 that the conservatorship was not the
arrangement he thought it was — and that it provided him no familial
relationship to the Tuohys.
But the Tuohys’ attorneys said Oher knew very well that he had not
been adopted. Fishman said Oher mentioned the Tuohys being conservators
for him three times in “I Beat The Odds: From Homeless, To The Blind
Side,” Oher’s first book in 2011.
The couple’s attorneys also said that the Tuohys and Oher have been
estranged for about a decade. Steve Farese said Oher has become “more
and more vocal and more and more threatening” over the past decade or
so, and this is “devastating for the family.”
The Tuohys have called the allegations a ridiculous shakedown
attempt, and “a court of law is no place to play,” Fishman said. In a statement released by their lawyers Tuesday,
the Tuohys said Oher had threatened before the court filing to plant a
negative news story about them unless they paid him $15 million.
Oher’s lawyers did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
The conservatorship paperwork was filed months after Oher turned 18
in May 2004. Oher accuses the Tuohys of never taking legal action to
assume custody from the Tennessee Department of Human Services before he
turned 18, though he was told to call them “Mom” and “Dad.”
Oher alleges the Tuohys had him sign paperwork almost immediately
after he moved in as part of the adoption process. Oher says he was
“falsely advised” that it would be called a conservatorship because he
was already 18, but that adoption was the intent.
The couple didn’t simply adopt Oher, Fishman said, because the
conservatorship was the fastest way to satisfy the NCAA’s concerns that
the Tuohys weren’t simply steering a talented athlete to Mississippi,
their alma mater where Oher later attended.
Agents negotiated a small advance for the Tuohys from the production
company for “The Blind Side,” based on a book written by Sean Tuohy’s
friend Michael Lewis, the couple said. That included “a tiny percentage
of net profits” divided equally among a group that included Oher, they
said in their statement.
The attorneys said they estimated each of the Tuohys and Oher
received $100,000 apiece, and the couple paid taxes on Oher’s portion
for him. “Michael got every dime, every dime he had coming,” Fishman
said.
“They don’t need his money,” Farese said. “They’ve never needed his money. Mr. Tuohy sold his company for $220 million.”
Martin Singer, an attorney for the Tuohys, said that profit
participation checks and studio accounting statements support their
assertions. The movie won Sandra Bullock an Oscar for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy.
When Oher refused to cash the checks, the statement said, the Tuohys deposited Oher’s share into a trust account.
The Tuohys said that they set up the conservatorship to help Oher
with health insurance, a driver’s license and being admitted to college.
In Tennessee, a conservatorship removes power from a person to make
decisions for themselves, and it is often used in the case of a medical
condition or disability.
But Oher’s conservatorship was approved “despite the fact that he was
over 18 years old and had no diagnosed physical or psychological
disabilities,” his petition said.
Oher was the 23rd overall pick in the 2009 draft out of Mississippi,
and he spent his first five seasons with the Baltimore Ravens where he
won a Super Bowl. He played 110 games over eight NFL seasons, including
2014 when he started 11 games for the Tennessee Titans. Oher finished
his career with two years in Carolina.
He last played in 2016 and was released in 2017 by Carolina.
He is on a book tour for “When Your Back’s Against the Wall: Fame,
Football, and Lessons Learned Through a Lifetime of Adversity.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s daughter is suing the trustees managing the
estate of the senator’s late husband, Richard Blum, alleging “financial
elder abuse” and claiming they’ve withheld money from the California
Democrat to benefit Blum’s three biological daughters—the latest twist
in a spiraling legal dispute between the oldest member of Congress, the
trustees and her three stepdaughters.
US Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, sits in a wheelchair on the Senate Subway on ... [+]
AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
Feinstein’s daughter Katherine Feinstein, a former San Francisco
judge who is serving as the “attorney in fact” for her mother, accused
the trustees of Blum’s estate of failing to contribute to their marital
trust—which was supposed to hold $5 million for her—in the
year-and-a-half since the former investor Blum died from cancer at age
86.
The younger Feinstein alleges the trustees have instead used the
money intended for Feinstein to fund trusts for Blum’s three daughters
from a previous marriage.
Feinstein’s attorneys first filed a lawsuit in June alleging the
three trustees of Blum’s estate, Michael Klein, Marc Scholvinck and
Verett Mims, haven’t put any money into the sub-trust intended to
benefit Feinstein since his death.
In a third lawsuit filed earlier this month, Katherine Feinstein
accuses the trustees of failing to adhere to an agreement that required
them to make $1.5 million annual payments to reimburse Feinstein for
medical bills, and notes she has incurred “significant medical
expenses,” possibly from her bout with shingles earlier this year that
kept her away from the Senate for nearly three months.
The lawsuit claims the trustees have instead transferred some of
the couple’s jointly owned real estate assets to Blum’s three daughters
from a previous marriage and “forgiven [their] indebtedness” to the
trust (Blum’s daughters are slated to inherit $22 million each upon
Feinstein’s death, the San Francisco Chroniclereported, citing language from the trust).
Blum, who ran his own investment firm called Blum Capital Partners,
married Feinstein in 1980, shortly after she became mayor of San
Francisco, and used his wealth to help boost his wife’s political
career, spending millions to fund her various campaigns for office.
Blum was a longtime Democratic donor with a circle of powerful
friends, including former President Jimmy Carter and the Dalai Lama.
Contra
The trustees told Feinstein in March they had yet to fund the trust
because Blum’s “exceptionally complex” estate was still being sorted
out, Klein said in a legal filing, according to the Chronicle. Klein
also cited the hefty federal estate taxes he had yet to pay on Blum’s
behalf and said the trustees couldn’t make payments to the trust until
the tax issue was resolved. In a statement to the Chronicle, an
attorney for Klein and Scholvinck claimed the trustees have “never
denied any disbursement to Senator Feinstein” and called her daughter’s
latest lawsuit “unconscionable,” adding “the trustees have always
respected Senator Feinstein and always will. But this has nothing to do
with her needs and everything to do with her daughter’s avarice.”
Tangent
Blum had a vast real estate portfolio at the time of his death that
has become another point of contention between the trustees and
Feinstein, including homes in Washington, D.C., California, Stinson
Beach outside of San Francisco and Hawaii. Blum also reportedly had
partial ownership in the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, California that
was recently sold for $163 million. Feinstein’s daughter alleges the
trustees withheld money from the sale from Feinstein and are stalling to
sell the Stinson Beach home because Blum’s daughters want to hold on to
the property.
What To Watch For
In the latest lawsuit filed against the trustees earlier this month,
Feinstein’s daughter asked the court to issue an order to fund the trust
and remove the trustees from Blum’s estate.
Crucial Quote
“This is a private legal matter. Senator Feinstein and her office
won’t have any comment,” a spokesperson for Feinstein, Adam Russell,
told Forbes.
Key Background
Feinstein became the first female mayor of San Francisco in 1978 and
was elected to the Senate in 1992, making her the longest serving female
senator in U.S. history. Feinstein, who at 90 is the oldest member of
Congress, has dealt with a series of health issues. She was absent from
the Senate for nearly three months earlier this year while being treated
for shingles, prompting calls for her resignation, primarily from some
progressive House Democrats. She returned to Washington visibly frail
and in a wheelchair and in a puzzling exchange with reporters, suggested she was never away. Feinstein has also reportedly struggled
with memory issues for the past several years, and reports have
suggested members of her staff are effectively carrying out some of her
official duties on her behalf. Feinstein and her staff have publicly
brushed off concerns about her health and she has refused to heed calls
for her to step down, vowing to serve out the rest of her term through
next year before retiring. Earlier this month, she was hospitalized
briefly after falling at her home in San Francisco.
GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - A caretaker that was accused by a mother of abusing her disabled son is now behind bars.
According
to the warrant, 67-year-old Gayle Waugh abused Naomi Howard’s son,
Matthew Howard back in May at his home in Greenville.
The
video Howard shared with WITN shows Waugh allegedly pressing a
clipboard against Matthew’s face and later using a cane to poke and tap
Matthew in the face.
“Shocked,
disbelief. When this happened, I was just floored. It didn’t affect just
me. It affected my whole family and the community that something like
this would happen to an individual with a disability,” Naomi told WITN.
Now that an arrest has been made and a
charge has been filed, Greenville Police Department Special Victims Unit
Detective, Robert Signs, says, “How mean-spirited of a human being or
human beings can be. This is a defenseless man. He was unable to speak
for himself and was bedridden. No excuse for what was done in that
video.”
However, this wasn’t the first
time Waugh was accused of abusing a child. Latequa Brown, another Pitt
County parent, also accused Waugh of abusing their disabled daughter
4-year-old Annalise Brown. So far, there have been no charges filed in
that case.
“It’s not even about trust.
It’s about when you have a professional like a nurse or doctor, you’re
interacting with, it’s about keeping that oath to do no harm,” Howard
says.
Though Howard says their lives
will never be the same, moving forward, she only wants to shed light on
the pain to save other families from heartache and to get justice for
her son.
“It’s like when Humpty Dumpty fell off
the wall, he cracked, you couldn’t put him back together again and I
know that putting my son back together again is not going to happen,”
Howard said. “If your gut tells you that something isn’t right, follow
your gut and parents do like I do, put cameras in your home because our
kids cannot speak for themselves. Anything I can do to just continue to
show him love with my family, friends, all the support we’ve gotten off
of social media-- it has been overwhelming.”
Detective
Signs also says the case was brought to their attention by the care
facility Waugh worked at who later notified Howard. Signs says with the
video evidence, it is clear that the officer on duty did the right thing
by taking out a felony charge on Waugh.
Waugh was jailed on a $10,000 bond and has a court date of October 25th.
Ex-NFL player Michael Oher shocked "The Blind Side" fans this week after revealing in court papers that contrary to the 2009 film's depiction of his life, the Tuohy family of Tennessee didn't actually adopt him.
In
a reversal of the film's heartwarming ending, Oher alleges that Leigh
Anne and Sean Tuohy misled him nearly 20 years ago into signing
documents which gave them a conservatorship over him. The legal
documents, which Oher claims he was falsely told was "for all intents
and purposes, an adoption," provided the Tuohys with the ability to
profit from his name and likeness.
The conservatorship continues
today but should be discontinued going forward, Oher claimed in his
petition, arguing he's old enough to handle his own business affairs.
In response to the petition, Sean Tuohy said this week that if Oher wants to end the conservatorship now, the family would "of course" be willing to end it.
Here are more specifics about what a conservatorship is and how the legal action became the center of Michael Oher's case.
What is a conservatorship?
Under Tennessee law,
a conservatorship is a legal proceeding where a court strips the
decision-making abilities from someone who is a minor or has a
disability or someone who cannot make decisions on their own. A
conservatorship includes transferring that decision-making ability to
someone else (a conservator) or a group of people (co-conservators).
One of the most famous cases involving a conservatorship was that of singer Britney Spears, who lived under a court-appointed conservatorship from 2008 until 2021.
Because
conservatorship laws vary between states, it's difficult to determine
how many people live in conservatorships across the country, ACLU
attorney Zoe Brennan-Krohn told CBS News in 2021 when speaking about Spears' case. She added that they are often granted when an individual encounters difficulties or age-related disabilities.
Conservatorship vs. adoption
In a conservatorship, the
conservator is legally allowed to make decisions on another person's
behalf without technically making them a family member. The person with a
disability or other challenge only needs to sign the proper legal
documents to grant the conservatorship, as Oher did in August 2004.
Under adoption laws, an adoptee legally becomes a permanent member of the applicant's family.
Adoption laws vary by state, with a few states placing age limits on
adoption. Tennessee, the home state of Oher and the Tuohys, is among the
states that allow adults to adopt someone who is over 18, according to law firm Anderson Hunter.
Conservatorship meaning
Having a conservatorship also plays a role in the person's finances. A conservator or co-conservators typically have authority over the finances and personal affairs of the person they're overseeing.
Oher
claims in his petition that the Tuohy family generated millions of
dollars off the book "The Blind Side" by best-selling author Michael
Lewis and its film adaptation starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw,
both of which carried Oher's name and likeness. Oher claims that he
himself has received nothing off of the book or Oscar-nominated movie.
The Tuohys will continue to profit from his name if the conservatorship
isn't ended, he argues.
Aside from Britney Spears, actor Amanda Bynes also
recently successfully fought to end her conservatorship, giving her
full control of her medical, financial and personal decisions.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is suing to oust the trustees in her late husband’s estate in a bitter feud, alleging elder financial abuse.
The 90-year-old senator filed the suit
on Aug. 8, accusing the co-trustees of “wrongfully withholding
distributions to which Trust entitles her in bad faith and diverting
assets that they should have used to fund” her sub-trust.
Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, was the former president of equity
investment management fund Blum Capital. He died in February of last
year with a net worth reportedly close to $1 billion.
Feinstein is calling for a temporary trustee to handle Blum’s trust so that she can gain access to some of those funds.
She has bestowed power of attorney to her daughter, Katherine Feinstein, who pushed the suit on her behalf.
Dianne Feinstein was also financially well-off independent of her late husband’s assets.
The suit, which was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, was slapped against Michael Klein, Marc Scholvinck, and Verett Mims, who are all co-trustees for the estate.
It further alleged that the trustees “funded gifts to Blum’s
daughters or forgiven their indebtedness” without giving her the proper
notice.
Steven Braccini, a lawyer representing Klein and Scholvinck blasted
the lawsuit and contended that Feinstein’s daughter is to blame.
“The trustees have acted ethically and appropriately at all times;
the same cannot be said for Katherine Feinstein. This filing is
unconscionable,” Braccini said in a statement obtained by The Post.
“The trustees have always respected Senator Feinstein and always
will. But this has nothing to do with her needs and everything to do
with her daughter’s avarice.”
However, Feinstein’s suit countered that was deceitful, alleging that
“trustees have failed to respond to any requests for disbursements,
which is a de facto denial.”
Dianne Feinstein and Richard Blum married in 1980.
Back in March, Feinstein was informed that Blum’s estate lacked
liquidity, which was why she wasn’t accruing funds, per court filings.
Klein previously stated in a separate filing that she was netting $125,000 each quarter due to a lawsuit she filed in June.
The senator’s suit further contended that she’s been unable to get a full accounting of the estate.
Klein had emphasized the “exceptionally complex” nature of Blum’s estate.
Feinstein has also filed two separate lawsuits in June and July,
raising complaints about her lack of access to her late husband’s trust,
with hearings in the cases slated for Aug. 21 and Sept. 5 respectively.
It's hard to know who to believe more in the unfolding family dispute
involving the estate of Senator Dianne Feinstein's late husband,
Richard Blum. But what's clear is there's no love lost between
Feinstein, her daughter from a previous marriage, and the senator's
three stepdaughters.
Rich people fights! They can be amusing
and/or depressing for those of us who will never be inheriting tens of
millions of dollars. But suffice it to say that, at age 90, Senator
Dianne Feinstein finds herself in the middle of an unpleasant legal
battle that, if the trustees of her late husband's state are to be
believed, has all been the product of her 66-year-old daughter's
"avarice."
That battle heated up last week with a third legal complaint
filed on Feinstein's behalf by daughter Katherine Feinstein, who is now
listed as the "attorney-in-fact for Senator Dianne Feinstein." We heard
in recent weeks that Feinstein had signed over her power of attorney to
her daughter, but we now learn that that is a limited durable power of
attorney allowing Katherine to act on her behalf in litigation matters.
As the Chronicle reports,
following earlier lawsuits filed in June and July against the trustees
of Blum's estate, the latest complaint alleges "financial elder abuse,"
breach of trust, and "wrongfully withholding distributions to which
[Blum’s] Trust entitles her in bad faith and diverting assets that they
should have used to fund" a trust in Feinstein's name.
Blum passed away
in February 2022, and the trustees say that administration of the
estate and dealing with estate taxes coming due in October has been an
"exceptionally complex" process.
The filing also claims that the
trustees have denied disbursements to Senator Feinstein, which she says
she needs to cover medical expenses relating to her recent bout with
shingles. The trustees have previously said they never denied any
disbursement request, but the suit claims "The Trustees have failed to
respond to any requests for disbursements, which is a de facto denial."
The
co-trustees, Blum's former business associates Michael Klein and Marc
Scholvinck, call the latest filing "unconscionable" in their own legal
response. "The trustees have always respected Senator Feinstein and
always will," they say. "But this has nothing to do with her needs and
everything to do with her daughter’s avarice."
They
further say that Senator Feinstein has been receiving $125,000 per
quarter out of the trust, but the younger Feinstein and her mother
appear to be seeking something more. When we first learned about the
legal battle two months ago, it was centered on the sale of a beach
house Feinstein and Blum bought together in Stinson Beach. Katherine
Feinstein appears to want to sell the house quickly, and either Blum's
daughters want to keep the house or there is some other reason for
delaying the sale.
Klein claimed in a legal filing, per the Chronicle, that Katherine
Feinstein's husband had been showing the home to realtors and allegedly
hired a contractor to do some work on it several months ago "entirely
without authorization."
So, it may all come down to this house and
who benefits from its sale — or how quickly. Blum's three daughters,
the Chronicle says, all stand to inherit "at least" $22 million apiece
once the estate is sorted out, so no one is exactly hurting here. Also,
Feinstein has independent wealth of her own, and no doubt had some very
good insurance that covered a lot of her medical bills, so it's not
clear what the urgency is all about.
But behind the scenes this
has clearly been a bitter fight, whether Senator Feinstein is even fully
aware of it or not. As we know, she hasn't exactly been on top of
things in the Senate, and she may or may not be as concerned about all
this as her daughter is.
Aug. 14—MOUNT VERNON, Mo. — A 50-year-old Springfield woman has been
ordered bound over for trial on charges that she stole $2,360 from an
elderly man in a long-term care facility in Aurora.
Angela D.
Ormsby-Vigneaux waived a preliminary hearing Monday in Lawrence County
Circuit Court on counts of financial exploitation of an elderly person
and fraudulent use of a credit device. Judge Don Trotter set her initial
appearance in a trial division of the court on Oct. 10.
The
charges were brought against Ormsby-Vigneaux in April following an
investigation by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
A
probable-cause affidavit filed with the charges alleges that she used a
debit card belonging to a resident of the Hudson House in Aurora to
make 20 unauthorized withdrawals from his bank account between Nov. 21
and Nov. 25. At the time, the alleged victim had been hospitalized for
11 days.
A
Hudson House staff member told the state investigator that she had seen
the defendant leaving the victim's room with his computer and wallet,
which she claimed to be taking to him at the hospital. The defendant
subsequently admitted to the investigator that she'd used the victim's
debit card to make the withdrawals totaling $2,360, according to the
affidavit.
Cases are near an all-time high, while
arrests and prosecutions have plummeted. Meanwhile, many older adults,
like 91-year-old Paul Borik, are losing their life savings as social
service caseworkers watch from the sidelines.
Paul Borik, 91, a retired Chicago Park District gardner, enjoys his
plants at his North Suburban senior facility after he lost the bulk of
his life savings to a series of fraud schemes.
For much of his long life, Paul Borik kept himself busy in the service of others.
As a young soldier in the aftermath of World War II, he helped
rebuild France. Then he returned to Chicago, where he dedicated his time
and money to his older brother whose head was pierced by a metal
fragment in the war. During long workdays, he tended to towering palms
and flowers as a city horticulturist at the Garfield Park Conservatory.
To help his family, he sacrificed his dream of opening an evergreen
nursery in Michigan. Instead, he stayed in the same Northwest Side home,
where he grew up, never marrying, watching over his aging parents and
disabled brother until their deaths left him alone.
During a visit in 2012, when Borik was 80 years old, a state social
found a portable heater beside his easy chair amid thigh-deep piles of
food cartons and trash, according to records reviewed by Injustice
Watch. The sink sloped with dirty dishes. Green leaves sprouted from
small pots on a living room windowsill, the only remaining vestige of a
once-orderly life and career.
In an internal report, a social worker later described his house as
“unlivable” and its lonely inhabitant as “a magnet for people running a
con game.”
He needed help.
But for the next five years, records show, state officials filed
report after report and did little to intervene as Borik was swindled
out of more than $340,000, the bulk of his life savings.
The safety net designed to protect thousands of older Illinoisians
like Borik collapsed, with state officials justifying their inaction by
saying it is every citizen’s right to waive off help.
Dozens of cases like Borik’s examined by Injustice Watch during a
four-month investigation reveal a failed system to protect older adults
from financial exploitation, even as a “silver tsunami” of aging baby
boomers are increasingly living alone without the support of family
nearby.
Last year alone, Illinois seniors were swindled out of a record $75.9
million, up from $5 million in 2014, according to FBI reports. Experts
say those figures are a vast undercount.
Yet the numbers of arrests and prosecutions for elder financial abuse
are falling. Holes in banking regulations, loose state watchdog laws,
and cost-cutting ripple through almost every level of Illinois
government.
Illinois ranks 49th among states in the number of suspicious banking
transactions per capita reported against older adults by financial
institutions, according to an Injustice Watch analysis of federal data.
Illinois is also among only six states without its own force of
investigators to look into exploitation cases, saving money by
contracting with about 40 local social service agencies to do that work.
Caseworkers often are confused about their authority and their mission, records and interviews show.
The Illinois Department on Aging’s top Adult Protective Services
official mischaracterized his agency’s responsibilities in an interview,
saying APS is barred by state law from investigating frauds by
financial professionals, criminals, or strangers, such as those who
victimized Borik.
“We don’t do fraud,” said Brian Pastor, who was named manager of Illinois APS in 2021.
Officials later walked back Pastor’s interpretation of the law in an
email exchange with Injustice Watch. But they then got lawmakers to
amend the statute to match Pastor’s restrictive definition, according to
records and an aide to one of the bill’s sponsors.
“None of the systems meant to protect elders are working
effectively,” said Chicago lawyer Paige Fox, president-elect of the
Illinois chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.
“Seniors are easy money.”
Pastor called Illinois’ plummeting numbers of verified cases a
“fluctuation,” and he said his office cannot intervene when people
decline help, regardless of their age or infirmity.
In Chicago, elder financial exploitation is especially prevalent in
predominantly Black neighborhoods, records show. Experts cite a variety
of factors, including a lack of police response in those neighborhoods.
“Historically, they have turned people away,” said Rev. Robin Hood, a
West Side community activist who works with victims of mortgage fraud.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker declined an interview request.
In a written statement, his spokesman said, “The Adult Protective
Services program works around the clock to investigate this abuse, keep
seniors safe, and ensure law enforcement can hold bad actors accountable
when appropriate. … These provider agencies are experts in their
communities and local dynamics.”
‘A pattern of sorts’
Paul Borik shows a visitor his love for his main hobby, caring for his plants in his one-room apartment as a ward of the state.
Predators first targeted Borik in 2012.
A 27-year-old woman named Pebbles Miller approached him, then 80
years old, as he gassed up his car 2 miles from his home, records show.
She seemed friendly. She said she was an interior designer in the
neighborhood shopping for light fixtures. She invited him to coffee. As a
flirtation developed over weeks, Miller told her new friend she had
cancer and could not afford treatment.
Over the next five years, she and a loose network of accomplices
fleeced the increasingly confused Borik through four separate cons, home
repair frauds, and sweetheart scams, according to an analysis of court
cases.
He lost the house his family owned for more than seven decades, the bulk of his retirement savings, and his liberty.
Now age 91 and living in a nursing home as a ward of the state, Borik struggled in interviews to recount what happened.
“They seem to find me very easily,” he said. “You wonder if it wasn’t a pattern of sorts.”
Officials at the $1 billion-per-year Illinois Department on Aging and
its APS program, established by state law a decade ago as the frontline
agency to protect older and disabled adults, filed detailed reports
each time Borik was fleeced.
In fact, Borik first triggered APS involvement when he reached out to
one of its contracted investigative agencies, Catholic Charities,
asking for help paying Miller’s medical bills.
At first, the system seemed to work as it should.
Miller was convicted of felony theft. She spent 20 months in state
prison. But only a fraction of the $98,000 Borik gave her was recovered,
court records show.
And the swindlers kept coming.
After another woman befriended Borik at a grocery store and
eventually made off with $162,455 in 2015, a Catholic Charities
caseworker called the same Chicago police detective who had handled the
first case.
“He was not interested in getting involved this time because Borik
obviously did not learn a lesson,” according to state APS reports.
In 2013, when state officials were investigating Borik’s first case,
it was one of 6,744 reports of elder financial exploitation handled by
APS. By last year, that number had risen to 8,410.
Pastor defended his program’s record and said state-contracted
investigators face a moral choice when the protection of an older adult
could come at the cost of that person’s liberty, privacy, and free will —
their fundamental right to live as they want, even if they make
calamitous financial choices.
“It’s always about asking them what they feel is appropriate, asking
them what they feel comfortable with. We always ask for consent to do
things,” Pastor said. “That’s the primary piece. That’s all we always
have to go off of.”
“Oftentimes, that might mean the client refuses to do an
investigation on their family member or on someone they care about,”
Pastor said. “That’s their choice, and we have to respect that.”
Preserving the liberty of older adults is a priority for every layer
of government, but APS is not doing that effectively, said Cook County
Public Guardian Charles Golbert.
“At some point, Adult Protective Services has to step in and protect,” he said.
He runs the government agency of last resort in such cases. His
office can ask a probate court judge to take over the finances of people
who have lost the ability to care for themselves and who have no family
to step in. The public guardian currently handles the estates of more
than 700 disabled adults — including Borik.
“You want to talk about taking liberty away?” Golbert said. “When you
take away somebody’s life savings, you are taking away options and
choices and liberty for them.”
He said such lost savings might have kept the older person in their
own home with support or allowed them to move to a four-star nursing
home instead of a “substandard facility.”
“That takes money,” Golbert said.
“Caring for those who seek assistance in their time of need is
central to our mission,” a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago’s
Catholic Charities wrote in an email response. “We will continue to
strive to meet those needs with care and compassion.”
Charles Golbert, the Cook County Public Guardian, said more should be done to protect older adults suffering from dementia before it is necessary for them to become a ward of the state under his care.
Other states do more
“Every time you hear about one of these cases, you will see chinks in
the armor where things should have been done differently,” said Diane
Slezak, CEO of AgeOptions, one of 13 Area Administrations on Aging that
help APS investigate financial abuse of older adults.
“It’s a systems problem,” Slezak said. “Trying to close some of these loopholes is critical.”
Illinois is among a half-dozen states where investigations of abuse
of older adults are contracted to social service agencies, according to
records and an interview with Bill Benson, national policy adviser at
the National Adult Protective Services Association, which represents
state and local APS administrators and workers.
In most states, reports of elder financial exploitation are handled
by government employees. Arizona’s in-house staff includes forensic
accountants and investigators with law enforcement backgrounds.
The Illinois contractors — mostly nonprofit social service agencies —
are paid hourly rates to investigate and verify the financial abuse
complaints from bank officials, relatives, landlords, and victims.
Of 8,410 reports of financial exploitation last year, the
state-contracted caseworkers verified evidence of abuse in just 462,
about 5.5%, down from about 19% of cases a decade ago.
This plunge in APS-verified cases helps explain the ongoing decline
in arrests and prosecutions for elder financial abuse in Chicago and
Cook County.
Records show APS referred only 40 cases last year to law enforcement statewide — fewer than 1% of the reports it got.
APS would not say how many cases were referred to the Chicago Police Department.
But Chicago police reports on elder financial exploitation since 2001 show the number of arrests dropping steadily.
Officials with CPD and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration did not respond to requests for comment.
According to data from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office,
prosecutors are filing fewer cases and getting guilty verdicts against
fewer defendants than a decade ago.
On his agency’s website, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul says one of his office’s most important responsibilities is protecting older citizens from financial exploitation and “taking legal action against those who prey on older residents.”
But asked for a list of recent legal actions or even statistical data
about them, the office said it did not track cases specifically against
seniors.
Adult protection experts said Illinois lacks APS investigators with the financial skills to safeguard vulnerable residents.
The state-contracted social workers “are overloaded and undertrained.
They may not have enough time, and their caseloads overwhelm them,”
said Dr. XinQi Dong, a health epidemiologist and geriatrician whose
staff at Rush University interviewed more than 3,000 Chicagoans for a 2016 study
on the underreporting of elder financial abuse in immigrant
communities. Dong also has advised the Illinois Department on Aging and
lawmakers.
John K. Holton, who directed the state Department on Aging from 2011
to 2015, when Illinois’ current Adult Protective Services Act was
written, said the system to contract out investigations was designed to
empower existing local senior services organizations — but also to
contain costs.
“It was easier to get legislation putting in place Adult Protective
Services with a delivery mechanism that didn’t add to the state payroll
and increase the pension liabilities of state employees versus
subcontractors being responsible for the salaries and benefits,” Holton
said.
Illinois ranks near the bottom of states in the per-capita number of
“suspicious activity reports” about elder financial abuse filed with the
U.S. Department of the Treasury, government data shows.
Illinois is not among the 39 states to supply case-level information
to the National Adult Maltreatment Reporting System, a federal data
repository designed to spot abuse trends. It is not among the 26 states
where financial institutions must notify state authorities when the
accounts of older or disabled people show unusual activity. And it is
not among the 34 states that mandate reporting of the cases to the state
securities regulator, as well as the APS program.
In May, after a decade of efforts by elder justice advocates, the
Illinois General Assembly passed a bill to mandate reporting for one
category of professionals: investment advisers.
Declining enforcement
The situation in Illinois is emblematic of a national crisis. The
reported amount lost to financial exploitation of older adults rose
nationwide to $3.1 billion last year — a ninefold increase from $342.5
million in 2017, according to FBI data. Financial exploitation is the
most common form of elder abuse in the United States, said a publication by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of the Treasury.
The largest number of known abusers are relatives who have easy
access to the victim’s account information, government records and
research studies show.
But the largest dollar amounts are lost to financial professionals and experienced criminals, like the ones who exploited Borik.
“While the largest number of cases reported involved family, friends,
and caregivers, the aggregate dollar amounts lost through commercial
elder abuse was the highest,” a 2011 MetLife study reported.
The confidence scams, such as those that targeted Borik — typically
run by criminals who pose as home repairmen or sweethearts — took 4,661
victims older than age 60 last year nationwide, up from 583 in 2017, a
sevenfold increase, FBI data shows.
There also are tech-savvy scamsters who use high-pressure telephone
and internet solicitations — including voice-cloning software to mimic
grandchildren.
The nationwide rise in elder financial exploitation is driven in
large part by demographics. The United States has a growing subset of
older adults with no relatives living close by and no immediate support
network, according to census data and research studies.
In 2018, about 40% of Illinoisans age 60 or older lived alone, and the figure is expected to grow as the number of older adults rises.
‘Of his own free will’
Frederick Giese/Chicago Tribune
Paul Borik (right) at work in the Garfield Park Conservatory in a 1958 archival photo from the Chicago Tribune.
Borik said his fascination with plants began in childhood, when he
discovered snapdragons spilling over a neighbor’s fence. In the 1930s,
he delivered flowers to Chicago hospitals by streetcar or on foot and
then, as a teenager, worked at local nurseries.
He got a degree in horticulture from the University of Illinois. But
events pushed him into a new primary role — physically helping and
financially supporting his aging parents and brother John Borik Jr.,
disabled in WWII.
“I tried to help in what ways I could. I tried to take care of my family and Johnny,” Borik said.
“Paul is such a good man with such a giant heart that I can see where
it would be possible for people to take advantage of him,” said Borik’s
cousin Jo Otiepka.
Borik’s memories dissolve when asked about the scams that plunged him
into government care. This account is based on APS and court records.
Those who targeted Borik came from a loose network of at least 40
people convicted together for felony crimes against seniors or who lived
at the same addresses as they executed elderly cons in Illinois and
elsewhere, according to a review of more than 100 Cook County cases.
In what’s listed as Case A, for which Miller served prison time for
felony theft, state-contracted APS investigators visited Borik’s house
and immediately reported the matter to police.
“Worker went around to backyard, which was so overgrown with plant
and tree branches that worker could not walk in it,” a Catholic
Charities caseworker reported to APS.
A year and half later — in June 2013 — Catholic Charities closed its
file on Borik, saying in its final report he “does not believe he will
ever see any of his money again, but he will get along.”
In January 2014, Borik was taken to Swedish Hospital for a leg
infection and diagnosed there with dementia. Doctors recommended a
nursing home because of his inability to manage daily living. But Borik
opted to stay in his house.
In early 2015, a 42-year-old appeared at a nearby grocery store Borik
frequented, the public guardian said in court pleadings. She said she
needed surgery, records show.
Between March and August of that year, records show Borik made 22 payments to the woman totaling $162,455 from various accounts.
“The same thing is happening again,” a Catholic Charities caseworker
wrote in an internal APS report. “Client is a hoarder, and the house is
unlivable.”
But Catholic Charities closed Case B on Christmas Eve 2015, citing Borik’s refusal of services.
What’s referred to as Case C began in summer 2016, when Borik called
Catholic Charities after being taken for $39,200 by a home repair
scamster who promised to lay concrete in front of Borik’s home on North
Lowell Avenue. If he didn’t get the job, the man told Borik, he would be
deported and likely killed.
Borik made three cash payments, then “the alleged abuser vanished,” an APS report said.
Borik told Catholic Charities he went to the police, but they would
not take a report because he could not name this new abuser. The
nonprofit closed Case C on July 20, 2016, noting Borik didn’t know the
name of the abuser, “and client gave money of his own free will.”
Case D was opened a few days later, when a 23-year-old woman struck
up a conversation with Borik at a nearby Tony’s Finer Foods. Borik ended
up buying her a $12,000 Ford Fusion and authorized $75,000 in bank
withdrawals that allegedly went to her and family members, records show.
No criminal charges were filed against her or anyone else in cases B through D.
Today, in his nursing home room, Borik keeps a reference book on plants, using prayer guides as bookmarks.
“In the Army, you’re drafted, you’re there, it’s maybe not what you
want,” Borik said. “It’s not a perfect life by any means. But I try to
do what’s right.”
Injustice Watch reporter Carlos Ballesteros, Syracuse University
digital journalism Assistant Professor Alex Richards, and Northwestern
University journalism student Mrinali Dhembla contributed to this story.
In January 2014, Borik was taken to Swedish Hospital for a leg
infection and diagnosed there with dementia. Doctors recommended a
nursing home because of his inability to manage daily living. But Borik
opted to stay in his house.
In early 2015, a 42-year-old appeared at a nearby grocery store Borik
frequented, the public guardian said in court pleadings. She said she
needed surgery, records show.
Between March and August of that year, records show Borik made 22 payments to the woman totaling $162,455 from various accounts.
“The same thing is happening again,” a Catholic Charities caseworker
wrote in an internal APS report. “Client is a hoarder, and the house is
unlivable.”
But Catholic Charities closed Case B on Christmas Eve 2015, citing Borik’s refusal of services.
What’s referred to as Case C began in summer 2016, when Borik called
Catholic Charities after being taken for $39,200 by a home repair
scamster who promised to lay concrete in front of Borik’s home on North
Lowell Avenue. If he didn’t get the job, the man told Borik, he would be
deported and likely killed.
Borik made three cash payments, then “the alleged abuser vanished,” an APS report said.
Borik told Catholic Charities he went to the police, but they would
not take a report because he could not name this new abuser. The
nonprofit closed Case C on July 20, 2016, noting Borik didn’t know the
name of the abuser, “and client gave money of his own free will.”
Case D was opened a few days later, when a 23-year-old woman struck
up a conversation with Borik at a nearby Tony’s Finer Foods. Borik ended
up buying her a $12,000 Ford Fusion and authorized $75,000 in bank
withdrawals that allegedly went to her and family members, records show.
No criminal charges were filed against her or anyone else in cases B through D.
Today, in his nursing home room, Borik keeps a reference book on plants, using prayer guides as bookmarks.
“In the Army, you’re drafted, you’re there, it’s maybe not what you
want,” Borik said. “It’s not a perfect life by any means. But I try to
do what’s right.”
Injustice Watch reporter Carlos Ballesteros, Syracuse University
digital journalism Assistant Professor Alex Richards, and Northwestern
University journalism student Mrinali Dhembla contributed to this story.
A Wyoming legislative task force has drafted a bill that would open the
state’s civil courts to pursuing justice for exploiting vulnerable
adults.
by Leo Wolfson
Wyoming state Sen. Eric Barlow, R-Gillette, is pushing a bill that would expand remedies for vulnerable adults to being able to file civil lawsuits. (Matt Idler for Cowboy State Daily)
A bill will be considered in the 2024 Wyoming legislative session to expand protections for vulnerable adults.
The
Mental Health and Vulnerable Adult Task Force has passed draft
legislation that allows people to file civil lawsuits against those
believed to have exploited vulnerable adults.
If
successful, the bill would greatly expand on current Wyoming laws,
which now only provide for criminal prosecution for people who exploit
or mistreat vulnerable adults.
Sen.
Eric Barlow, R-Gillette, a member of the task force helping
spearhead the bill, told Cowboy State Daily the law would bring
more accountability and protection for vulnerable adults in Wyoming.
“It’s
a means of accountability and another means of really allowing people
who are exploited, for whatever reason, to seek justice,” he said.
Vulnerable adults frequently face financial exploitation, victims of theft of sometimes very large sums of money.
Barlow,
who has friends who have fallen victim to these types of schemes,
believes the bill will deter those who are considering taking advantage
of a vulnerable adult and more effectively punish those who already
have.
Filling A Void
Under
current Wyoming law, reckless abuse, neglect, abandonment, intimidation
or exploitation of a vulnerable adult is a misdemeanor charge
punishable by up to a year in jail, a fine up to $1,000 and registration
of the offender's name in a central registry.
The
new bill, Vulnerable Adults-Civil Cause of Action, would allow people
to take others to civil court themselves for cases where state
prosecutors were unable to file criminal charges, or even if charges
were filed, still fall short in the eyes of those exploited.
“I think it’s citizens being able to utilize the courts to ensure they are being protected,” Barlow said.
Task
Force member Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, said during a Wednesday
meeting that law enforcement often doesn’t have the tools or resources
at its disposal to bring criminal charges for the exploitation of
vulnerable adults.
She believes the
bill will empower Wyoming residents and the state’s vulnerable adults
and produce better results for them and their families.
“I
think there’s a gap in the law as far as providing this type of piece,”
Nethercott said. “Now we’re providing an avenue for that to occur in a
very meaningful way.”
Serial Offenders
Barlow
said many of the people who exploit vulnerable adults, a demographic
that can range anywhere from younger adults with developmental issues to
physically disabled seniors, are serial offenders.
“The lack of prosecution allows them to go back and take advantage of another person,” he said.
Although
Barlow said exploitation is usually limited to acts of financial theft,
there are other examples of vulnerable adults being compromised in
other ways such as unjustly sent to a senior home or people taking
advantage of a vulnerable adult’s property.
The
issue of vulnerable adult exploitation has been on the Legislature’s
radar since at least 2017, when it was identified by a previous task
force. Barlow said he was informed by Department of Family Services
staff there were 155 cases of exploited vulnerable adults in Wyoming
over the last several years, a statistic limited to instances where
criminal charges were filed
“It’s another tool in the tool box of people helping themselves or helping their loved ones,” he said.
What Does It Do?
Under the law, a vulnerable adult would be eligible for actual and punitive damages if found deserving by a court.
As
written, the bill only allows for a civil action to be brought by the
vulnerable adult, that person's guardian or conservator, or by the
personal representative of the estate of a deceased vulnerable adult.
Nethercott
questions whether it’s unusual to require a personal representative of
the estate of a deceased vulnerable adult to be dead for charges to be
brought by that person. She said complications can sometimes arise in
cases where a victim isn’t available to testify.
“I do anticipate that being a problem if this bill moves forward and passes and comes into law,” she said.
Rep.
Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne, also pointed to a potential flaw in the bill
in that a guardian or conservator could be the one causing the abuse in
the first place. He suggested a wider range of people who could pursue
civil action.
He also said there is
ambiguity about the term “malicious” as far as specific intent to
exploit, because the word is not specifically defined under Wyoming law.
Barlow suggested removing the word from the bill entirely.
There
is a large list of people who are eligible to bring claims of abuse
against a vulnerable adult in Wyoming, including themselves if deemed
mentally competent.
The bill now covers any form of exploitation and allows for reimbursement of legal fees.
What’s Next?
The
bill was unanimously approved by the task force and will be sent to a
standing interim committee to be considered this fall for sponsorship.
If a standing committee doesn’t take up the bill, Barlow said he will
sponsor the legislation individually and feels confident it will pass
into law.
The only pushback the bill
may face is from those who believe the current exploitation laws are
sufficient and worry that adding more legal avenues could discourage
people from assisting vulnerable adults in the first place.
A
separate bill establishing required cross-reporting between law
enforcement and the Department of Family Services for discovery of
vulnerable adults will be presented to the Judiciary Committee in
September.
HOUSTON, Texas — A federal court has sentenced an
Indian national for his role as the ringleader in a mail fraud scheme
that targeted elderly and vulnerable victims across the United States,
according to U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani.
26-year-old MD
Azad, an illegal resident of Houston, was ordered to serve 188 months in
federal prison following his guilty plea on August 15, 2022. Azad
admitted to participating in the fraud ring, which operated in various
cities, including Houston, from 2019 to 2020.
U.S. District Judge
Kenneth Hoyt, who presided over the case, described Azad as the
U.S.-based ringleader of the operation, working in conjunction with a
call center in India. The court heard evidence of the financial
devastation the fraud scheme caused to elderly and vulnerable victims
throughout the United States.
“The victims in this case were
devastated, financially and otherwise,” said Hamdani. “This fraud ring
repeatedly preyed on elderly and vulnerable people in the United States
who spoke of threats of bodily harm if they did not comply with demands
for more money. Our hope, and that of many of the victims, is deterrence
so as to stop others who would think of doing similar harm in our
community and beyond.”
The scheme involved tricking victims into sending money through
various methods, including wire transfers, gift cards, or mailing cash.
The fraudsters would contact victims, claiming to provide technical
support for their computers, gaining access to personal data, bank, and
credit card information. Victims were sometimes victimized multiple
times and threatened with bodily harm if they did not pay.
Other
Indian nationals involved in the conspiracy, including 26-year-old
Anirudha Kalkote, 26-year-old Sumit Kumar Singh, 26-year-old Himanshu
Kumar, and 27-year-old MD Hasib, also illegal residents of Houston, have
pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. All five individuals remain
in custody.
The FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and IRS
Criminal Investigation conducted the investigation with assistance from
Homeland Security Investigations, Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, and
other local law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. The
case is part of the Elder Justice Initiative, aimed at protecting
elderly citizens from financial exploitation and fraud.
General Hospital alum Tyler Christopher claimed that his sister, Susan Asmo Baker, took advantage of his finances while he was under her guardianship.
According to an investigation published by Bloomberg Law,
Christopher accused Baker of using $40,000 of his own money after he
fell in the bathroom and fractured his skull. The accident put him under
Baker’s guardianship for nearly two years, starting in January 2020.
Christopher told the outlet that he never thought he “would be taken
advantage of” by a member of his own family. He said that Baker spent
the $40,000 to pay off credit card debt and fund her family’s move.
Baker respondedin a statement: “If I hadn’t been his guardian, he’d be dead!”
The publication included a series of emails that Baker sent
Christopher during the guardianship. She wrote, “I would have never done
you wrong, not before your injury, during or after, and for some reason
you think I need your money.” She continued, “Sad that you don’t even
trust me. That’s what hurts the most.”
Christopher argued that he wasn’t aware of the terms of the
guardianship arrangement, saying that he was recovering from a major
brain injury at the time, so the decision to have a guardian was made
without his consent.
According to court records, the actor asserted that his sister wanted
to help him, at least initially, but then he noticed her spending and
“egregious abuse” of their legal agreement. Christopher’s lawyer, Justin Schrock, said in official documents that Baker used her brother’s income “as her personal slush fund.”
In April 2023, Baker consented to pay for an accountant to
investigate her spending during the time she was her brother’s guardian.
Meanwhile, Christopher was arrested
for public intoxication after being found asleep on the floor at
Burbank Airport in May. The actor explained that the incident was a
“relapse,” but he is now in recovery.
