New Mexico Conservator Darryl Millet Disputes Claims in Darnell Case

The conservator in a controversial court case involving the matriarch of a well-known Albuquerque family is defending his actions, challenging complaints made by family members and others in a Journal series late last year on adult guardianships involving private professionals.

Darryl Millet

Among his claims, attorney Darryl W. Millet, of Albuquerque Advocates, says the estate of Blair Darnell wasn’t worth anywhere close to $5 million when he was put in charge of finances – as family members allege, and as reported by guardianship industry professionals to the judge in the case. Those filings were filed under seal but obtained by the Journal.

The Darnell guardian/conservator case was prominently featured in the Journal series by journalist Diane Dimond, who reported family complaints that the estate dissipated from about $5 million to about $750,000.

In addition to challenging the initial value, Millet also cited “expensive” costs to the estate of $14,000-$16,000 a month to provide professional care for Blair Darnell during her six-year guardianship. Some family members attribute the high costs to the court’s appointment of for-profit professionals rather than allowing them to care for Blair Darnell, who remained in her own home.

Millet wouldn’t comment last year about specifics of the case in which he served as conservator/trustee for Blair Darnell, who died in November 2015 at the age of 85. He cited New Mexico law that seals most records involving court-appointed conservators and guardians from public view.

But Millet wrote an eight-page letter to the Journal, dated April 9, 2017, in which he said he was now able to offer previously confidential information for two reasons:

First, he said members of the Darnell family and the Journal “have destroyed any privacy” a sequestration order in the case might have provided to the late Blair Darnell. And, he wrote, he could now speak because the rules of professional conduct governing lawyers allow attorneys “to reveal confidential information to the extent necessary to refute allegations against themselves.”

Full Article and Source:
Darnell Conservator Disputes Claims

See Also:
Who Guards the Guardians?

Families Say They Were Shut Out

Families Feel Steamrolled as Estates Disappear

Fixing a Well-Meaning but Flawed System

Editorial: Guardianship Secrecy in New Mexico is Ripe for Reform

There is no shortage of things that need to be fixed in New Mexico’s system of guardianships and conservatorships for people who are declared incapacitated, but without question the excessive secrecy that shrouds the system ranks high on the list.

So critics can take some comfort in the fact that a commission appointed by the state Supreme Court to review the system and recommend changes has honed in on the lack of transparency as one of the key issues.

Retired state District Judge Wendy York, who was appointed to chair the commission, says it is one of the recurrent themes presented during the commission’s first two public meetings. “We are hearing about notice of court hearings, involvement of family members and what is the appropriate line to draw between complete access to information and privacy.”

And it isn’t just aggrieved family members who have complained they are shut out of the information loop at the whim of for-profit, court-appointed guardians and conservators who take control of their loved one and his or her assets. Attorney Brian Vogler told the commission during its May 13 meeting that the secrecy of the process raises “due process concerns.” Vogler says his client needed to get some information from his guardian but the guardian declined to provide it. “It seems there needs to be a window in to see how the court is proceeding,” he said. After the meeting he said his inability to see how judges behave or have behaved in the past prevented him from learning information he needed and he wanted to speak to the commission to provide a perspective that the secrecy “doesn’t just impact families.”

And that secrecy is a thick blanket, with family members and others saying that in addition to difficulty getting information, they have been threatened with fines and penalties for revealing matters they learned in their own cases.

In theory, only a docket sheet in a guardianship case is considered a public record. But many clerks don’t know the law. The docket sheets have not been posted online, as they are supposed to be, and in a recent case a printed copy of a docket sheet obtained by the Journal had a questionable redaction by district court personnel – the name of a paid medical professional.

Source:
Editorial:  Guardianship Secrecy in New Mexico is Ripe for Reform>/a>