Woman admits to bilking Orland man out of more than $1.6 million

From staff reports

A woman has admitted in federal court that she used a series of threats and intimidation to bilk an elderly Orland Park victim out of more than $1.6 million.

Lee Turner, also known as “Ashley Turner,” 40, of Joliet, pleaded guilty on May 16 to one count of using a facility of interstate commerce to promote and carry on unlawful activity, namely theft and intimidation. The conviction is punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah set sentencing for Sept. 8.

Turner admitted in a plea agreement that from 2018 to 2021 she communicated numerous threats and fraudulent statements to the victim, who was in his 70s and had limited vision. Turner’s communications threatened to expose the victim’s purported criminal activity, even though Turner had no knowledge of any such activity committed by the victim. Turner took on false personas to convey false statements purportedly from others, including alleged gang members, individuals involved in organized crime, prosecutors, journalists, and corrupt law enforcement officers.

In one example cited in the plea agreement, Turner, using the alias “Big Joe,” sent a series of messages to the victim, claiming that the victim had to pay $30,000 to prevent law enforcement from raiding the victim’s residence and a relative’s residence. On June 13, 2019, the victim paid Turner $30,000 to avoid the purported raids, the plea agreement states. The money was one of dozens of similar payments, ranging in value from $5,000 to $66,000, that the victim made to Turner. In all, Turner received $1,611,975 from the victim as a result of the scam, the plea agreement states.

The guilty plea was announced by Orland Park Police Chief Eric Rossi, Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert W. “Wes” Wheeler, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the FBI.

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Woman admits to bilking Orland man out of more than $1.6 million

Va. woman pleads in $1.2M embezzlement scheme

By Alex Rose

PHILADELPHIA – A Virginia woman pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud for her role in a million-dollar scheme to embezzle from wards of court-appointed guardianships and funnel the money through a series of shell companies.

Alesha Mitchell, 41, of Suffolk, Va., entered her plea before U.S. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker, of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, who has set sentencing for July 21.

Mitchell was indicted last year with Gloria Byars, 61, of Aldan, and Carlton Rembert, 67, of Hampton, Va., for allegedly defrauding elderly, incapacitated people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Byars was originally arrested in 2020 with former Democratic candidate for county council Keith Collins and his wife, Caroline Collins – Byars’ sister – as part of the same alleged scheme.

Byars, of the first block of Woodlawn Avenue, had been facing hundreds of state charges, but now faces eight counts in federal court for conspiracy, wire fraud, and aiding and abetting bank fraud and money laundering.

Keith and Carolyn Collins, of the first block of Princeton Avenue in Ridley Park, are still facing 12 state counts each of theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception and receiving stolen property, six misdemeanor theft counts and three felony conspiracy counts. The married couple, who serve as pastors at the Church of the Overcomer in Trainer, are scheduled for a hearing before Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan April 18.

According to the indictment and the affidavit of probable cause filed in the state charges last year, Byars had worked from 2008 to October 2016 at a Havertown business that cares for wards appointed by the state. In her position, Byars assisted the company’s owner in managing wards’ assets and had access to their checkbooks and bank accounts, the indictment says.

Byars was appointed guardian of several wards in 2015, granting her access to their assets as well, according to prosecutors. She set up her own corporation in August 2016, called Global Guardian Services LLC, shortly before leaving the Havertown company.

The indictment alleges that Mitchell, Byars and Rembert fraudulently obtained more than $1.2 million of unauthorized checks from incapacitated wards and deposited them into accounts they opened with local banks, then split the proceeds.

Byars allegedly opened business bank accounts for Global Guardian and “ICU Records & Billing,” while Rembert and Mitchell opened accounts for shell corporations “CWR Medical Services,” and “ACC Medical Billing LLC,” the indictment says. Rembert also allegedly opened business bank accounts in the name of a business he previously operated called Grace Home for Children.

The indictment claims Byars stole money from the wards’ accounts by writing unauthorized checks payable to ICURB, Global Guardian, ACC Medical Billing, CWR Medical and Grace Home in order to make the transactions appear to be legitimate medical expenses incurred by the wards.

After depositing the checks, Rembert and Mitchell obtained cashier’s checks, which were then deposited into Byars’ ICURB and Global Guardian accounts as her cut of the take, according to the indictment.

Tucker has ordered a presentence report ahead of sentencing for Mitchell. Conspiracy to commit bank fraud carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Tiwana Wright. Mitchell is represented by defense attorney Heather Mattes.

Rembert, represented by Vernon Chestnut, is scheduled for a jury trial June 21. Byars’ former attorney was granted a motion to withdraw as counsel earlier this month. An order entered Monday indicates she has 60 days from that date to retain new counsel or proceed pro se. A request for appointment of alternate counsel was denied.

 

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Va. woman pleads in $1.2M embezzlement scheme

Peninsula Man Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Elderly, Tax Evasion

by Nancy Sheppard

HAMPTON — Clarence M. Rice, Jr., of Hampton, pled guilty to charges related to defrauding the elderly and tax evasion.

Rice, 54, pled to charges stemming from incidents that took place between 2013 and 2019. According to the Office of United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Jessica D. Aber, Rice falsely represented to his victims that he was going to receive a sizeable inheritance as long as he paid off his debts. He then tricked his victims to give him large sums of money under the guise of obtaining the inheritance.

Aber’s office noted that Rice stole more than $350,000 from a 75-year-old retired bricklayer and more than $140,000 from an elderly blind man. The identities of the victims were not further clarified. Rice received $632,017.44 total in fraudulent proceeds from his scheme. 

Despite earning this sum as an income, Rice has not filed taxes since 2011. Aber’s office notes that between 2015 and 2019, he defrauded the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by “living a cash lifestyle” which included negotiating checks from his victims for U.S. currency instead of depositing said checks into a bank account. Additionally, Rice hid his assets using prepaid cards and lied to law enforcement regarding his income and assets. As a result, he owes approximately $52,064.18 in personal income tax.

Rice pled guilty to the charges of wire fraud and evasion of income tax assessment. Rice’s plea included an agreement that his victims were of limited financial means and suffered substantial hardship as a result of his scheme.

He is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court on May 25, 2022. Rice faces a maximum 20 years in prison for wire fraud as well as a maximum of five years for tax evasion. However, Aber’s office notes that sentences for federal crimes are usually less than the maximum penalties.

Aber’s office notes that combatting elder abuse and financial fraud that targets seniors are key priorities of the U.S. Department of Justice. Elder abuse impacts 10 percent of Americans each year. These crimes include physical abuse, financial fraud, scams and exploitation, caregiver neglect and abandonment, psychological abuse, and sexual abuse.

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Peninsula Man Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Elderly, Tax Evasion

Texas doctor sues Adult Protective Services staff over elder exploitation report

By David Yates

HOUSTON - The physician who sued a Houston probate judge over her guardianized mother’s will has also filed a complaint in federal court against the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services accusing the state agency of equal protection and due process violations.

Dr. Sheila Owens Collins named as defendants Adult Protective Services (APS) Director Jamie Masters, APS Supervisor Lydia Bias, and her niece Aisha Ross, alleging defamation, retaliation as well as unconstitutional policies, procedures, and practices, according to a press release.

“APS has a system in place to assure more experienced investigators get appointed for difficult cases, especially where there are forensic accounting issues,” Plaintiff’s attorney Martin J. Cirkiel wrote in the complaint. “But Defendant Bias did not sufficiently supervise staff to assure this occurred and rather appointed an inexperienced investigator.”

A neonatologist on staff at a Clearlake hospital and other hospitals nationwide, Dr. Owens Collins accuses Ross, her niece, of filing a false report with APS alleging that the physician was financially exploiting her mother Mrs. Hattie Owens.

“Aisha Ross took advantage of the obvious lack of experience of the investigator and totally contaminated the process,” the complaint states. “Not surprisingly, the first investigatory report from APS came back with a finding that Dr. Collins had financially exploited her mother.”

Ross allegedly used the APS finding to file for permanent guardianship of her grandmother Mrs. Hattie Owens.

“[Ross] cited the alleged exploitation of Mrs. Owens by Dr. Collins as the primary rationale for the application,” Attorney Cirkiel wrote in the lawsuit. “It totally polluted the guardianship proceeding with the guardian, attorney ad litem and Judge turning against Dr. Collins.” 

As previously reported in the SE Texas Record, Dr. Owens Collins sued Harris County Probate Judge Michael Newman last month in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, alleging unlawful treatment, rascality, and unfair judicial practices that violated Mrs. Owen’s final wishes before she died under court-appointed guardianship. 

On Nov. 3, the Honorable Judge Newman recused himself from underlying litigation involving the estate of Mrs. Hattie Owens.

“Dr. Collins filed a response to the application which disputed the need for a guardianship,” Attorney Cirkiel states in the plaintiff's pleading. “First, that the durable power of attorney and joint account were less restrictive means adequate to meet [Mrs. Hattie Owens’] needs. Additionally, that because Ross had a long criminal history of shoplifting and time in jail, it disqualified her from serving as guardian in the event the court determined the need for temporary or permanent guardianship.”

Dr. Owens Collins’ APS lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Texas in Austin, requests that the state agency’s failure to have a full appeal system in place be declared unconstitutional and that a declaratory judgment be issued ordering the APS to develop such an appeal process.

“Dr. Collins got in touch with Defendant Bias in the hope she could help facilitate the appeal process,” Dr. Owens Collins’ attorney states. “Rather than doing so, Bias threatened Dr. Collins that if she proceeded with the appeal she would assure the findings would definitely be reported to the Medical Board, the Houston Police Department and Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Sometime thereafter, the Houston APS Office did change the finding of exploitation to unable to determine but that finding requires reporting to the medical board and many other governmental entities.”

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Texas doctor sues Adult Protective Services staff over elder exploitation report 

 

See Also: 

Doctor sues Texas judge over guardianized mom's will

 

Doctor sues Texas judge over guardianized mom's will

By David Yates

HOUSTON - A Texas physician executive has sued a Houston-area probate judge in federal court, alleging unlawful treatment, rascality, unfair judicial practices that violated her mother Hattie Owen’s final wishes before she died under court-appointed guardianship. 

The plaintiff daughter, Dr. Sheila Owens Collins, named Harris County Probate Judge Michael Newman in her complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Texas.

“The court conspired and colluded in actions that caused the loss of life for Hattie Owens and loss of a mother for Dr. Sheila Owens-Collins,” the Oct. 22 federal complaint states.

As previously reported by the SE Texas Record, it is not uncommon for the elderly and people with disabilities to lose their individual rights around choice of meals, health insurance, marital status, medical care, medication, residence, visitation, assets and property once they become a ward of most American states under a court-ordered guardianship. 

“Hon. Judge Newman declared that the plaintiff [Dr. Sheila Owens Collins] was unsuitable to serve as the first-named executor,” the opening brief states. “The stated reason of family discord is unreasonable and not substantiated by case law. The siblings have been disgruntled all of their lives. Their mother, Hattie Owens, was aware of this and named plaintiff, Dr. Owens Collins to carry out her last wishes. The Judge is arbitrarily non-compliant with her wish in favor of channeling more monies out of the estate to the detriment of the beneficiaries."

Dr. Owens-Collins, a neonatologist on staff at a Clearlake hospital and other hospitals nationwide, alleges in the complaint that the Honorable Judge Newman caused undue diminution of her mother's estate and ignored her mother’s wishes, which were stated in a will, accepting instead as truth the submission of unsubstantiated claims that slandered the doctor's character, according to a press release.

"This case highlights the failures of the public entity known as the Harris County Guardianship and Probate Court system, as well as the failures of the agents and appointees of the Harris County guardianship program under both Texas state law and the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) for the acts and omissions of the Harris County guardianship program,” the pleading states.

After the plaintiff's mother died on Jan. 1, 2019, Dr. Owens Collins alleges that the Honorable Judge Newman abused his discretion by closing the guardianship prematurely before the estate was satisfactorily settled by all stakeholders.  

“Defendant exploited Plaintiff by subjecting her to conditions and mistreatment that are nothing short of vile,” according to the complaint. “Hon. Judge Newman allowed a toxic environment in the court proceedings by allowing Guardian Ad Litem [Tim Berlinger] to spew inflammatory remarks about the plaintiff that were defaming, unprofessional, and totally unsubstantiated.”

In the lawsuit, the plaintiff daughter states she has filed a complaint against the Honorable Judge Newman with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. The relief she seeks includes a jury trial, public injunctive relief as well as a declaration that reverses the alleged weaponization of the court system while enjoining the judiciary. 

At a Nov. 9 probate court hearing, Judge Newman is scheduled to consider the plaintiff’s son Dr. Roy Collins, a Yale graduate and psychiatrist-in-training at Stanford University in California, as the second executor. However, the federal complaint states, "Judge Newman has already signaled that the second executor, who happens to be the Plaintiff’s son and decedent’s grandson, will not be named executor, which is an abuse of judicial discretion."

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Doctor sues Texas judge over guardianized mom's will 

Federal Court Equates Elder Guardianship to Racketeering

A trio of federal appellate justices affirmed a lower district court decision to deny a probate officer’s request for an award of attorney fees and declared that court appointed guardianship of the elderly can be used as a

racketeering enterprise.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Ohio Northern District's decision involving a physician named Dr. Mehdi Saghafi, 89, and his wife Mrs. Fourough Bakhtiar [Saghafi], 85, who was declared incompetent due to dementia and was placed under the control of Guardian of the Estate Zachary Simonoff by a local probate judge. Simonoff was seeking an award for his legal fees but the honorable federal appellate justices Jeffrey Stuart Sutton, Deborah L. Cook and Amul Thapar denied his request.

Instead, the Justices stated in their landmark opinion that they are unconvinced of Probate Court Officer Simonoff’s claim that “[Dr. Mehdi] Saghafi’s legal positions were frivolous.”

Simonoff declined to comment stating in an email, “I am sorry I can't discuss on going litigation.”

The physician husband challenged an order requiring him to pay to Simonoff, the guardian, some $3 million of his pension proceeds held at Franklin Templeton mutual fund company after a divorce was reportedly imposed upon him by the court guardians, enabling the division of some $8 million in joint retirement savings.

“The 6th Circuit ruling confirmed my client’s right to challenge a court order, which may have been obtained through abuses of judicial processes,” said Dr. Saghafi’s attorney Chuck Longo in a telephone interview. “The decision will have far reaching negative implications for guardians and lawyers who improperly use guardianships as criminal enterprises to defraud the elderly and incompetent, which is a violation of the RICO statute.”

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act was enacted by section 901(a) of the Organized Crime Control Act in 1970 and allows extended criminal penalties to be charged as well as civil causes of action for conduct performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.
It was the Honorable Lorain County Probate Judge James T. Walther who appointed Simonoff as Mrs. Bakhtiar [Saghafi]’s guardian of the estate.

“Whenever you defy a facially valid court order, you have some explaining to do,” wrote the panel of federal appellate judges in their opinion. “But Saghafi does have an explanation. He maintains that the divorce proceedings were a fraud on the court, a sham. And Ohio-law authorities suggest that a judgment procured by fraud may be void.”

Simonoff sued Dr. Saghafi in federal court and Dr. Saghafi filed a counterclaim, alleging violations of the federal RICO Act.

“Simonoff argues the RICO counterclaim was unreasonable because (he says) a guardianship is not an “enterprise” under the RICO Act,” stated the panel of three judges. “But Simonoff fails to explain why an association that does its dirty work through a guardianship cannot be an enterprise. If anything, the Act’s expansive definition suggests the opposite. Right or wrong, Saghafi’s legal theory was not frivolous.”

At the core of the legal dispute is Dr. Saghafi’s estranged daughter Jaleh Presutto, who was allegedly removed and re-appointed as guardian on multiple occasions by Judge Walther and in May 2018 pleaded guilty to multiple felonies allegedly.

“To some, this might mark [Saghafi] as a sore loser bent on delay and vexation but others might see the distress and indignation of an elderly man who believed — maybe rightly, maybe wrongly, but at least sincerely — that his daughter and her lawyers had teamed up to loot him by taking ruthless advantage of an old woman’s dementia and duping the Ohio courts,” state the appellate justices in their decision. “The district court saw the latter.”

As previously reported in Pacer Monitor News, the Saghafi litigation is one among many complaints across the country that are alleging fraud in court-appointed adult guardianships of the elderly and people with disabilities, which are designed to help them manage their lives. Accusations also include cruelty, neglect, starvation, isolation from family members, sexual abuse, over medication, financial exploitation and violation of constitutional rights.

Dr. Saghafi is continuing his litigation in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas before the Honorable Judge Sherrie Miday. Discovery is scheduled to conclude in May.

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Federal Court Equates Elder Guardianship to Racketeering

Former judge Sherwood sentenced up to 9 years; stole millions from elderly clients

The Enterprise — Elizabeth Floyd Mair
Richard Sherwood leans over to try to
sign, awkwardly, a court document while
wearing handcuffs. His attorney, William
Dreyer of Dreyer Boyajian, looks on.

GUILDERLAND — Richard Sherwood, once a Guilderland town judge, stood before the bench of both a federal judge and then a county judge on Thursday to be sentenced for crimes to which he had pleaded guilty: stealing millions of dollars from elderly clients whose estates he managed.

Wearing a green and orange prison jumpsuit, he told federal judge Lawrence Kahn that he was “so ashamed, embarrassed, and angry at myself,” just before he was sentenced to 54 months, or 4½ years, to be followed by one year of supervised release.

Later that same day, in the state’s Supreme Court — the lowest rung in its three-tiered system — Sherwood was sentenced by Judge Peter Lynch to 3 to 9 years; the two sentences will run concurrently.

Sherwood was in prison garb because he was already in federal custody. He had needed to turn himself in prior to the sentencing, his attorney William Dreyer of Dreyer Boyajian said, for it to be possible to have the sentences run concurrently.

In federal court, Sherwood received a sentence of 54 months for one count of conspiracy to launder money and 36 months on each of two counts of filing false income tax returns, for the years 2013 and 2015. The sentences on the three federal charges are to run concurrently, for a total of 54 months. Sherwood had faced a maximum of 20 years on the charge of conspiracy to launder money.

Sherwood, who hung his head throughout nearly the entire proceeding, had asked Kahn whether he should stand to give his statement.

He told the judge, ”I just want to express my sincere remorse for the horrible thing I have done.” He added, “I sincerely apologize to anyone I have hurt or disappointed or embarrassed, including the bar and the judiciary, by what I have done.”

Sherwood and Lagan’s elderly clients were Capital Region philanthropists Warren and Pauline Bruggeman, who had intended part of the assets for the lifelong care of her sisters, also elderly; remaining funds were to go to charity once all the family members had died. All four had eventually died, and none of them had any children.

Restitution will be made to the intended charities, once it can be ascertained who was to get what. Assistant United States Attorney Michael Barnett told Kahn, at Lagan’s sentencing, that the pair of financial advisors had made such a mess of the books that investigators had not yet sorted everything out.

Sherwood’s wife, Carole, was in the courtroom, but declined to comment after the sentencing.

Dreyer, Sherwood’s attorney, told the federal judge on Dec. 19 that Sherwood had admitted guilt right away when first approached by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in February 2018. The agents had visited both Sherwood and his co-conspirator Thomas Lagan at the same time and, while Sherwood was explaining to them how the trust had been set up as a fraud, Lagan was apparently telling them that the trust was legitimate and reflected their elderly client’s wishes for Lagan and Sherwood to have the money.

Lagan then spent a year denying everything, Dreyer said, while Sherwood explained how the pair’s financial crimes had worked and helped the officers track the funds.

The amount of restitution due, Kahn said, is the total amount Sherwood stole, $5,560,505.

Assistant United States Attorney Michael Barnett told The Enterprise after the sentencing that Sherwood has at this point “satisfied a substantial amount of his restitution obligation.”

Watching

The victims of Sherwood’s financial crimes are dead, but in the courtroom was a woman who said she had waited years to see justice done. Melinda Peck had appeared in Sherwood’s Guilderland courtroom in July 2016 to give a victim impact statement against her former boyfriend, William Beer, whom a jury had convicted of having assaulted her in April 2014 by punching her repeatedly in the head one night while he drove and she sat in the passenger seat. The assault charge was a misdemeanor, but Beer had opted for a jury trial.

Sherwood gave Beer no jail time but only a $1,000 fine and 100 hours of community service. The District Attorney’s Office had asked for nine months in Albany County’s jail. “I felt like he was in a really high position, and he was looking at my life like I was nothing. He had more compassion for my assailant, a criminal, than he did for me,” Peck told The Enterprise in the federal courtroom Thursday morning.

All the effort she had made for the two years it took her case to work its way through the system, including reliving the details in open court while Beer and a friend sat in the gallery and snickered, felt like it was for naught, she said.

This time, she said at Sherwood’s sentencing, she got to see the justice system work. She felt peace, she said, adding, “”This is the end of a long, emotional road. Now I get to go home to my family.” She doesn’t take pleasure in his demise, she said, but she is relieved to see the justice system work, she said, “the way it is supposed to.”

After the conclusion of the federal sentencing, Peck said she had spoken to Carole Sherwood, telling her, “I’m one of the people your husband hurt.”

Peck said that she had had added, “Let him know I accept his apology.”

The sentence

Earlier, on Dec. 11, Lagan was sentenced to 78 months, or 6-½ years, a sentence two years longer than given to Sherwood.

Kahn said at Sherwood’s sentencing that he was taking into account many factors, including the pre-sentencing report, plea agreement, sentencing memorandum by counsel, and the sentencing guidelines. The sentencing guidelines advise a period of imprisonment of between 78 and 97 months.

Kahn also considered, he said, the defendant’s overall conduct, lack of criminal history, and his long-standing prior work as “a respected attorney and as a judge.” Kahn took into account, he said, Sherwood’s immediate admission and his ongoing cooperation, his truthfulness throughout the investigation, his help in tracking the assets involved, and his demonstrated remorse.

The judge noted that Sherwood had indicated during the investigation that he had stolen to “make up for lost income from sloppy billing practices in his law firm over the years.” Kahn noted that this was not an excuse, but said that Sherwood’s co-defendant, Lagan, had never offered any reason whatsoever for his actions.

Khan said he was also factoring in the substantial loss, and Sherwood’s abuse of trust.

“As a former judge, Mr. Sherwood knows more than most defendants that no one is above the law,” Kahn said.

After announcing Sherwood’s sentence, Kahn told him, “I'm sure once this is behind you, you will have, hopefully, many years of a good life with your family again that still supports you.”

County court

Later that same day, in the state’s Supreme Court — the lowest rung in its three-tiered system — Sherwood was sentenced by Judge Peter Lynch.

In Lynch’s court, the attorneys — Dreyer for Sherwood and Christopher Baynes of the Attorney General’s Office for the state — both asked the court to modify Sherwood’s sentence on a single charge of second-degree grand larceny to, instead of 3-½ to 10 years, 3 to 9 years.

Dreyer told The Enterprise that Sherwood will have an opportunity to apply for parole after three years.

Lynch addressed in court the possibility of applying for parole in three years, and noted that, if the application is made and then denied, Sherwood could not apply again for two years. That would mean, the judge said, that his sentence would be longer than the 4-½ years given by Kahn. The parties all agreed that, if that were to happen, they would return to Lynch’s court for a resentencing.

The amount of restitution due in the state proceeding is $5,329,706.

Kahn had clarified in his sentencing that restitution of either amount will count toward the other, so that Sherwood will not be paying twice.

Dreyer had requested of Kahn that he recommend that Sherwood serve his time at the federal prison in Canaan, Pennsylvania — the same prison that Lagan had requested a week earlier because, Lagan’s attorney Kevin Luibrand said, it has an outstanding substance-abuse treatment program.

After the sentencing in county court, Dreyer told The Enterprise, “He doesn’t want to be in there with Mr. Lagan. He wants to be in that facility.” There was no indication, in either sentencing, that Sherwood has any substance abuse problems, as Lagan does.

Rather, Sherwood’s attorney said, he made the request because the prison in Canaan is the federal prison with openings that is closest to the Capital Region.

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Former judge Sherwood sentenced up to 9 years; stole millions from elderly clients 

Federal judge refuses to acquit Cook County judge as she clings to the bench

For months, a Cook County judge found guilty of fraud has refused to step down from the bench, insisting that the federal judge overseeing her criminal case could still overturn the jury’s verdict.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin shut the door on that possibility, denying several motions made by defense lawyers for Jessica Arong O’Brien, including her request for an acquittal or a new trial.

O’Brien now faces sentencing Oct. 9. A jury found her guilty Feb. 15. And though she has been doing little judicial work, she has been paid $148,900 so far this year, according to a state comptroller database.

Steve Greenberg, O’Brien’s attorney, said he was disappointed by Durkin’s 45-page ruling and insisted the government overreached in its case against O’Brien.

He also said, “I think it’s too soon for her to do anything today.”

“Let her have a minute to absorb the ruling,” Greenberg said. “But obviously, if the conviction stands, she’s not going to be able to continue as a judge.”

Federal jurors found O’Brien guilty after prosecutors said she pocketed $325,000 during a mortgage fraud scheme that took place more than a decade ago, before she became a judge.

Despite becoming the rare sitting judge to be found guilty in federal court, O’Brien has fought on multiple fronts to keep her job — and even filed paperwork to seek retention in November’s election.

The Illinois Supreme Court suspended O’Brien’s law license back in April. Then, in July, retired Cook County Judge George Scully pointed to the suspension and asked the Illinois Supreme Court to remove O’Brien from the November ballot.

The state constitution requires a judge to be “a licensed attorney-at-law of this state.” O’Brien is “not authorized to practice law due to discipline,” according to the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission.

The high court has yet to rule.

The Illinois Courts Commission is also set to consider at a Sept. 24 hearing whether to suspend O’Brien from her position without pay. O’Brien’s lawyers have argued the Courts Commission — the body authorized to discipline judges — does not have the authority to “discipline a judge for conduct which occurs prior to the judge’s election to the bench.”

After her indictment in April 2017, O’Brien began to perform administrative duties. Typically that includes presiding over marriages. However, a spokesman for Cook County Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans has said she is no longer even doing that.

Full Article & Source:
Federal judge refuses to acquit Cook County judge as she clings to the bench

Echoes of Atalissa: Federal agency sues bunkhouse owner for exploiting mentally disabled workers

Four years ago, an Iowa jury handed a group of intellectually disabled workers who had been exploited for years the nation’s largest-ever award in an employment discrimination case: a staggering $240 million.

It was intended to compensate 32 men for the decades they'd spent in indentured servitude while employed by Henry’s Turkey Service, a labor broker accused of paying the men as little as 41 cents an hour while providing them with housing in a dilapidated bunkhouse on the outskirts of Atalissa.

The jury's award was immediately slashed to just $1.6 million — less than 1 percent of the amount specified by jurors — because of federal caps on damages.

Even so, the verdict represented an uplifting final chapter in a long story of exploitation and abuse.

But now that story has an unexpected postscript.

Robert Canino, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawyer who pursued the case against Henry's, is back in federal court.

This time, he's fighting Joseph Paul Byrd, a former Henry’s Turkey Service supervisor who took over the company’s Newberry, South Carolina, labor camp in the 1980s and kept it running for another 30 years.

In September 2016, the EEOC sued Byrd's company, Work Services Inc., alleging it had forced its intellectually disabled workers to live in a crowded, substandard bunkhouse, paid them “unconscionable wages” that were less than what nondisabled workers were paid, and subjected the men to a hostile work environment in which they were called “stupid,” “retarded” and “dumb.”

The company has denied the allegations, and a trial is scheduled for August.

"Sadly, the discovery of this situation, answers, in part, the question that has arisen since the disturbing Henry's Turkey Service operation came to light in Iowa a few years ago," Canino said. 

"After seeing how workers with intellectual disabilities had fallen between the societal cracks, being virtually invisible for decades, many have asked, 'Could there be any other situations like this out there or right in our own backyards?'

"The answer, sadly, turned out to be, 'Yes' — and what we found here serves to remind us all to remain vigilant against such abuse of our neighbors and co-workers."

Workers exploited at every turn

In a deposition taken last December as part of a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Labor, Byrd acknowledged that the six disabled workers who lived in the two trailers that made up the Newberry bunkhouse were each charged $800 in monthly rent, while the three or four nondisabled men who lived there paid monthly rent of $150 to $200 each.

During his deposition, Byrd was unable to explain the disparity, except to say that he was maintaining practices established by his former employer, Henry’s Turkey Service,  decades ago.

“That’s just the way it was always done,” he told a lawyer for the Department of Labor. “That’s simply the way it was when I started.”

In his deposition, Byrd also acknowledged that he and his manager, David Perez, forged signatures on the disabled men’s paychecks and cashed them, then paid the men weekly allowances of $50 to $80 each.

Byrd also testified that he took the men’s disability checks as compensation for room and board and deposited the men’s tax refunds into a company account used to pay his personal and business expenses. 

According to Byrd, he began working for Henry’s Turkey Service in 1968, when the company was populating labor camps across the United States with intellectually disabled men recently discharged from state-run institutions in Texas.

Byrd said that because his job was to supervise the individuals running the various labor camps, he traveled from one site to the next, in Iowa, Texas, Missouri, Illinois, South Carolina and Kansas.

At one time, Iowa was home to three labor camps runs by Henry’s — in Ellsworth, Storm Lake and Atalissa.

In 1985, Byrd went into business on his own, purchasing the Henry’s labor camp operation in Newberry, South Carolina. At the time, he said, the bunkhouse consisted of 15 disabled men living in a set of trailers across the street from a turkey processing plant.

Over the next 30 years, the men who worked at the plant would arrive there in the morning, help unload live turkeys from trucks, hang them on hooks and kill them. It was, as Byrd later acknowledged, difficult and repetitive work.  

By 2009, some of the men had become too old or sick to continue working. A few of them retired but continued to live in the bunkhouse. The same was true at Henry’s last remaining bunkhouse, in Atalissa.

The Iowa operation already was winding down in February 2009 when a Des Moines Register investigation triggered a raid by state and federal authorities. All of the Atalissa workers were relocated to fully licensed care facilities, and the bunkhouse was shut down.

But Byrd’s South Carolina operation continued to do business until late 2014, when New York Times reporter Dan Barry, working on a book about the Atalissa operation, discovered the Newberry bunkhouse and reported that six of the original Henry’s workers were still living there.

Because of health problems, two of the men — Claude Wren and Johnny Hickman — had retired from work at the Louis Rich processing plant across the street from the Newberry bunkhouse, Byrd told the Department of Labor.

But the four others — Leon Jones, Carlos Morris, and Jay and John Koch — were still working at the plant and collecting $50 to $100 per week in compensation from Work Services.

Seeking compensation for the workers

According to corporate tax records, Work Services Inc. had annual gross receipts of almost $1 million at that time. An affiliate, Work Service Co., reported more than $600,000 in gross receipts.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor filed suit against Work Services, Byrd and Perez, alleging they had failed to pay the disabled workers the legally required minimum wage; failed to pay overtime; and failed to keep adequate payroll records.

But the lawsuit was limited in scope: Under federal law, the department could seek payment of only two years’ worth of back wages.

In February, Senior U.S. District Judge Henry Herlong sided with the Department of Labor, granting the agency summary judgment before a trial could take place.

The judge called Byrd’s claim that the workers wanted the company to keep their wages for them “ludicrous,” and he ordered the defendants to pay $165,404 in back wages and damages.

Seven months later, the EEOC filed its own lawsuit against Work Services, alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The EEOC’s lawsuit, if successful, could result in far greater damages than the Department of Labor case, because it seeks compensation in three categories: money for the men’s financial losses; for emotional pain, loss of enjoyment of life and humiliation; and punitive damages for the “malicious or reckless conduct” of the company.

In his December 2016 deposition, Byrd acknowledged his bookkeeping at the bunkhouse wasn’t adequate — he kept thousands of dollars owed to the men stuffed inside envelopes hidden at his home, he said — but that he considered the workers family.

“I did a really poor job of keeping records,” he said. “I was trying real hard to take care of them and make their life a little easier and, hopefully, create a place where they could live the rest of their lives. … I had a lot of affection for each and every one of them. Well, when you’ve spent a third of your life or more with them, they become part of your family, nearly.”

Two of the disabled Henry's workers are related: Carl Wayne Jones and Leon Jones are brothers, just a year apart in age. They began working for Henry's in the late 1960s, but the company eventually split them up, sending Carl to Atalissa and Leon to Newberry.   

For decades, the two men didn't see each other.

But in 2014, Canino, the EEOC attorney, set up a Skype connection that enabled the two men, then in their mid-60s, to see and speak to each other for the first time in years.

According to the New York Times, Carl Wayne shared the news that their mother had died long ago; he also talked about his girlfriend and the group home in Waterloo where he lived with some of his friends from the Atalissa bunkhouse.

This year, Carl and his girlfriend got married. Leon rented a tuxedo and, along with some of his friends from the Newberry bunkhouse, traveled to Iowa for the wedding.

"I missed being there," Canino says, "but I am so happy the South Carolina and Iowa guys got to reconnect a bit — especially Carl and Leon."

Henry's Turkey Service still owes millions

No criminal charges were ever filed against Henry’s Turkey Service for the alleged financial exploitation of its Iowa workers, labor law violations, fire-code citations or the lack of a care-facility license at the Atalissa bunkhouse.

At the time, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said the better course of action was to have other agencies pursue civil remedies against company owner Kenneth Henry of Proctor, Texas, who was worth about $3 million.

Several state and federal agencies imposed administrative penalties, or won court judgments, against the company.

They eventually totaled $5.9 million, but Kenneth Henry refused to surrender any of his assets or enter into a payment-plan agreement with the federal government before he died in April 2016.

In recent years, however, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Labor have aggressively pursued collection efforts.

To date, they have distributed roughly $800,000 to the disabled former employees of Henry's. They expect to soon collect an additional $900,000 from the estate of Kenneth Henry, which should bring the total recovery for the Atalissa workers to $1.7 million.

Here's a look at the various judgments and penalties imposed against Henry's:

• May 2009: Iowa Workforce Development imposed a $900,000 penalty against Henry's for violating state labor laws. The penalty was later increased to more than $1.1 million.
• November 2009: The U.S. Department of Labor sued the company for federal labor law violations, resulting in a court judgment against the company for $1.8 million.
• September 2012: After the company offered no resistance or defense to allegations that it violated the fair-wage provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act, a federal judge ordered Henry’s to pay $1.3 million to 32 of its disabled workers.
• May 2013: An Iowa jury returned a verdict of $240 million against Henry’s Turkey Service for discriminatory employment conditions, but the jury verdict was later reduced to $1.6 million because of federal caps on damages in such cases.

Full Article & Source:
Echoes of Atalissa: Federal agency sues bunkhouse owner for exploiting mentally disabled workers