Tonight on Marti Oakley's TS Radio Network: Harold Jackson and Michigan Probate Abuses

5:00 pm PST…6:00 pm MST…7:00 pm CST…8:00 pm EST...
"Join us this evening as Harold Jackson reports on the involuntary guardianship of his mother in …you guessed it!! MICHIGAN. Mr. Jackson took his experience with the blatant corruption in the probate system and channeled that into not only exposing the corruption, but researching and documenting lawful remedies that can be used to hold the perpetrators accountable. Having done extensive, exhaustive legal research, he has come up with what looks to be a bonafide plan for recovery.

(Mr. Jackson is NOT an attorney and has never claimed to be one.)

Names such as Judge Ryan and John Munger show up repeatedly in Oakland probate court. These individuals work as a team along with other routine players, working under the guise of elder services and protections, they prey on members of the public for no other reason than self enrichment while abusing the not only the system meant to protect the elderly, but also the targeted victim.

John Munger has profited handsomely and of course there are no limits on how much he can charge the estate or how often.

He has billed my Mother TENS OF THOUSANDS for his “services” at $250/hour – while giving side contracts to people like James Cassidy who then charged MY MOTHER’s estate to clean up evidence of the damage caused by the negligent conservator. They removed EVERYTHING in the house. Judge Kathleen Ryan authorized this.”

LISTEN TO THE SHOW LIVE or listen to the archive later

Read the Hammond report

The Fortress: Protected by Secrecy and Ageism

by Gretchen Rachel Hammond
Part five of five
At the Oakland County Probate Court, relationships between the four judges as well as those between the judges and the attorneys who work in their courtrooms are not simply limited to judicial campaigns. They have a history that is not always on the surface.

Judge Jennifer Callaghan

Judge Jennifer Callaghan, who began her career as an Assistant Attorney General, was hired by Oakland County Public Administrator John Yun in 2010 as an associate attorney and regularly took guardianship and conservatorship cases at the Oakland County Probate Court. When Callaghan ran for Oakland County Probate Judge in November 2016, Yun’s office served as her campaign headquarters, where she received almost $160,000 in contributions.

Oakland County Probate Chief Judge Kathleen Ryan, retiring probate judge Elizabeth Pezzetti, and Judges Linda S. Hallmark and Daniel A. O’Brien attended as “Honored Guests.” Ultimately, Callaghan won with 68 percent of the vote.

Callaghan’s husband Sean is an FBI agent serving in the Detroit office.

Her Judicial Staff Attorney Christine A. Waid used to work for former Oakland County Public Administrator Jon Munger. His firm’s email address is still listed on her profile at the State Bar of Michigan (SBM) and her name is included an attorney with the firm listed as a defendant in a 2016 lawsuit.

Jon B. Munger

Yun and former Oakland County Public Administrator Jon B. Munger worked out of the same address on Gateway Park Drive in Clarkston, Michigan, before Munger relocated his Munger & Associates headquarters half a mile down the street. While Callaghan recuses herself as judge in Yun cases, Munger regularly appears in front of her.

The ongoing deceased estate hearings concerning musician and civil rights activist Aretha Franklin, who passed away in August 2018 without leaving a will, is presided over by Callaghan.

As he is presently the guardian to Franklin’s eldest son, Clarence, Munger is an interested party in the case.

Judge Linda S. Hallmark was appointed as Oakland County Probate Court Judge in 1997 by then–Governor John Engler (R) after spending three years in private practice at May’s then–law firm May & May, PC. She has been unopposed since taking the bench.

May has donated not only to judicial campaigns, but to individuals running for Michigan’s House and Senate.  ...

Civil Death for the Developmentally Disabled
According to a March 2018 report released by the National Council on Disabilities, an estimated 1.3 million Americans with disabilities have been directly impacted by guardianship. [Dohn] Hoyle asserts that 73 percent of Michigan’s developmentally disabled population are under some form of guardianship.

Dohn Hoyle

We have kind of a mill,” he says. “The issue isn’t one of a blindfolded lady justice deciding upon whether they need one or not. It’s automatically assumed. The system continues to portray the necessity of guardianship.”

In its report, the Council took the system to task.

“It has often been noted that an individual subject to guardianship moves through the world indistinguishable from the rest of the population,” the report noted, “except that he or she has undergone a kind of civil death and is no longer permitted to participate in society without mediation through the actions of another if at all.”

The report’s key findings stated that “people with disabilities are widely (and erroneously) seen as less capable of making autonomous decisions than other adults regardless of the actual impact of their disability on their cognitive or decision-making abilities. This can lead to guardianship petitions being filed when it is not appropriate and to guardianship being imposed when it is not warranted by the facts and circumstances.”

“Prisoners have more rights than people under guardianship,” Hoyle says. “I don’t think people recognize that, they ignore it or don’t pay attention to it. So, probate judges are able to continue what they’ve always done, which is not to the benefit of the people who are given guardians.” 

Full Article and Source:
The Fortress: Part Five of Five: Protected by Secrecy and Ageism

The Fortress: Unacknowledged and Unprotected.

by Gretchen Rachel Hammond
Part one of five

In 2016, retired teacher Christine Abood's mother, Gloria, was placed under the control of Oakland County Public Administrator John Yun who put her in a Novi, Michigan, nursing facility. Abood and her sons say they were unable to be at Gloria’s bedside on the night she died because she had been moved and Yun didn’t know where she was.

“I will never forget that, never,” Abood says. “He was supposed to care for her and he didn’t even know where she’d been moved? Why?”

It was a question Abood raised during a 45-minute back-and-forth argument with [Michigan Attorney General Dana] Nessel’s staffers, who refused her and the other families access to the press conference. She left the lobby, throwing her arms up in exasperation. ...

...During her more than two-year fight to regain custody of her mother, [Virginia] Wahab’s daughter Mimi Brun claimed she was denied visitation rights, had a warrant issued by [Judge Linda S.] Hallmark for her arrest and filed three reports with the local police department asserting that [then Oakland County Public Administrator Jon] Munger had illegally entered her mother’s home and looted it.

Jon Munger

After the story was published, a July 30, 2018 bench trial on Brun’s petition to terminate the guardianship and conservatorship of Munger was presided over by Hallmark. During a day-long deposition, Munger was asked how many times he had been appointed as a guardian.

“Several thousand,” he replied, but could not precisely cite the Michigan statute under which a guardian is considered necessary.

He admitted to entering Wahab’s home to look for “Information about ownership, assets, bills, any of the above” and to taking a painting that was hanging on Wahab’s wall.

“It's very colorful. I walk around it every day in my office,” Munger noted.

When asked if he had seen his ward lately, Munger replied, “In 2018, I doubt it.”

He also admitted that he hadn’t reviewed Wahab’s medical records since his first visit in 2016.

Judge Linda S. Hallmark

After a second day of testimony, the trial was adjourned. Before it could resume, Hallmark issued an August 3 opinion and order terminating Munger as guardian and conservator.

“Mr. Munger has satisfactorily provided care, control and custody of Ms. Wahab,” Hallmark wrote. “In all of these matters, Mimi Brun has interfered with Mr. Munger using misinformation, obfuscation and self-dealing. She has engaged in scorched earth litigation. Ms. Brun has demonstrated a complete lack of authority because she believes herself to be the victim.”

“The litigation in this matter has been ongoing for two years,” Hallmark concluded. “The financial and emotional costs to the ward have been significant. It is not in the ward’s best interests for the litigation to continue. Her assets have been depleted but remain with the family.”

Full Article and Source:,
The Fortress Part One of Five: Unacknowledged and Unprotected