Lawyer Fights Subpoena in Thompson Estate Case

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

With the deadline just days away, the original attorney for the estate of the late U.S. Senator Fred Thompson has filed an objection to a subpoena requiring his deposition testimony this week.

In papers filed Tuesday in Davidson Probate Court, Charles A. Trost charged that he had not been given proper notice for the deposition and, in fact, still has not been served.

The objection is but the latest development in a continuing battle over the late senator and presidential candidate's estate.

Thompson's widow Jeri has filed an objection to a $14,000 claim filed by Trost's law firm, Waller Lansden Dortch and Davis, for work performed in an abortive effort to make last minute changes in the television actor's estate.

In the one-page filing Trost's lawyer said the subpoena was not properly served and that the estate's new attorneys had failed to follow proper procedures including providing at least 21 days advance notice.

The dispute over the bill first surfaced last year, but was put on hold about the same time Thompson's two sons by his first marriage charged that changes had been made in the estate plan when the late senator was no longer competent to approve such changes.

That dispute ended abruptly after Jeri Thompson complied with an order to provide the sons with details on any last minute changes in her husband's estate. She said the only change had been in the secondary beneficiary on a life insurance policy, a change that turned out to be irrelevant.

Because of the failed effort to change the estate plan's, the will finally filed for Thompson by Trost was over a decade old and omitted the two children from his marriage to Jeri.

The subpoena calls for Trost to appear for a deposition on Friday.

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Lawyer Fights Subpoena in Thompson Estate Case

Fred Thompson Estate Fee Fight Heats Up

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

The battle over legal fees being sought from the estate of the late Fred Thompson is heating back up with a series of actions in Davidson Probate Court this week.

In papers filed Wednesday, Jeri Thompson, the widow of the late actor and U.S. Senator, hired a new lawyer who promptly issued a subpoena and deposition notice to Charles Trost, the Nashville, Tenn. attorney whose firm's fees are in dispute.

The new attorney representing Jeri Thompson is John P. Konvalinka, a Chattanooga based attorney, court records show.

The subpoena requires Trost to appear for a deposition on July 21 at the offices of Neal and Harwell, which also has represented Thompson's estate.

Though the issue was put on hold months ago, Jeri Thompson has questioned some $14,000 billed by Trost's firm, Waller Lansden Dortch and Davis for estate work done in the weeks before the late presidential candidate passed away on Nov. 1, 2015.

In one filing she termed the fee request,"inappropriate, improper and not a valid claim."

The effort by the Waller firm to update Thompson's will and estate plans was an apparent failure and his estate was finally opened with a will over a decade old that did not include his children from his second marriage with Jeri.

The legal fees are not the only dispute to surface in the Thompson estate. Two of Thompson's children by his first marriage intervened in the estate charging that estate assets may have been shifted just prior to the senator's death and at a time when he was not competent to approve any changes.

That suspicion was apparently triggered when the fee dispute became public.

After Jeri Thompson complied with a court order to disclose details of the estate assets and any last minute changes, the two sons dropped their claim.

Jeri Thompson stated that the only change executed just before the senator's death was an inconsequential one, involving a secondary beneficiary on a life insurance policy.

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Fred Thompson Estate Fee Fight Heats Up

Clemmons Parole Bid Denied

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A Tennessee board has turned down  parole for a disbarred Nashville attorney who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $1.3 million from wards and estates he had been appointed to oversee and protect.

The state Board of  Probation rejected  parole for John E. Clemmons, 69, who is serving a 25 year sentence after pleading guilty to stealing funds from wards and estates in Davidson and Rutherford Counties.

Clemmons began serving the sentence on Nov. 8, 2013. He is currently an inmate at the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville.

He will not be eligible for another try at parole until May of 2020. Without parole his sentence will not end until 2038.

A spokeswoman for the board said the decision to deny parole was based on the seriousness of the offenses he committed. According to board records Clemmons could have been released next month had the board approved.

Board spokeswoman Melissa McDonald said the first votes cast on Clemmons' case were three concurring votes to deny parole and review again in three years. The vote affirmed a recommendation from a board hearing officer, she said

Clemmons' thefts were first detected by John Bratcher, clerk and master of the Rutherford County Chancery Court.

Bratcher said he had no sympathy for Clemmons and he was pleased with the board's decision.

"John Clemmons stole from the people he had taken an oath to protect. He stole from the weak and incompetent, and he did it over a period of 10 years. He caused almost unspeakable anguish for the families of his victims. He should serve his sentence day for day," Bratcher said.

Clemmons had been named conservator for Russell Church, a retired Rutherford County teacher then living in a nursing home.

In 2013 Bratcher testified that Clemmons stole over $123,910.02 from Church's estate. He said that overall Clemmons took $1.3 million from four victims  Clemmons eventually entered a guilty plea to Rutherford theft charges. Church, court records show, was the only victim to fully recover the stolen funds.

In court documents Bratcher said that Clemmons' began stealing from Church on the very first day of his appointment. On that day, Nov. 22, 2011, Batcher said, Clemmons took $21,644.46 from three of Church's accounts. He said in a statement to the court that Clemmons apparently used the funds to gamble at a Mississippi casino.

Following the discovery in Rutherford County an investigation of the dozens of cases Clemmons was appointed to oversee in Davidson County turned up three more cases in which Clemmons had stolen thousands of dollars.

He entered guilty pleas in all three Davidson cases.

Tersesa Lyle, whose mother, Nannie Malone, was one of Clemmons' victims, said she only learned of Clemmons' parole bid when contacted by a reporter.

She said the family was only able to recover a small fraction of the amount Clemmons admitted to stealing. The recovery came from a bond Clemmons was required to post when he was appointed as Malone's conservator in 2008.

But Lyle said the bond value was well below the nearly $1 million in assets, including a 68-acre farm, Clemmons took control of. Records show some of Malone's properties were sold off at auction for back taxes Clemmons failed to pay.

Records show within a matter of  days of his appointment as Malone's conservator by Davidson Probate Judge David "Randy" Kennedy, Clemmons began writing checks to  himself.

Malone died on Oct. 25, 2012.

One of the Davidson victims, Donald Griggs, did recover $10,000 under a court settlement with Metro. The February settlement came in a suit filed by Paul Gontarek, who replaced Clemmons as Griggs conservator. He charged that had court officials  done their job in monitoring Clemmons' activities, the $157,850 could never have been stolen.

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Clemmons Parole Bid Denied

Homeless Nashville Man Placed in Conservatorship

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Ronald Carter, a 64-year old homeless Nashville man, has been a patient at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center for well over a month but the health care facility has initiated legal action that could soon bring about his forced discharge.

Carter, according to court filings, was admitted to the facility on April 26 suffering from pneumonia. He had prior admissions at Vanderbilt in June, October and November of last year, records show.

John Howser, medical center spokesman, said in a Friday email response to questions that Carter was a Vanderbilt patient and that his current condition was stable.

He said that privacy laws barred him from releasing additional information. 

 The legal action initiated by Vanderbilt on May 28 was made under the provisions of a new law passed by the General Assembly in 2013 which made a series of changes in the state statutes governing conservatorships. Most of  the changes had been recommended by the Tennessee Bar Association following a series of statewide hearings.

It was a last minute amendment to that bill, however, that gave health care facilities a special route to seek the discharge of patients on an expedited basis.

Court records show that almost immediately after the new law became effective Nashville area hospitals, including Vanderbilt,  began filing petitions to have temporary healthcare conservators appointed for some of their patients. The majority of those patients were homeless and nearly all were subsequently discharged to nursing homes and other health care facilities.

In its petition filed by attorney Monica Edwards, Vanderbilt stated that their social workers believed Carter had been homeless for 20 years and, though he had said he had relatives in Tennessee, he gave no information about their whereabouts. Nor could Vanderbilt locate any relatives.

Stating that Carter's cognitive function is "profoundly impaired," the hospital center said that an emergency conservator was needed to arrange for his discharge or transfer.

The filing states that on one of his prior visits to the emergency room, Carter was brought to the facility by a nurse for the Room in the Inn, a Nashville center for the homeless.

Inn officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Probate Judge David R. Kennedy appointed April Jackson to serve as Carter's attorney ad litem or advocate and she subsequently filed a motion to require that Carter be allowed to attend a June 3 hearing on whether the conservatorship should be extended.

Records indicate the hearing was then transferred from the courthouse to the medical center.

Following the hearing Kennedy issued a ruling in which he acknowledged that Carter and Jackson opposed the extension, but he concluded that continuation of the conservatorship was appropriate.
Jackson, declined to comment and Edwards did not respond to a request for comment.

Anthony Burns, who was appointed as Carter's emergency temporary healthcare fiduciary also did not respond.
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Homeless Nashville Man Placed in Conservatorship

Tennessean’s coverage of conservatorships honored

Investigative Reporters and Editors honored The Tennessean and investigations editor Walter F. Roche Jr. on Thursday for his 2013 reports, “Conservatorships in Tennessee.”

The organization recognized Roche’s articles, which examined practices and abuses involving court-appointed conservators, as finalists in its Print/Online — Medium category. Editors Deborah Fisher, Lisa Green and Scott Stroud also were named in the citation.

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Tennessean’s coverage of conservatorships honored