Ex-guardian fails to appear in court, but judge orders her to repay $35K to elderly woman’s estate

JOSE F. MORENO / Staff Photographer

A Delaware County woman accused of financially exploiting elderly people for whom she served as a court-appointed guardian failed to come to a Philadelphia City Hall courtroom on Tuesday for a hearing on how she spent a Northeast Philadelphia woman's funds. Her attorney also didn't appear.

Gloria Byars, 57, of Aldan, had been removed as guardian of about 100 elderly clients in the region after past convictions for fraud, passing bad checks, and forgery came to light.

Orphans' Court Judge John Herron said at the hearing Tuesday that Byars must repay about $35,000 to the estate of Estelle Segal.

The judge was angry that Byars did not come to the proceeding, and said he was "frankly shocked" at the absence of her lawyer, Sharon Alexander. "I don't understand a practicing lawyer intentionally failing to appear at a hearing and failing to ask for a continuance," he said.

Herron held the hearing with lawyer James Tyler, who was appointed as Segal's executor after her February death.

Byars' record was chronicled in a March 30 Inquirer and Daily News article highlighting a lack of state requirements, including background checks, for guardians who manage the affairs of people deemed incapacitated. The article featured the case of a Fox Chase couple, Edmund and Margareta Berg, for whom Byars also had been appointed guardian.

Herron in May had ordered Byars to pay $63,079 to the Bergs, including $34,112 for improper expenditures. Byars has not paid any of that money. Despite that order, Byars spent tens of thousands of dollars on a July 14 wedding reception at the Manor House at Prophecy Creek Park in Ambler.

Byars already was married to Leon DeShields, 57, and had asked guests to a "vow renewal," according to the invitation. Copies of the Manor House bills obtained by the Inquirer and Daily News show the planned reception for 163 adults and 34 children cost about $35,000 for meals, hors d'oeuvres, a shrimp-and-clam station, a dessert station, a patio tent, and facility charges.

Heidi Austin, a niece of the Bergs', said she was "disgusted" to learn about the reception.

"It has been a challenging year and a half, and still the woman is free to spend all the money she stole from the elderly," Austin wrote in an email. "My uncle just turned 90, and I would at least like to tell him that there is justice in this world before he leaves it."

Austin discovered Byars' fraudulent past and through an attorney brought it to Herron's attention. As a result, Philadelphia now requires that a state criminal history report be submitted for proposed guardians.

The new requirements mirrored recommendations proposed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's Orphans' Court Procedural Rules Committee. In June, the justices approved new statewide rules requiring background checks; they take effect next June.

At Tuesday's hearing, Tyler said that Byars' lawyer had emailed him Aug. 16 and said she was aware of the hearing date but was going to be out of the country.

In his review, Tyler said he found that Byars had not accounted for $35,405 that she had spent of Segal's funds.

"Essentially," the judge said in court, it appears that Byars "converted [the $35,405] to her own uses and purposes."

Byars has not been criminally charged in any guardianship cases. Herron earlier this year referred the Segal and Berg matters to the District Attorney's Offices in Philadelphia and Delaware County. The office of State Sen. Art Haywood (D., Montgomery-Phila.) referred another case to the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office.

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Ex-guardian fails to appear in court, but judge orders her to repay $35K to elderly woman’s estate

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Judge sees 'mismanagement,' 'misappropriation' in ex-guardian's handling of elderly clients' funds

Judge sees 'mismanagement,' 'misappropriation' in ex-guardian's handling of elderly clients' funds

Gloria Byars (center) walks inside Philadelphia City Hall before entering Orphans Court Judge John Herron’s courtroom Monday, May 14, 2018. At right is her attorney, Sharon Alexander; at left is an assistant.

A Delaware County woman removed as court-appointed guardian for about 100 elderly clients in the region was berated by a Philadelphia judge Monday for repeatedly failing to follow his orders, being nine months late in filing a report he requested, and failing to show up at two hearings last month.

“She has failed over and over and over again to comply with the orders of this court,” Orphans’ Court Judge John Herron said of Gloria Byars, 57, of Aldan, who has been accused by family members of financially exploiting their elderly relatives. She arrived at the afternoon hearing a few minutes late, walking with a cane.

Byars, who has a criminal background of fraud, bad checks, and forgery, was the subject of a March 30 Inquirer and Daily News article highlighting the lack of state requirements, including background checks, for guardians who manage the affairs of people deemed incapacitated.

After her convictions became known to Herron last year and the judge learned that she was doling out work to her husband’s company without disclosing it, the judge removed her from the 34 cases to which he had appointed her, and ordered her to provide reports of how she had spent her clients’ assets.

Earlier this year, the other two Orphans’ Court judges removed Byars from their remaining cases, as did judges in Montgomery and Delaware Counties. In all, she was removed from about 100 guardianship cases.

Monday’s hearing dealt with the estate of a former Northeast Philadelphia woman, Estelle Segal, who died in February in a Bucks County nursing home at age 83. Byars, who operated Global Guardian Services in Lansdowne, had failed to file a report of how she had spent Segal’s assets as ordered Aug. 10 by Herron and had not appeared at an April 2 hearing to explain herself.

Herron, in an April 4 decree, wrote that $127,607 was unaccounted for in Segal’s estate. He sentenced Byars to five months in jail for contempt of court, but suspended the sentence pending Monday’s hearing.

On Monday, Byars and her attorney, Sharon Alexander, told the judge they would immediately file a final account of Byars’ expenditures. They said Byars had missed the April 2 hearing and another on April 24 because of illness.

Herron’s threat of jail time remains pending the outcome of a June 6 hearing to review Byars’ expenditures in Segal’s estate.

After Monday’s hearing, Byars and Alexander declined to comment.

The April 24 hearing was to explain disputed expenditures in the estates of a former Fox Chase couple, Edmund and Margareta Berg. The judge Thursday issued a decree ordering Byars to pay $63,079 — in part to reimburse the Bergs for $34,113 in improper expenditures and $4,487 in guardianship fees she paid to herself, and to pay $24,479 in legal fees and costs incurred by Margareta Berg’s brother, Josef Wituschek.

In a harshly worded opinion Thursday, Herron wrote that Byars’ “misconduct ranged from mismanagement of the estates of her wards in the best of cases, to misappropriation of their assets in the worst.”

Herron also lambasted the Philadelphia Corp. for Aging, which had recommended Byars for most of her city guardianships, writing that “the court is deeply disappointed in PCA and disturbed by its lack of due diligence in examining the history and fitness of [Byars] to serve as guardian before nominating her.”

Added Herron: “PCA’s utter failure to conduct even the most elementary assessment of [Byars’] fitness to serve resulted in her appointment to nearly all of her 91 former cases in Philadelphia.”

He added that although Byars “is only one bad apple, that one bad apple has imposed an astronomical administrative burden” on the court’s small legal staff, which has “had to go to extraordinary lengths to remediate her misconduct and find suitable successor guardians for each ward.”

The agency’s lack of vetting of Byars “has shaken the public’s faith in the guardianship system,” Herron wrote.

Byars has not been criminally charged in any guardianship cases. Herron wrote in his decree Thursday that the matters of the Bergs and Segal “have both been referred to the district attorneys of Philadelphia and Delaware Counties for appropriate review.”

Unlike 18 other states, Pennsylvania does not require professional guardians to undergo criminal background checks, although the revelations of Byars’ fraudulent past have spurred some changes.

In Philadelphia, guardians now must affirm that they have not been convicted of any crime involving fraud, deceit, or financial misconduct. Also, an individual or agency, such as PCA, now must submit a Pennsylvania State Police criminal history report for a proposed guardian. And if the guardian resided within the last five years in one or more other states, a criminal history report from each of those states is required.

The petitioner also must submit a statement of the guardian’s certifications, caseload, and counties where the guardian has served. The new city requirements are similar to proposed changes recommended in December by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Orphans’ Court Procedural Rules Committee to the Supreme Court justices, who would decide whether to adopt them statewide.

Changes also are being proposed in the legislature. State Rep. Mark Gillen (R., Berks) on April 9 introduced a bill requiring criminal background checks for prospective guardians and prohibiting felons from serving. State Sens. Art Haywood (D., Montgomery-Phila.) and Judith Schwank (D., Berks) are working on a Senate amendment to another bill to require background checks and certification for guardians.

“The court sincerely hopes that the discovery of [Byars’] malfeasance will serve as a clarion call to make the larger changes necessary to protect incapacitated Pennsylvanians,” Herron wrote in Thursday’s opinion.

Abbey Porter, a PCA spokeswoman, said in a statement Monday: “PCA acknowledges the court’s new procedure concerning its appointment of guardians … [and] endorses the position that criminal history is only one of the criteria that may be relevant to the screening of potential guardians, and looks forward to its role in the development of these standards.”

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Judge sees 'mismanagement,' 'misappropriation' in ex-guardian's handling of elderly clients' funds

Miami attorney disbarred following gross negligence allegations in guardianship cases

Miami attorney Angela Marie Abell, also known as Angela Hill, has been disbarred following a Aug. 24 Florida Supreme Court order following allegations of gross negligence in guardianship cases and misappropriation of client funds.

The state high court issued its two-page order of disciplinary revocation, tantamount to disbarment, with leave to seek readmission after five years. The Florida State Bar announced the discipline and the supreme court's order Sept. 27.

Abell was already suspended following a state high court order issued July 13, which made her disciplinary revocation effective immediately, according to the August high court order.

Abell also was ordered to pay $3,457 in costs, according the high court's order.

In Florida court orders are not final until after time to file a rehearing motion expires. Attorneys disbarred in the state may not reapply for admission for five years. Even then they must pass through an extensive process that includes a rigorous background check and retaking the bar exam.

Abell was admitted to the bar in Florida on Jan. 22, 1988, according to her profile at the state bar website. Abell had no other discipline before the state bar for at least 10 years, according to his profile.

On June 21, the state bar filed a petition for emergency suspension against Abell regarding allegations concerning seven minor guardianship cases and two probate cases, all connected, that she was handling in Florida's 20th Judicial Circuit, according to a petition filed July 11 with the state high court. All of the guardianship cases stemmed from an automobile accident that left the children, ages 3 months to 8 years, severely injured, according to the petition. All of the cases began in 1997 and all of the children came of age with some of the cases remaining open, according to the petition.

Abell failed to terminate the open guardianship proceedings or convert the guardianships into adult proceedings and she allegedly "exhibited gross negligence in the execution of her duties and responsibilities as guardian," the petition said. A bar audit revealed at least $7,123 of misappropriated client funds and about $134,831 "of unsubstantiated transfers" from the client trust account to her checking account, according to the petition.

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Miami attorney disbarred following gross negligence allegations in guardianship cases