by Robert Snell
Suspended
36th District Judge Andrea Bradley-Baskin helped loot dead people's
bank accounts during a conspiracy involving more than $2.9 million,
helped her husband acquire a dead person's home and lived a life of
luxury in an automotive executive's luxury townhouse after years of
financial problems, federal court records show.
A
fuller picture of the scale and scope of an alleged conspiracy to steal
money from incapacitated people in Wayne County's probate court system
emerges from a review of state and federal court records two weeks after
Bradley-Baskin was indicted alongside her father, attorney Avery
Bradley, and two others.
A review of court records also helps to identify
victims who are referred to by initials in the indictment and shows how
Bradley-Baskin and others are accused of targeting the elderly and the
ill, the isolated, the wealthy and the dead. Many of the 18 victims
identified in the indictment had fat bank accounts, homes that were
liquidated and flipped for profit, while others were charged rent at
group homes where they never lived, which are owned by a member of the
alleged conspiracy.
"Everyone is out for greed.
It's just apropos for what goes on in this day," St. Clair County
resident Bruce Affelt told The Detroit News after learning his late
cousin, retired Ford Motor Co. engineer William Kamin, was one of the
alleged victims. "It's wrong, and I think people should be held
accountable."
There have been immediate repercussions. Last month's indictment led to
Bradley-Baskin being booted off the bench and suspended with pay from
her $186,164-a-year job. The case also threatens to strip Bradley-Baskin
of her law license and send her to federal prison for 45 years if
convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of money
laundering and lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Bradley-Baskin, 46, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
The
alleged conspiracy spanned from January 2017 to July 2024, a timespan
that predates Bradley-Baskin's tenure as a judge. The case portrays her
as conspiring with others to enrich herself by embezzling money and
using false pretenses to keep money and property belonging to multiple
incapacitated wards of the probate system.
The victims of the alleged conspiracy were easy
targets, suffering from dementia, old age and health problems with no
support system.
Lawyer worth $5M targeted
Kamin, 92, is one of the wealthiest victims in the case. The retired
bachelor, who died in 2021, had no spouse, children or immediate family,
but was worth millions of dollars.
Kamin, like all victims in the case, is referred to in the indictment by
initials, “W.K.” But dates and dollar amounts in the indictment match
details from Kamin’s file in the Wayne County Probate Court, including May 25, 2022, the date Avery Bradley was appointed to represent the estate.
Kamin died in January 2021 and spent his whole
life in his childhood home, a brick bungalow 20 blocks west of his alma
mater, the University of Detroit Mercy. When he died, he had more than
$5 million in assets, mostly investments and life insurance proceeds,
court records show.
Avery Bradley, a veteran lawyer in the probate court system, is accused of stealing more than $161,000 of the dead man's money.
Bradley
was appointed by the Wayne County Probate Court to gather Kamin’s
assets, pay bills and disburse money to his heirs as prescribed in
Kamin’s will.
In December 2022, Bradley cut checks to more than
30 of Kamin's heirs. The payouts ranged from $8,079 to $49,549 and, in
all, the heirs split $743,000 — a detail from Kamin's probate court file that matches the federal indictment.
Those heirs included Affelt, 75, a distant cousin.
“He was kind of a loner,” Affelt told The News about Kamin. “I never got to know him or meet him.”
Kamin's alma mater was supposed to receive a much larger piece of Kamin’s estate. For starters, Bradley cut a $17,437 check to the university in June 2023.
“Bradley never dispersed the funds for the benefit of the estate of W.K.,” the indictment reads.
Instead, Bradley deposited the money in his law firm’s account at Comerica Bank, prosecutors allege.
That same month, Bradley transferred $60,000 from Kamin's estate to his law firm's bank account, according to the government.
"Bradley never dispersed any of these funds for the benefit of the estate of W.K.," the indictment reads.
The same day, Bradley transferred $261,072 from Kamin's estate to the attorney's law firm, according to the government.
Bradley sent $185,964
to Detroit Mercy, consistent with Kamin's will. But the attorney never
dispersed the rest of the money, more than $75,100, the indictment
alleged.
Bradley, 72, is charged with
conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and three counts of money
laundering. If convicted, he faces more than 20 years in prison. Bradley
did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Feds: Bradley directs widow's cash to daughter
The federal investigation into the finances and treatment of Kamin and others in the probate court system surfaced in July when The News obtained sealed FBI documents and search warrant records.
The records showed FBI agents had raided multiple locations in Metro
Detroit and seized more than $580,000 while targeting the judge, her
father and others.
In September, an investigation by The News
revealed Bradley-Baskin teamed with two criminals to help buy and sell
homes belonging to vulnerable people in the probate court system for far
less than the properties' market value.
In several instances, those homes were sold to the
boyfriend of a probate court guardian after Bradley-Baskin proposed the
sale or drafted the deeds. That includes a Dearborn Heights ranch that
was flipped in less than a month for a 72% profit.
The News reporting from five months ago and details about alleged victims, including the late Ethel Ciotti and her son, Curtis Ciotti of Lincoln Park, are mirrored in last month's indictment.
Ethel Ciotti was a 92-year-old widow who worked at an insurance company,
at a Lincoln Park bowling alley and as a greeter at Meijer before dying
in 2018. Ciotti, who is referred to in the indictment as "E.C.," left
behind an estate worth more than $493,000, including almost $385,000 in
the bank and a bungalow.
A judge appointed the firm Guardian and Associates
to serve as the elderly woman's guardian in early 2017. The firm is
headed by Nancy Williams, a probate court veteran and criminal convicted of trying to influence the 2020 general election.
Williams and her boyfriend, group home owner Dwight Rashad, are charged alongside Bradley-Baskin and Avery Bradley.
During
the conspiracy, Williams placed court wards in homes owned and operated
by her boyfriend, prosecutors allege. She also authorized payments from
the wards' bank accounts of up to $6,000 a month to Rashad's firm,
Empowerment Homes.
In all, Empowerment Homes was paid approximately $2 million, the indictment alleges, which includes money for legitimate services.
Since
last year, FBI agents have seized at least $69,981 from Williams,
Rashad and their companies. Prosecutors also slapped a lien on
residential and commercial properties linked to Williams and Rashad in
Oakland County.
Bradley, meanwhile, was appointed to manage Ethel Ciotti's finances in April 2018.
One year later, Bradley cut a $4,460 check from Ciotti's bank account and gave the money to a landlord who owned a home in Westland rented by Bradley-Baskin, according to the government.
"The $4,460 check was not used for the benefit of
(Ethel Ciotti)," the indictment reads. "Bradley fraudulently issued the
check to benefit Bradley-Baskin."
Williams took
$25,000 from another victim and Bradley-Baskin used the money to
pre-pay a year's worth of rent at the Westland home, prosecutors allege.
Judge had money problems
During the alleged conspiracy, Bradley-Baskin's fortunes changed dramatically.
Before prosecutors said Bradley-Baskin started stealing people's money, she had big cash problems.
Bradley-Baskin
and her ex-husband filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2013, listing more
than $278,000 in liabilities and $6,550 in assets, according to court records. The debts included $17,644 owed on the future judge's new Mercedes-Benz.
The money woes continued in 2020, when she was sued in the 36th District Court for more than $9,400 by an automotive lender.
Bradley-Baskin overcame the financial problems by stealing from the vulnerable, prosecutors alleged.
That included Frankie James, a 70-year-old, incapacitated woman with health problems from Detroit. Her finances were being handled by Williams' firm, Guardian and Associates, in 2019.
Frankie James died May 11, 2020. Three days later, Williams gave the elderly woman's stately brick Colonial-style home to
Bradley-Baskin's half-brother, prosecutors alleged.
The deed was drafted by Bradley, according to the indictment.
In December 2020, seven months after James died,
Bradley-Baskin took $26,500 from various wards' bank accounts and bought
the dead woman's home, according to the indictment.
In March 2024, the home was transferred for $1 to CAB Realty, a company owned by Bradley-Baskin's husband, Corey Baskin, prosecutors alleged.
"A little more than a year later, on or about April 25, 2025, CAB Realty sold the property for $140,000," the indictment
alleged.
Corey Baskin did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Judge travels abroad, feds say
The judge's personal life, meanwhile, was improving.
Bradley-Baskin traveled the world in recent years, including jaunts to the Caribbean, Spain, France and Cancun, a court official said during the judge's arraignment. She bought a dive bar in Detroit and reaped an insurance windfall.
And in March 2024, Bradley-Baskin withdrew $54,250, and the money was used to lease a $900,000 Brush Park townhouse, according to the FBI.
The property is owned by Felix Weller, the former vice president of Cadillac in China, according to public records.
The 2,425-square-foot, three-story City Modern townhouse, across
Woodward from Little Caesars Arena, has three bedrooms, three-and-a-half
bathrooms, a private rooftop terrace and a one-car garage for
Bradley-Baskin, who leased a new 2023 Ford Expedition King Ranch SUV
with more than $20,000 stolen from another victim, prosecutors allege.
The judge’s life in the townhouse soured last fall as prosecutors prepared to indict the judge.
Landlord Greythorne Management LLC sued Bradley-Baskin and her husband
on Oct. 15 and accused the couple of failing to pay $8,650 in rent.
The lawsuit,
since dismissed, was filed in the 36th District Court in Detroit — the judge's own courthouse.
Full Article & Source:
Feds: Stealing from dead gave judge a luxe life in auto exec's home
See Also:
Detroit judge, 3 others charged in alleged scheme to steal thousands from vulnerable and incapacitated people
Press
Release: Sitting Judge and Three Others Charged with Scheme to Steal
Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars from Vulnerable and Incapacitated Wards
Detroit News: Detroit Judge Teamed With 2 Criminals to Help Buy And Sell Homes of the Vulnerable
FBI probe of Detroit probate court could lead to indictment
