CT state-paid attorney under investigation for selling homes to business partner

By Ella Napack

State-contracted attorney Kristan Exner, under scrutiny for selling homes of people she served as a fiduciary for to her business partner, is facing an investigation by a Connecticut grievance panel. The Statewide Bar Counsel's office is reviewing her conduct as a conservator and court-appointed fiduciary, according to an attorney for Exner.

Exner sold two homes to her business partner, Joseph Garin, while serving as a professional fiduciary without disclosing the business relationship to the probate court, records show. Both homes were re-sold by Garin within months, in one case for more than two times what he purchased it for, according to property records. Garin declined to comment for this story.

A judge on one of the cases referred her conduct to the state’s bar committee after the new information came to light regarding Exner's relationship to Garin in the home sale of Milford resident Barbara Tobin. An attorney for Exner confirmed in a probate court hearing last month that a panel was formally investigating the matter as part of the Statewide Bar Counsel's review process.

The judge referred the conduct after an attorney for Robert Tobin, the son of Barbara Tobin, put forward a motion to have Exner disbarred for potentially breaking conflict of interest and perjury rules. The Tobins declined to comment for this story.

“There is no doubt that the very serious nature of the allegations raised in Robert Tobin’s amended motion for permanent disbarment of Kristan Exner need to be addressed,” probate judge Ben Gettinger wrote in a February decree after the hearing on the motion. Instead of adjudicating the issue in his courtroom, Gettinger opted for the bar counsel investigation to run its course, noting that he would then determine if the investigation “adequately addressed the specific allegations in this case.” In his decree, Gettinger noted it was unclear whether he had any jurisdiction to rule on the misconduct, raising a question over how to handle the process.

The matter is currently before a local grievance panel that will investigate the case before either dismissing it or moving it to a public hearing. When asked by a CT Insider reporter about the grievance investigation and Gettinger's decree, Exner provided an email statement. 

"The grievance process in Connecticut is complex, private and self-governing. It is there to ensure that as attorneys, we continue to maintain high standards of practice," said Exner. "Rule 3.6 of the Rules of Professional Responsibility sets limitations on attorneys making extra judicial statements, and addresses any attorney who would attempt to utilize the press to prejudice the process. For anyone to speculate or gossip on the process and procedures is unprofessional and disrespectful to those who give of their time.”

Exner remains working on probate matters across the state as a conservator contracted by the state's probate administration, records show. The probate administration, the state's operational oversight body for the probate courts, has told CT Insider that it does not have disciplinary authority over conservator conduct. Although some conservators, like Exner, are attorneys and remain accountable to the state's bar counsel, there are no overarching oversight structures for the professional conservators that sometimes juggle dozens - or even hundreds - of cases across multiple courts. 

The contract for state-paid conservators, however, allows the probate administration to terminate a conservator's contract if they have broken the state's Conservator Standards of Practice. Even if a professional conservator's contract with the state is terminated, they may still be eligible to be paid hourly by the state for other conservatorships. 

While probate records do not indicate that the administration has terminated Exner’s contract, some probate judges, like Gettinger, have opted not to appoint Exner to future cases until the matter is resolved.

“In addition, given the totality of the circumstances surrounding this case, the Court will not appoint Kristan Exner to any of its files indefinitely,” Gettinger wrote in the February decree.

The probate administration declined to answer questions on the status of Exner's contract with the state or whether it has audited any of her accounts.

Attorney Damon Kirschbaum, who represents the Tobins, first wrote to the probate administration about “rogue conservator Kristan Exner” in June 2024. Exner had been removed as Tobin’s conservator but remained involved as an “interested party" as the Tobins were fighting to regain ownership of the home.

“I am and will be imploring you, the Probate Court Administration, and Judge Gettinger to protect Barbara Tobin from Kristan Exner,” Kirschbaum wrote in the email, which was obtained from a Freedom of Information request to the probate administration. 

The emails show that Kirschbaum and an attorney for the probate administration had a conversation about Exner, subsequently.

Kirschbaum wrote to the administration again in October, informing the administration of a motion he filed requesting the permanent disbarment of Exner in light of the new information on Exner's connection to her business partner Garin to whom she sold the Tobin's home. The business partners owned a limited liability company together, according to secretary of the state records.

“Exner’s conduct demonstrates that she is unfit to serve as a fiduciary. It is my understanding that Exner serves as a probate court-appointed fiduciary in a significant number of probate court cases across the state,” Kirschbaum said in the letter. “I am writing to bring this situation to Your Honor’s attention so that Your Honor can take the appropriate steps to protect other vulnerable people from Exner.”

The administration said in an October meeting that it was reviewing the letter. In statements to CT Insider in the months since, the administration has said it does not have authority to intervene on court matters. 

"Any matter pending before a Probate Court is a judicial proceeding within the exclusive jurisdiction of the court," said attorney Evan Brunetti, director of external affairs for the probate administration. "We cannot intervene or comment on a matter before any court, the adjudicative/decision making process of a Probate Judge, or direct that any court take any particular action."

Mairead Painter, the state's Long Term Care Ombudsman, explained that many professional conservators work across multiple courts and that one probate court may not know about misconduct that occurred in a different court.

"If concerns come up in several courts about the same conservator, a judge isn't going to know that unless they're given the information," said Painter. "We need some way to have that information sharing in an appropriate way between probate courts so there is a higher level of accountability there."

Painter said the state needs to find more accountability structures that can work in tandem with the probate administration. 

“We have good standards, it’s holding people accountable to them,” said Painter. 

Full Article & Source:
CT state-paid attorney under investigation for selling homes to business partner 

The Ventura Probate Machine: A Pattern of Isolation, Financial Control, and Medical Decline

by Cece Woods

When families enter probate court, they expect protection. They expect oversight. They expect a system designed to safeguard vulnerable adults who cannot protect themselves.

What many families say they do not expect, according to sworn filings now before California courts, is isolation, financial consolidation, rapid medical deterioration, and a wall of administrative opacity.

For some, the moment is unforgettable. A judge speaks. A ruling is made. And in an instant, a mother, a father, a son, or a daughter, a human being who has fought to survive, becomes a ward of the county. Families who reorganized their entire lives around caregiving are suddenly reduced to observers. The people who knew the conservatee’s medical triggers, emergency thresholds, daily rhythms, and hard won progress are deemed unfit, often without a meaningful opportunity to be heard.

Decision making authority over health care, living arrangements, doctors, and treatment shifts to court appointed professionals previously unknown to the family. Introductions are not required. Approval is not sought. Oversight is assumed. Families walk out of court stunned, disoriented, and often traumatized, grappling with how years of intimate, hands on care could be erased in minutes by a procedural ruling.

That experience forms the backdrop of what is now before the courts in Ventura County in the matter of Joshua Saeta, a medically fragile, wholly dependent adult.

Joshua did not enter the probate system because of age, dementia, or gradual decline. According to sworn filings and medical records submitted to the court, he became wholly dependent after suffering a catastrophic cardiac arrest in 2017 that resulted in a severe anoxic brain injury. His brain was deprived of oxygen long enough to cause permanent neurological impairment. He survived, but survival came at a cost.

From that point forward, Joshua required round the clock care, complex medical management, and constant monitoring to remain alive. He could not advocate for himself. He could not manage his medical needs independently. His survival depended entirely on the consistency, precision, and continuity of the care surrounding him.

In the years that followed, Joshua did not languish. According to physician letters and court filings, he achieved relative medical stability under a physician directed, home based care model. That model emphasized continuity, familiar caregivers, specialized nutrition protocols, carefully monitored therapies, and immediate response to subtle changes that could signal medical emergency.

Central to that care was his sister, Jennifer Saeta, who became his primary caregiver and medical advocate. For more than eight years, she lived beside him, learning his baseline condition, emergency warning signs, and recovery thresholds. Treating clinicians relied on her longitudinal knowledge to prevent life threatening decline. The stability Joshua achieved, according to the record, was not accidental. It was built deliberately, over years, through constant hands on care.

Left: Josh Saeta in August 2025 under his sister’s care. 
Right: Josh’s condition has significantly deteriorated under Ventura County Probate Care.

This is not a social media dispute or a family disagreement reframed as legal drama. What has been filed in Ventura County Superior Court under Case No. 201700495761PRCE, and in related appellate proceedings, is an extensive emergency record alleging a repeatable pattern within probate administration, one that according to the filings begins with caregiver removal and culminates in severe medical decline.

The allegations are not informal. They are sworn, structured, and supported by documentary exhibits.

According to Jennifer Saeta’s sworn filings, Joshua’s stability deteriorated after conservatorship authority shifted. The care structure was altered. Placement changed. Family access was restricted. She asserts that this sequence functioned as a divide and conquer process, first removing the individuals most knowledgeable about Joshua’s daily medical management, then isolating him from the continuity of care that had sustained him for years.

Jennifer further alleges that no meaningful investigation preceded her removal and that she was denied a full opportunity to advocate for her brother before decisions affecting his life and care were finalized. These assertions are presented as allegations, not adjudicated findings.

Families caught in this process often describe the same refrain. You may visit, but you may not intervene. Advocacy is reframed as obstruction. Objection is characterized as noncompliance. While families are told to support court appointed conservators, they allege they are instead forced to watch as quality of life diminishes under the control of strangers with no prior relationship to the conservatee.

The emergency petition in the Saeta matter does not accuse criminal conspiracy. It documents patterns.

On February 10, 2026, Andrew Rose submitted a sworn declaration in support of emergency appellate review. Under penalty of perjury, he describes recurring similarities he states he has observed across unrelated Ventura County probate matters. Long standing caregivers characterized as uncooperative. Sudden exclusion from medical decision making. Institutional placement. Rapid medical decline. Restricted communication. Difficulty obtaining records.

Attached to that declaration is a Unified Pattern Summary, which explicitly states that it does not allege criminal conduct or reach legal conclusions. It consolidates recurring factual similarities across cases and leaves questions of culpability to judicial or investigative review.

In the Saeta matter specifically, Jennifer Saeta alleges that a court appointed professional charged with safeguarding Joshua’s interests failed to function as an independent advocate. She does not allege explicit collusion or criminal coordination. Instead, she asserts that the professional’s actions and billing records reflected conduct inconsistent with independent advocacy, leading her to conclude that Joshua’s interests were not being meaningfully advanced. That distinction is central to the filings, which frame the issue as systemic misalignment rather than overt misconduct.

The financial dimension of the case is significant, though partially shielded by confidentiality provisions. Court exhibits confirm that Joshua is associated with a high value trust governed by a nondisclosure agreement. Jennifer Saeta alleges that while Joshua’s physical condition declined, substantial administrative and professional fees were drawn from the trust. She argues that the pattern reflects incentive rather than coincidence. These claims remain allegations and have not been adjudicated.

Additional exhibits include a certified Ventura County Clerk Recorder search documenting numerous estate related filings associated with a recurring fiduciary name. The filings themselves are not alleged to be unlawful. They are presented to demonstrate frequency, volume, and concentration of fiduciary activity within a limited professional ecosystem.

As the legal record expanded, the medical situation intensified.

While declarations were being prepared and exhibits compiled, Joshua’s medical condition deteriorated. According to physician letters submitted to the court, based on photographic review, longitudinal treatment history, and clinical assessment, he now exhibits extensive muscle wasting, depleted subcutaneous fat stores, and findings consistent with severe malnutrition.

The filings state that Joshua has declined to the point of requiring total parenteral nutrition, an intravenous intervention typically reserved for cases in which the gastrointestinal system can no longer sustain life through enteral feeding. The reviewing clinician characterized his condition as an imminent threat to life, citing aspiration risk, pressure ulcer risk, and medical instability associated with prolonged bed confinement.

Jennifer Saeta attributes this decline to the sequence of legal and medical decisions she is challenging. That attribution is presented as her allegation.

The filings cite statutory frameworks governing elder and dependent adult protection in California. Those statutes impose affirmative duties to prevent neglect, broadly defined, and to investigate when a dependent adult experiences unexplained decline. The filings do not assert that Ventura County or its officials have been criminally charged. They ask whether statutory obligations were fulfilled when a wholly dependent adult declined precipitously under court supervised care.

What began as a dispute over authority within a complex probate structure has, according to the petitioner, evolved into an urgent life safety matter. Jennifer Saeta states that after she sought independent legal counsel and challenged decisions affecting Joshua’s care, she was removed from participation in his daily medical oversight. She argues that what appears procedurally administrative on paper has, in practice, resulted in prolonged separation from the person most familiar with Joshua’s medical baseline.

One of the most consequential aspects of the emergency petition is procedural rather than financial. The Unified Pattern Summary notes that in multiple probate matters, conservatees allegedly declined beyond recovery before appellate review could occur. By the time higher courts addressed the issues, the medical outcomes rendered the legal questions effectively moot.

That is the urgency now before the courts.

Review the legal docs HERE.

DISCLAIMER: Investigative reporting in high-profile litigation cases published by The Current Report is non-commercial, fact-based journalism; any project fees compensate research and reporting labor only, sources participate solely in accuracy verification, and final publication is approved exclusively by The Current Report after fact-checking is confirmed. 

Full Article & Source:
The Ventura Probate Machine: A Pattern of Isolation, Financial Control, and Medical Decline 

Arizona man blames court-appointed fiduciary for money woes

In Arizona, fiduciary complaints can take up to two years to investigate  

By: Nicole Grigg

PHOENIX — A former high-level executive who spent just over a year placed into a court-appointed conservatorship went from an early retirement to bankruptcy.

Bill Chalmers calls himself a survivor after being placed into the probate court system.

“There’s a pride that is taken away, the decisions of how much money you get to spend, whether or not you buy chicken or Kraft macaroni and cheese,” said Chalmers.

The probate court system is intended to protect the vulnerable, but some worry it can exploit those in need of help with financial and other decision-making.

In the probate court, a judge is able to assign a stranger or strangers to make all your personal, financial, and health decisions for you.

During a divorce proceeding, a lawyer questioned Chalmers' ability to make decisions, so a Maricopa County probate court interceded in 2017.

The courts will assign a team to someone like Chalmers made up of a guardian ad litem, a court-appointed lawyer, a fiduciary, a lawyer for the fiduciary, and oftentimes a psychiatrist. A guardian ad litem is assigned by a court to help protect the interest of a person like Chalmers.

“I pay for everybody,” said Chalmers.

Chalmers had questions after he got out of his 13-month court-appointed conservatorship with East Valley Fiduciary Services.

“My ballpark figure of how much I lost during that period of time was a little over $700,000,” said Chalmers.

In 2020, Chalmers filed a 200-page complaint with the Arizona Fiduciary Board, the entity in Arizona in charge of licensing and discipline. In total, there were 38 allegations against East Valley Fiduciary Services that claim procedures were not followed.

“They left me with my own bank account, with $200,” he said.

Chalmers showed up to the board meetings for years asking for updates on the investigation.

It is unclear how many complaints there are against fiduciaries because only complaints ending in discipline are made public. ABC15 Investigators found in 2019, East Valley Fiduciary Services was disciplined with a one-year probation after allegations that they placed a man in a secure, assisted living facility against his will.

Even during a probation period, a fiduciary is able to take on new wards.

“Generally speaking, if someone is on probation already, just the fact a complaint comes in isn’t necessarily a violation,” said Aaron Nash, who runs Arizona’s Certification & Licensing Division at Arizona Supreme Court.

One of the divisions Nash helps oversees is the Fiduciary Licensing Program which helps to protect elderly and otherwise vulnerable adults. Fiduciaries are licensed individuals or businesses that manage people's financial affairs, medical decisions and other matters.

The fiduciary certification and licensing division is the entity that approves and tracks licenses and complaints.

It took more than two years for the fiduciary board to finish investigating Chalmers’ complaint. They substantiated 10 of the allegations in October 2022. Those include filing a conservator’s accounting that was inaccurate and/or misleading, failing to timely file an inventory and appraisement with the court, not filing an estate budget with the court, and failing to provide 120 days of funding to the ward at the end of the conservatorship, in violation of a court order.

A lawyer for East Valley Fiduciary Services said in an email to ABC15 that they do not agree with the substantiated allegations, “(EVFS) has not had the opportunity to respond to them, and they have not yet been tested in any contested legal proceeding where EVFS would have the opportunity to present evidence and call and cross-examine witnesses regarding the allegations.”

The lawyer added that court proceedings were highly contentious with Chalmers and say that Chalmers still owes them money.

As for Chalmers, he wants reform. Six years after this all began, it is still not over for him.

“To be honest, I don’t want my story to come out. I don’t want people to know, but if I can stop this from happening to someone else’s mother or someone else’s father,” Chalmers said. 

 Full Article & Source:
Arizona man blames court-appointed fiduciary for money woes