Is ‘Star Trek’ Actress Nichelle Nichols Experiencing Conservator Abuse?

Click to Watch

Is former "Star Trek" star Nichelle Nichols experiencing conservator abuse?

The actress, best known for playing Lieutenant Uhura on the TV series and in films, has been under conservatorship since 2018 and her son Kyle has been her conservator. People close to the actress are concerned and claim she has been stripped of the things she has worked for, including her friend and producer Angelique who has come to The Doctors.

Angelique says the actress asked her to make a video of her expressing what she wanted in her final years and claims the actress was angry at her son for putting her in a rest home. Angelique also claims she noticed that items in Nichelle's home were disappearing, including the entire contents of her closet.

"She did not like the way that [Kyle] would treat her," Angelique says of the actress, noting a video surfaced of Nichelle and her son, that Angelique describes as an "abuse video" where her son allegedly "manhandles" and "curses her out," Angelique says after she made public comments about the video, Kyle blocked her from seeing the "Star Trek" actress. Additionally, the actress' home was sold in 2020 and Angelique says Kyle has moved her to New Mexico, without giving her the opportunity to appear in court and express what she wants and where she would like to live.

"I have not seen my friend Nichelle Nichols in several years. I love her and I just want her to be safe," Angelique tells The Doctors, claiming Nichelle's wishes have not been honored regarding her living situation.

Attorney Ann-Margeret Carrozza says in Nichelle's case -- where there was a report of a dementia diagnosis -- selling her home and moving her to a new state is very concerning. She says it is incumbent for the court to ensure that as little as possible changes when someone with dementia is under a conservatorship, including their living arrangement and social interactions. She questions how it is in Nichelle's best interest to be cut off from people in her social network like Angelique.

"The question for the court is, 'Does [Nichelle] need a conservator?" Ann-Margeret says, explaining that question is usually answered by the court deciding if someone is capable of making good decisions. 

Psychiatrist Dr. Domenick Sportelli shares what occurs in a traditional capacity evaluation and says it includes taking these steps and answering the following questions:

• Full mental status evaluation should be performed
• Does someone understand their current medical problems and treatment?
• Is there an underlying mood disorder?

"I just want Nichelle to get her rights and have the ability... to enjoy the rest of her life at least close to the manner in which she wanted," Angelique tells The Doctors. 

Nichelle's former manager told The Doctors in a statement, "The story about Nichelle being removed from her home against her will is true. From the day I met Nichelle, the first thing out of her mouth was, she never wanted to be moved out of her home under any circumstances. She wanted to pass away there and she made me promise that could be her dying wish." 

The actress' son Kyle did not respond to our request for comment.

Full Article & Source:

Is ‘Star Trek’ Actress Nichelle Nichols Experiencing Conservator Abuse?

 

See Also:

Nichelle Nichols

Update on Nichelle Nichols’ Fight for Control of Her Estate

Actress Nichelle Nichols arrives at the premiere of Neon's "Colossal" at the Vista Theatre

Since 2018, Nichelle Nichols, the iconic actress who portrayed Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek: The Original Series, has been entangled in a legal battle over control of her estate. Kyle Johnson, her only child, claims that his mother’s former manager, Gilbert Bell, committed elder abuse by taking advantage of her diminished capacity to steal her money and control her finances. Bell claims that Johnson has been intimidating him and Nichols for years and that Johnson is attempting to sell Nichols’s properties out from under her.

The allegations have led to a complicated, multi-year battle over who will control Nichols’ estate, specifically, the properties she owns in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles.

According to the California judicial system’s website, a conservatorship is a legal arrangement where a person or group of people is placed in charge of another person’s financial dealings. Conservatorships are granted when someone is deemed incapable of responsibly managing their own financial affairs.

According to Vulture, conservatorships have made headlines in the past few years because some high-profile celebrities, like Britney Spears and Amanda Bynes, have had conservatorships established. Both Spears and Bynes were deemed unfit to manage their finances and their careers after having mental health crises.

Johnson petitioned a Los Angeles County Court to grant a conservatorship over his mother in 2018 because she had been diagnosed with dementia. According to his countersuit against Bell, Johnson also filed for conservatorship so that he could prevent Bell from continuing to control his mother’s finances and career.

Nichols’ legal battle became headline news again over the summer when her sister, Marian Smothers, started a GoFundMe to raise money for Nichols’ legal fees. The various suits and countersuits filed by Bell and Johnson have been tied up in the legal system for over two years. There are multiple lawsuits involved in the legal battle in California.

The GoFundMe page included a long note from Smothers, which laid out the allegations against Bell. The page contained a streamlined version of the allegations included in Johnson’s countersuit, which was filed just a few weeks before the GoFundMe went live.

According to Indiewire, Bell’s lawyer, William Bowen, responded to both the countersuit and the GoFundMe. In a written statement, Bowen refuted the claims made in the GoFundMe summary and the countersuit. He also maintained that Bell had never defrauded Nichols, stolen from her, or committed elder abuse.

The latest legal action in the case came in November 2020. City News Service reported that Johnson submitted a petition in the state of New Mexico for his conservatorship over Nichols to be valid in that state. Johnson, who lived in New Mexico previously, moved back to the state with his mother after his permanent conservatorship was granted. The move was approved by a California judge in August 2020.

Since the conservatorship was granted by a judge in California, it needs to be reviewed by the New Mexico courts to make it valid in that state. Nichols’ sister, the same one who started the GoFundMe, submitted documents to the court stating her support for the move. Smothers wrote that Johnson’s move back to New Mexico was best for both Johnson and Nichols as Johnson had an established community in the state that could help him care for his mother. She also stated that Nichols’ other family members were not able to care for her due to health and familial issues, so Johnson was the best person to be her primary caregiver.

However, the legal battles still underway in California could create problems for Johnson’s petition to the New Mexico courts. A friend of Nichols’, Angelique Fawcett, initially opposed Johnson becoming the conservator of Nichols’s estate, as she told People in 2019. She sided with Bell in the legal battles between him and Johnson, going so far as to file a petition to stop the conservatorship. She retracted that challenge after Johnson agreed to let her see Nichols regularly.

However, Fawcett has claimed that Johnson began preventing her from seeing Nichols in 2019. Through her lawyer, she requested that the court enforce her right to visit Nichols. Since this piece of the legal battle over Nichols’ affairs has not been resolved, it could pose problems for the conservatorship case in New Mexico as Fawcett no longer has access to these visits.

In November, a California judge declined to rule on Fawcett’s request, leaving it to the New Mexico courts.

Full Article & Source:

Update on Nichelle Nichols’ Fight for Control of Her Estate 

 

See Also: 

GoFundMe Launched To Raise Funds For Star Trek Legend Nichelle Nichols’ Elder Abuse Lawsuit

 

Star Trek Actress’ Son Named His Mother’s Permanent Conservator

Friend Opposes Bid by Actress’ Son For Permanent Conservatorship

‘Star Trek’ Actress Court Battle: Judge Won’t Go

Star Trek ‘Lt. Uhura’ on 1960s TV Now Target of Court Battle Over Conservatorship

Star Trek‘s Nichelle Nichols Goes to Court Over Guardianship Issues

Star Trek Actress' Son Seeks New Conservatorship for Mom in NM

LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Nichelle Nichols' son will ask a New Mexico court to grant him a new conservatorship of his mother in that state, where he moved the 87-year-old “Star Trek'' actress on Sunday, his attorney told a Los Angeles judge today.

When Nichols was still living at her longtime Woodland Hills home, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Barbara Johnson appointed 68-year-old Kyle Johnson -- who is not related to the judge -- as the permanent conservator of his mother's person and her estate. The judge said a conservatorship was appropriate because of Nichols' dementia. In August, the judge approved the move of Nichols to New Mexico.

Judge Johnson has since retired and during this morning's hearing, Kyle Johnson's lawyer, Jeffrey Marvan, told Judge Paul Suzuki that his client interviewed two New Mexico lawyers about handling the new conservatorship there. Marvan said the two lawyers were both in a race to be elected judge and that the loser will be the one hired.

“OK, that's an interesting dilemma you have there,'' Suzuki told Marvan.

In a sworn declaration submitted to the court earlier in support of Kyle Johnson's move of his mother to New Mexico, one of the actress' sisters, Marion Smothers, noted that her nephew has lived in that state with his wife since the early 1990s.

“He is a respected member of his community and the former general manager of a radio station; he has many friends and a network of resources to support him,'' Smothers wrote.

Smothers said Nichols' income is limited and that her life has been impacted by aging and the coronavirus' effect on the economy. Smothers also said she already cares for her disabled husband and that Nichols' other siblings have health concerns of their own.

Meanwhile, Suzuki said he would defer to the New Mexico courts on a request by Angelique Fawcett, a friend of Nichols, to resume previous visits she had with the actress through a court order. Fawcette says she agreed in December 2018 to drop her challenge to Johnson being made his mother's permanent conservator in exchange for two monthly meetings with Nichols, who she met in 2012.

For years, the two went to lunch together and visited each other on Christmas, according to Fawcette's court papers. But Fawcette maintains in her court papers that Johnson stopped allowing the visits in 2019. Her attorney, Farris Ain, asked that the visit be resumed, even if they were by video.

But Marvan told Suzuki the visits stopped after Fawcette allegedly violated a non-disclosure agreement.

“If the person is in New Mexico, I'd rather let them decide,'' Suzuki said. “I'm especially concerned if someone is leaking information to the media.''

Nichols played Lt. Uhura, a translator and communications officer, aboard the USS Enterprise in the “Star Trek'' series that ran on NBC from 1966-69, and also appeared in some of the later “Star Trek'' movies.

Her son had a major role in the 1969 film “The Learning Tree.''

 

Full Article & Source:

Star Trek Actress' Son Seeks New Conservatorship for Mom in NM 

 

See Also: 

GoFundMe Launched To Raise Funds For Star Trek Legend Nichelle Nichols’ Elder Abuse Lawsuit

 

Star Trek Actress’ Son Named His Mother’s Permanent Conservator

Friend Opposes Bid by Actress’ Son For Permanent Conservatorship

‘Star Trek’ Actress Court Battle: Judge Won’t Go

Star Trek ‘Lt. Uhura’ on 1960s TV Now Target of Court Battle Over Conservatorship

Star Trek‘s Nichelle Nichols Goes to Court Over Guardianship Issues

GoFundMe Launched To Raise Funds For Star Trek Legend Nichelle Nichols’ Elder Abuse Lawsuit

by Jorge Arenas

A GoFundMe page has been opened to help Star Trek legend Nichelle Nichols raise money for her ongoing elder abuse lawsuit against her former manager.

The GoFund me page was started by Nichelle Nichol’s sister, Marian Smothers, on behalf of the Star Trek actress.

Nichols is currently entrenched in an going legal battle with her former manager, Gilbert Bell.

According to the GoFundme, Bell infiltrated Nichols’ life beginning in 2010, on the premise that “he was a producer and that he was developing a feature film in which he hoped to have Nichelle co-star as well as be a 50-50 partner in the enterprise and its profits.”

Bell would continue to “[insinuate] himself into her life”, most egregiously by moving into a “property adjacent to her residence” and “compelling Nichelle to pay all his utilities”.

Smothers asserts that, in 2013, “Bell took advantage of the situation to obtain her signature on medical and general Powers of Attorney,” as well as “fees from her many personal appearances, and even her pension and Social Security.”

That same year, Nichols was diagnosed with dementia and short-term memory loss.

However, the straw that broke the camel’s back was when Bell “later deeded her personal residence into his name.”

Smothers states that this “was the final act that triggered the Petition for Conservatorship eventually granted to her son, Kyle Johnson.”

Since Johnson “returned to Los Angeles to be Nichelle’s full time caregiver and subsequently, Conservator of her Person and Estate” in 2018, Smothers claims Bell “has slandered Kyle’s good name in numerous publications.”

Johnson, as many remember, was at the center of some controversy last year when a video surfaced of his mother screaming for help during an altercation. 

In the video, which depicts Johnson’s attempt to take his mother home, he can be heard telling Nichols, “Mother, we’re going home,” to which Nichoes starts to yell, “Hell! No! No!…Get your hands off me…You’re trying to get rid of me!”

However, Smothers clarifies that this was a “staged encounter” and notes that Bell “[released] the video to media outlets and the LAPD, and filed suit demanding the continued fraudulent possession of her adjacent property under onerous terms.”

Smothers and Nichols’ family “believe that Bell has taken financial advantage of Nichelle to the tune of well over a million dollars, but we have only scratched the surface.”

The GoFundMe page concludes with an endorsement of the campaign and message of support from fellow Star Trek: The Original Series actor Walter Koening.

Koening states that Nichols “has been a true and loyal friend for over fifty years” who “has been financially abused by a person pretending to protect her interests.”

He urges everyone who knows what a beautiful person she is to support the GoFundMe established in her name.

The GoFundMe has currently raised $64,110 from over just over 1,700 donors. The campaign is aiming to raise $100,000.

Full Article & Source:
GoFundMe Launched To Raise Funds For Star Trek Legend Nichelle Nichols’ Elder Abuse Lawsuit

See Also:
Star Trek Actress’ Son Named His Mother’s Permanent Conservator

Friend Opposes Bid by Actress’ Son For Permanent Conservatorship

‘Star Trek’ Actress Court Battle: Judge Won’t Go

Star Trek ‘Lt. Uhura’ on 1960s TV Now Target of Court Battle Over Conservatorship

Star Trek‘s Nichelle Nichols Goes to Court Over Guardianship Issues

Star Trek Actress’ Son Named His Mother’s Permanent Conservator

A judge Thursday named Nichelle Nichols’ son as the permanent conservator of the 86-year-old”Star Trek” actress, who suffers from dementia.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Barbara Johnson appointed 67-year-old Kyle Johnson — who is not related to the judge — as the permanent conservator of his mother’s person and her estate.

In her ruling, Johnson said a conservatorship is appropriate because of Nichols’ dementia.

“At a certain age stuff happens,” the judge said.

A smiling Johnson, who had a major role in the 1969 film “The Learning Tree,” praised the ruling.

“I’m tremendously relieved,” he said after the hearing.

On Sept. 10, the judge named Johnson as the temporary conservator of his mother’s person and Marina del Rey psychologist B.J. Hawkins as the temporary conservator of the actress’ estate to manage her financial matters. Johnson now will serve in both roles.

Most of Nichols’ assets are in her Woodland Hills home, which her son’s court papers state is worth nearly $2 million.

Longtime Nichols friend Angelique Fawcette had earlier opposed Johnson’s petition, but her attorney, Troy Martin, told the court that despite some “bumps in the road,” his client had received the visits she sought with the actress.

Fawcette said Nichols has been a victim of elder abuse by people who do not have her best interests at heart. Fawcette said during a previous hearing that she called authorities when she suspected Nichols was the victim of financial abuse and bought her a new set of clothes when some of the actress’ wardrobe turned up missing.

“All I can say is that I hope everything turns out for the best for Ms. Nichols,” Fawcette told the judge.

The judge declined to hear objections to Johnson’s petition brought on behalf of another person who said he also was a longtime friend of the actress.

Nichols played Lt. Uhura, a translator and communications officer, aboard the USS Enterprise in the “Star Trek” series that ran on NBC from 1966-69, and also appeared in some of the later “Star Trek” movies.

Full Article & Source:
Star Trek Actress’ Son Named His Mother’s Permanent Conservator

See Also:
Friend Opposes Bid by Actress’ Son For Permanent Conservatorship

‘Star Trek’ Actress Court Battle: Judge Won’t Go

Star Trek ‘Lt. Uhura’ on 1960s TV Now Target of Court Battle Over Conservatorship

Star Trek‘s Nichelle Nichols Goes to Court Over Guardianship Issues