Edward Tricomi and Libra Max hold a picture of artist Peter Max.
Stephen Yang
Pop artist Peter Max, 84, father, animal advocate and Alzheimer’s victim.
Born Nazi Germany. Refugee, fled before the Holocaust. American
immigrant. Now — finances dwindling — under New York City
court-appointed guardianship.
I have reported this before.
Now daughter Libra asks to help what she calls a seemingly
“over-medicated Peter” and “involuntary daylong isolation” and “family
members requiring formal written request even for time limited,
surveilled visitation.” Phone’s removed. Pets removed. Health care proxy
family members are allegedly no longer privy to his medical
information.
Cited is camera surveillance 24 hours a day, no permission to visit
his own art studio, lifelong friends needing to sign an NDA before
addressing him.
SPARTANBURG, SC (FOX Carolina) - The Charles Lea Center released a statement on the caretaker who was charged for allegedly abusing a vulnerable adult.
Chief Executive Officer of Charles Lea Center Jerry Bernard said in a statement:
“The
well-being of the men and women who receive services at the Charles Lea
Center is, and always will be, our number one priority. We hold all
staff to exceptionally high standards and have a zero-tolerance policy
for abuse. Such behavior does not reflect the level of care and
compassion the Charles Lea Center has been committed to providing for
more than 50 years. Charles Lea Center policy specifically prohibits any
abuse, neglect, exploitation or any form of mistreatment of the people
we support and will not permit the continued employment of anyone who
violates this policy."
Earlier today, the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office announced the charges.
A
witness said she said a police report a client with special needs asked
Mishanna Ortega D'Wan Armour, a caretaker at the Charles Lea Center,
for her prescribed medicine several times. Armour said that she would
get it in a minute. The client asked again and stated she would call the
house manager if Armour didn't get her medicine, according to the
witness.
The police report then says the witness saw Armour
standing with her hand's up in a fighting stance. The client then walked
to Armour and Armour hit the client a minimum of three times in the
head.
The witness said she broke up the fight and Armour stormed
out of the facility. A facility nurse checked on the client and stated
that they began to have a seizure.
Armour has been charged with
abuse or neglect with great bodily injury of a vulnerable adult and
second degree assault and battery.
Marvin Stein lived an eventful and prosperous life. But a battle among
his family over his fortune broke out, and he suddenly found himself
powerless to fight for himself.
Marvin
Stein, in the apartment where he now lives with his son and former
wife. “As I look back,” he said recently, “yes, I was taken advantage
of.”Credit...Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times
By John Leland
This much is agreed upon.
On
the day after Thanksgiving 2018, Marvin Stein’s two adult sons removed
him from the home he shared with his third wife and took him to three
banks, where he withdrew nearly $400,000. Then they transferred the
money to a trust account that they controlled.
Within
days, the sons — who came from Marvin’s second marriage — helped him
change his will to make them the only beneficiaries. Two months later,
twin sisters from Marvin’s wife’s family, his grandnieces-in-law,
petitioned the court to declare him legally incapacitated, and to
appoint a guardian to manage both his person and his finances. And, they
argued, they were the right people for the job. They were 23.
Here is where things become more contentious.
On
a recent afternoon, Todd Stein, 56, the younger of Marvin’s two sons,
showed a photograph of his father, taken shortly after that
Thanksgiving, that he said revealed Marvin’s condition at the time. Shot
from behind, Marvin, then 88, appears shirtless, his skin mottled and
loose on his frame.
Is this just the
body of a man in late life? Or is it, as his son maintains, evidence of
potentially life-threatening neglect that Marvin, a lifelong fitness
buff, had suffered at the hands of his wife’s younger relatives?
Had Todd and his
brother saved their father? Or had they, as the twins claimed in court
papers, taken advantage of his frail state to kidnap him and siphon off
his life savings?
In the months after
the bank tour, police officers, a judge, a court evaluator, a dozen or
so lawyers and two very assertive families would all throw themselves at
these questions, setting the trajectory of Marvin Stein’s late years
and consuming hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Now Todd Stein, who runs a management company for actors, is trying to make a documentary series about the battle between the two families.
He
proposed calling the series, “Fight of His Life: The Marvin Stein
Story.” The production company that bought the rights preferred
something juicier: “A Mafia Marriage.”
The Boxer
Marvin Stein at age 10 in 1940: small but tough.Credit...via Todd Stein
Marvin
Stein, who was born in 1930, grew up poor in East Flatbush, Brooklyn,
where he said he was the only Jewish kid boxing at the Flatbush Boys
Club. His father was an alcoholic who left the family before Marvin was
10. Marvin was small but tough, fighting his way to Golden Gloves
lightweight championship titles in 1946 and 1947. Boxing brought his
first contact with organized crime figures.
“These
underworld characters, they wanted to take advantage of me, so they
drove me to Philadelphia, and I fought in Philadelphia, and they drove
me back home again,” Marvin, 91, said in late September, in the Upper
East Side apartment where he lives with Todd and Todd’s mother. His
managers had chosen Philadelphia because the betting was “very
loosey-loosey,” Marvin said. His voice was soft but even in his clipped
phrasing, the grit of the episode seemed still fresh. “Real characters,”
he said.
It was not his last encounter with gangsters.
“No,” Marvin said.
Marvin
sat low in a wheelchair at one end of a table piled with shrimp, grapes
and other noshes. Felicia Stein — Todd’s mother — sat in a wheelchair
in a leopard-print blouse at the other end.
Marvin
and Felicia, who divorced in 1986, sleep in separate bedrooms, each
with a second bed for a home attendant. Todd, who had moved back to New
York from Los Angeles to help care for his mother, created a third
bedroom for himself from a section of the living room.
“He’s been wonderful, helping us,” Felicia said.
“What do I do for you?” Todd asked.
“You put up with me.”
The
conversation, like others over a span of several weeks, moved like a
river, winding here and there, occasionally stagnating in eddies. A few
years ago, Marvin had two transient ischemic attacks — like very brief
strokes — and he now has memory lapses that disrupt his narrative flow.
Todd addressed him deliberately, enunciating each word: “Do you remember the guardianship case?”
“I know you were involved in that,” Marvin said.
To
steer Marvin’s memory, Todd brought out a thick album of family photos.
In the early pictures, Marvin appears as a handsome, athletic man,
prosperous through middle age. But later pictures, taken when he was in
his 80s, show an emaciated figure living in a Brooklyn basement.
No
court ever found that Marvin had been abused or neglected. But as he
looked at the images, he tried to make sense of the change.
“As
I look back, yes, I was taken advantage of,” he said. “At the time, I
wasn’t aware of being exploited. I guess I was a sucker.”
Some
memories were beyond recall, even with the photos. After high school,
Marvin spent a year in a psychiatric institution to avoid prison. He
could not remember why.
Todd asked his father, “How’s your memory today?”
Marvin
thought about it. “I look back, it’s a movie,” he said. “I’m very
fortunate I’m hooked up with Todd and this apartment. When I leave here,
where am I going?”
“To heaven, I hope,” Todd said.
“Yeah.”
The High Life
Mr.
Stein in 1964 at the Manhattan health club he managed, where
celebrities like Barbra Streisand and Burt Reynolds were V.I.P.s. Credit...via Todd Stein
In
Todd’s mind — or in his patter — the documentary series is a sure
smash. A production company, Fremantle, the makers of “American Idol”
and “America’s Got Talent,” bought the rights. The powerful Creative
Artists Agency was already pitching it to streaming services like
Netflix and Peacock. Probably there would be a bidding war for the
rights, Todd said. The pitch included a “sizzle reel” showing stacks of
money and dramatized scenes of elder abuse. It had a story with
real-life gangsters and celebrities, a health club — owned by Marvin —
with a vault where members checked their guns and a “sleep room” where
closeted gay men met. And it had a guardianship battle — just like
Britney Spears, almost.
“You couldn’t write this stuff,” Todd said.
Boxing
never developed into a professional career for Marvin, but it began his
affinity for the gym. He married and became a father just out of high
school, working in a fruit store for his first wife’s father. Customers
included Barbra Streisand’s mother, who liked to haggle, Marvin said.
“She was a cheapskate,” he recalled.
Memory is a strange and wondrous thing.
Marvin
rode the fitness wave of the 1960s and 1970s. After divorcing his first
wife, he married his second, Felicia Ann Salvi, a former dressmaker’s
model, in 1961. He managed the health club at the Shelton Towers hotel
in Midtown Manhattan, where celebrities like Ms. Streisand and Burt
Reynolds were V.I.P.s, and George Hamilton tanned on the sun deck.
Marvin started his own Shelton clubs in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens.
He bought property in Amagansett, in the Hamptons — $27,000 in 1969 —
and built a house.
The club in
Brooklyn became a hangout for wiseguys and judges from the nearby
courthouse. “They would meet in the steam room and have contacts because
it couldn’t be taped,” Marvin said.
The Son
Todd
Stein this year. A former child actor, he hopes to make a documentary
series about the battle over his father’s guardianship.Credit...Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times
Todd,
who was born in 1965, attended Manhattan private schools, including the
elite Professional Children’s School for young working performers.
Schoolmates included Sarah Jessica Parker, Christian Slater and Phoebe
Cates. At 13, he started to land roles in commercials, soap operas and
Off Broadway plays.
Marvin lavished
his children with money, especially after he and Felicia separated, when
Todd was 16. It was how Marvin showed love, Todd said. They’d go
shopping at Barney’s, and Todd could pick out whatever he wanted. But
Marvin also warned his son, “Don’t let people know what you have.” That
was the old Brooklyn talking.
Todd,
who also goes by T.J., moved to California after college, eventually
starting a management company for young actors, which was written up
in The Los Angeles Times in 2000. In court papers, Marvin’s future
guardians said that Todd and his father had little contact after Todd
moved west, except when Todd wanted money, which Marvin resented. Todd
and Marvin denied this. But when Marvin married a woman he met at the
Brooklyn exercise club in 1991, he did not tell his children or invite
them to the wedding.
The woman was Anita Montemarano, who
worked for New York City in social services. She was also, the Steins
learned, the sister of a high-ranking mafia captain.
The Gangster
Dominic
Montemarano, whose sister was Marvin Stein’s third wife, was described
in a federal indictment as a captain in the Colombo organized crime
family.Credit...via Todd Stein
Marvin’s
new wife was the older sister of Dominic Montemarano, who was known as
Donny Shacks and at the time of the wedding was serving what would be a
decade in prison for racketeering and extortion. The federal indictment
described him as a capo, or captain, in the Colombo crime family.
Mr.
Montemarano, whose record also included arrests for assault, bribery,
loan sharking, illegal gun possession and bookmaking, had a yen for the
Hollywood life. When he got out of prison in 1997, he moved to
California and started hanging out with celebrities like Pamela Anderson
and Elizabeth Hurley, as well as Steve Bing, a mercurial movie producer
who leapt to his death from his high-rise apartment in Century City in
July 2020.
Mr. Montemarano also tried acting, starring as an aging criminal in the 2002 bomb “Night at the Golden Eagle,”
produced by Mr. Bing, which took in less than $18,000 at the box
office. Reviewing the movie in The Times, A.O. Scott wrote, approvingly,
that “the smell of sweat, urine and cheap liquor seems to emanate from
the screen.”
Marvin Stein said he had
few dealings with his brother-in-law, by choice. “He used to come to my
house to meet with my wife, and there was money going back and forth,”
Marvin said, declining to elaborate. “I sort of excused myself and got
busy with something. I didn’t want any part of it, because sooner or
later it was going to catch up with me.”
Relations
between the in-laws were fraught. Members of Ms. Montemarano’s family
and their lawyer declined to be interviewed for this article, but in
2013, Anita Montemarano wrote a scathing two-page letter to Todd and his
brother and their half-sister from Marvin’s first marriage, a champion
powerlifter living in Brooklyn. In it, Anita called them “a
self-centered, self-absorbed, ungrateful group of adults” who enjoyed
“free rides financially and emotionally” from their father.
In
court documents, Anita’s niece Donna claimed that Marvin’s sons ignored
him for long stretches, “emerging only to make financial demands of
their father and his wife.”
Todd and Marvin say it was Anita who tried to keep them apart.
“Anita would make sarcastic remarks: Is that Todd calling again?” Marvin said.
When
Anita got a diagnosis of kidney cancer in late 2016, the conflicts
between the two families — over money, over control — escalated. Despite
the tension, Marvin said he had loved Anita, and that she had been very
brave during her decline.
The Movies
Marvin
Stein with Anita Montemarano Stein, his third wife, in an undated
photo. “If you think I’m going to beg you,” she said to him the last
time he saw her, “I’m not.”Credit...via Todd Stein
Just
before Thanksgiving 2018, Todd was on a business trip to Chicago when
he called his father. He thought Marvin did not sound right. He flew to
New York, he said, and found his father living in the basement of his
home in the Dyker Heights section of Brooklyn, unwashed and in poor
condition.
At this point, Anita was in
the terminal stages of cancer, with a hospice nurse visiting three
times a week and her niece and twin grandnieces caring for her and
Marvin. The twins called Todd’s arrival that Thanksgiving “a rare
appearance at a family gathering.”
“My dad was just skin and bones,” Todd said, adding that he was in
delirium. “He had been moving six figures out of his bank accounts over
the past 20 months. He was not eating, he was not drinking or taking his
proper medicine.”
In their petition
to be appointed Marvin’s guardians, the grandnieces described him as
incapacitated, having dementia and unable to maintain a conversation or
remember information told to him.
Marvin
said it had been his choice to live in the basement. He had a
television and exercise equipment there, and a futon frame piled with
mattresses. But when Todd showed him the photo of himself taken shortly
afterward, shirtless, Marvin was distressed to see how thin he was.
“When I look at it, it indicates that I wasn’t getting food,” he said,
“because my bones are showing.”
There
were also financial questions. Four months earlier, in July 2018, with
cancer ravaging Anita’s body, someone had helped Marvin change his will
to leave the Dyker Heights house, worth more than $1.2 million, entirely
to the grandnieces, rather than to be shared among the two families, as
it had been before. Other accounts were also changed to favor Anita’s
family, including the beneficiaries of Anita’s will and $368,000 in life
insurance policies, Todd said.
That
Friday, a few days after Todd’s initial visit, Todd and his older
brother, Ralph, who lived in New York City, showed up at the Dyker
Heights house and announced they were taking their father to lunch.
Instead, they began the tour of Marvin’s banks to remove his assets.
Police
officers, notified by Anita’s family, sent Todd text messages telling
him to bring Marvin to a police precinct. They reported to a precinct in
Manhattan, then to one in Brooklyn, and then to a hospital, because
Marvin’s blood pressure was “off the charts,” Todd said. Finally,
sometime around 2 a.m. and without warning his mother, Todd took his
father to the apartment he was sharing with Felicia, in the Upper East
Side building where Todd grew up.
It was the first time Marvin and Felicia had seen each other in at least a decade.
Todd
said he was only protecting his father’s assets. In their guardianship
petition, the grandnieces accused Todd and his brother of “exercising
undue influence and duress” over Marvin to get hold of his money, saying
he “cannot maintain a conversation of any length because he cannot
remember the information shared with him and consequently loses the
thread of the discussion.”
Marvin saw
Anita only once more, when he returned to the house a few days after
Thanksgiving to get his medications. In a very short video recorded on
Todd’s cellphone, Marvin stands over her bed, apparently having told her
he was leaving. “If you think I’m going to beg you,” she can be heard
saying, “I’m not.”
With so much acrimony, both families got protective orders against one another.
When
Anita died, on Dec. 10, 2018, her family did not notify Todd and
Marvin. The brothers went to the Dyker Heights house around Christmas
and found it had been largely cleared out. This was how they learned of
her death.
About a month after that,
in late January 2019, the grandnieces petitioned to have Marvin declared
incapacitated, and to be appointed guardians of his person and
property. They tallied his known assets at close to $2 million, in
addition to the house.
Without meeting with Marvin, a judge in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn granted their petition.
Todd
hired a team of lawyers for himself and for his father, and petitioned
the court to release Marvin from guardianship, or appoint Todd as the
guardian instead of the twins.
The
legal fees began to mount, at up to $650 per hour. The court replaced
the twins with an experienced, temporary guardian, but gave him
authority only over Marvin’s property, not his person. The guardian’s
fee, too, was billed to Marvin.
Living
with Todd and Felicia, Marvin regained weight; his therapist and doctor
submitted letters attesting that he was lucid and able to care for
himself, with help.
But Marvin was
still not in charge of his finances. If he needed money for a shave, he
said, he had to ask the guardian. And the legal bills were adding up:
$100,000, then $200,000 and rising — some of it a result of Todd’s
constant emails to the various lawyers.
The
two families fought over everything. Todd demanded that Anita’s family
remove her cremated remains from a niche at Green-Wood Cemetery that
Marvin had bought. That battle went on for months before the remains
were moved.
Finally,
in June 2019, the two families agreed to a settlement, and together
asked the court to end the guardianship. Marvin regained control of his
life.
Release
Marvin,
Todd and Felicia Stein this month in the Upper East Side apartment they
share. Todd estimates that it cost about $300,000 to get his father out
of guardianship.Credit...Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times
On
a recent afternoon in the Steins’ apartment, Todd estimated that the
cost of getting his father out of guardianship ran to about $300,000. He
did not know how much the process cost Anita’s family.
Marvin
and Felicia sat facing each other across a table. Felicia, who is now
87, wore a sash from a beauty contest she won in her youth.
Living
together has been an adjustment for the three of them. Todd has just
started dating after the breakup of a long-term relationship and surgery
from a severe bicycle accident — all while running his business and
caring for two very old parents.
“It’s a 24-hour job,” he said. “I plan the meals, take care of the medicines. It’s a lot.”
And
there is the recognition that his parents, who are working out a new
relationship after a long and acrimonious time apart, are getting
frailer.
As he prepared to pitch the documentary series, Todd said, he worried that people might accuse him of exploiting his father.
“Would it look
badly that I’m involved in a documentary that’s watching his decline?”
Todd said. “Because it is something that could be judged.”
Felicia
said that when Todd first brought Marvin to her apartment, she was
“apprehensive.” But a kind of rhythm had emerged. “I’m used to him,” she
said. Still, she added, all the talk of gangsters and police made her
feel uneasy — though in the end, there is little evidence that criminal
elements played a role other than as mood music for the documentary.
Todd asked his father whether he liked living with Felicia.
Marvin gave it some thought. “Doesn’t harm me in any way,” he said.
Todd pressed: “It’s nice to have someone you can talk to?”
“Yes,” Marvin said.
Their
challenge now is to imagine their remaining lives together. Marvin and
Felicia exercise in the gym downstairs; Todd takes them for meals at the
corner restaurant. The couple’s combined incomes cover their living
expenses.
“Luckily, my father is
considered a success story,” Todd said, acknowledging that many people
never get out of guardianship. “He lived. Imagine if they didn’t have
the money to fight it.”
He paused and then corrected himself. “If they didn’t have money,” he said, “this never would have happened.”
Daniel
Edwin Gorder, 37, pleaded guilty to an amended charge of misdemeanor
partner family member assault before Gallatin County District Court
Judge Peter Ohman.
According to court documents, Gorder hit an
elderly person across the face with a shoe and, on two different dates,
ripped the armrests off of a chair the person was sitting in and grabbed
the person and pushed them into a piece of furniture in a home. Court
documents also said that several years prior, he had grabbed a
different person by the neck and pushed them into the ground. He later
violated a court order not to contact both of the people by attempting
to call one and texting the other.
At Gorder’s appearance in Gallatin County
Justice Court after his arrest, Judge Bryan Adams set his bail at
$10,000. At that bail setting, Adams said he considered setting a higher
bail because of the nature of the then-alleged crimes and what the
judge saw as an escalation of dangerous behavior. He decided against
doing so because he did not determine Gorder to be a flight risk, or a
person who would attempt to run from the court, because he has ties to
Bozeman. A first offense of misdemeanor partner or family member
assault carries a minimum sentence of 24 hours in jail with a maximum of
one year incarcerated. It also carries a minimum $100 fine and a
maximum fine of $1,000.
In Montana law, the definition of both a partner and a family member
is broad and includes any past or present member of a family household,
including people related by adoption, marriage and remarriage, whether
or not they still live in the same household. Partners under the law are
defined as any two people in a dating relationship or formerly in a
relationship, including spouses and former spouses, and any couple who
has a child together regardless of dating or marital status.
Sentencing for Gorder’s case is scheduled for Dec. 7 in Gallatin County District Court.
The
Indiana Court of Appeals has affirmed the denial of a guardianship
petition for an elderly Vincennes man who revoked a former friend’s
position as his power of attorney. However, the appellate court reversed
an award of more than $70,000 in attorney fees he requested.
John
J. Yocum Jr., who at 95 lived alone in the same Vincennes house where
he grew up, was able to take care of his own daily needs and kept the
residence well maintained.
Prior
to his death in August 2021, Yocum was injured when he fell at home in
August 2018 and was subsequently hospitalized after being found on the
ground roughly three days later. Lydia Duncan, whom Yocum had met at
church, agreed to live with and care for the elderly man on the
condition that he make her his power of attorney.
Duncan
was ultimately made Yocum’s POA and health care representative, with
Yocum’s friend Donald Fredrick serving as successor in both roles. They
also served as trustees of Yocum’s charitable trust, which held the bulk
of his estate.
In
her role as attorney-in-fact, Duncan deposited $100,000 from the
liquidation of Yocum’s certificates of deposition into a new checking
account and listed herself as a co-owner of the account. Yocum also set
up a $50,000 educational trust for Duncan’s daughter.
In
December 2019, Duncan and Yocum got into an argument over who canceled
his eye doctor appointment. Duncan, who called Yocum a liar, then
alleged he battered her by pushing her down and kicking her after she
refused to stop looking through his paperwork. However, the Gibson
Circuit Court concluded Duncan “set up” Yocum by recording the argument
and falling down.
Duncan,
who confessed to recording Yocum on several occasions without his
knowledge, was soon thereafter removed as his POA. In September 2020,
Yocum named David Lancaster as his attorney-in-fact and health care
representative, specifically revoking Duncan.
Additionally,
Yocum, who had testified that he didn’t trust either Duncan or
Fredrick, executed a new will leaving his estate to his church rather
than to Duncan. He also defunded the educational trust.
Duncan
and Fredrick petitioned for appointment of guardianship over Yocum,
alleging that he required 24-hour care, that he lacked the requisite
capacity to execute the power of attorney change and that the new will
was invalid due to fraud, duress or undue influence. They also sought to
have him examined.
But
the trial court concluded their guardianship petition was “frivolous,
unreasonable, groundless” and that neither Duncan nor Fredrick were
qualified persons suitable to serve as Yocum’s guardians due to the
evidence of their adversarial histories and of Duncan’s past breach of
her fiduciary relationship with him. It also concluded Yocum was not an
incapacitated person under Indiana Code § 29-3-1-7.5 and that a
guardianship wasn’t necessary. Finally, it ordered Duncan and Fredrick
to pay $71,689.40 in attorney fees.
The
Court of Appeals of Indiana affirmed the denial of the guardianship
petition, finding the appellants failed to establish that Yocum was
unable to care for himself or his property. As such, an appointment of a
guardian was not necessary, it concluded.
As
to his contractual capacity, the COA concluded Yocum understood the
purpose and necessity of appointing a power of attorney and that he
could revoke it at any time.
“We
agree that John only had a limited understanding of his
attorney-in-fact’s power to act on his behalf,” Judge Paul Mathias
wrote. “And John could not specifically remember executing the documents
granting David Lancaster his power of attorney, but he was able to
identify the document, he understood what the document was, and that he
signed it. That John did not have a complete understanding of the power
of attorney’s ability to make decisions on his behalf, does not mean
that he lacked contractual capacity.
“…
Moreover, the fact that John was diagnosed with dementia does not mean
that John lacked contractual capacity,” Mathias continued. “Although
John could not recall executing the documents at issue, he understood
the documents and their purpose, recognized his signature, and wanted
David to act as his power of attorney.”
But
the COA reversed and split on the issue of attorney fees, with the
majority concluding the appellants’ arguments were not devoid of all
plausibility. The appellate court also denied Yocum’s request for
appellate attorney fees.
But
Judge Elizabeth Tavitas dissented, arguing the trial court made
additional findings that supported the entry of an attorney fees award.
“The
record clearly reveals that the Appellants undermined and took
advantage of John and initiated the guardianship for pecuniary gain,”
Tavitas opined in dissent. “… The trial court did not err in awarding
attorney fees regarding the Appellants’ frivolous claim, which they
litigated in bad faith. … Accordingly, I concur in part and dissent in
part.”
ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) -- A Missouri woman claims her lawyer didn't
tell her he was disbarred, leaving her thinking she had someone
representing her case for months.
In Missouri, complaints against a
lawyer's license must be submitted to the Office of Chief Disciplinary
Counsel. If the Counsel believes there is wrongdoing, the case is sent
to the Missouri Supreme Court.
When a lawyer is disbarred, they
receive a letter from the Missouri Supreme Court that states they must,
"comply in all respects with Rule 5.27." That rule gives people 15 days
from when they were disbarred to follow multiple steps, including
notifying clients with pending cases in writing.
Donna Vorwold said she never received notice in writing when her lawyer was disbarred.
"I went online and started Googling him and
found out he was disbarred and said no," Vorwold recalled. "How can this
happen 11 months ago and nobody telling me?"
Vorwold hired John Tresslar to represent her in a lawsuit they filed in 2018.
In
October 2020, Tresslar was disbarred when the Missouri Supreme Court
found him guilty of professional misconduct. A brief by the Office of
Chief Disciplinary Counsel explained that it found Tresslar spent
$51,220 of a client's settlement money. According to the brief, Tresslar
knew about that misspending and did it again, taking $14,000 from
another client's settlement fund. The brief goes on to say Tresslar
falsely represented himself as someone's attorney and was dishonest
during disciplinary proceedings.
"You're breaking the law if you're playing lawyer and you're disbarred," Vorwold said.
In
Vorwold's case, court records show Tresslar is currently listed as her
lawyer. Vorwold told News 4 she didn't know she needed to change that
until almost a year after Tresslar was disbarred, and the lawyer
representing the other side in her suit called her.
"He told me
you don't have a lawyer anymore so now it's legal for me to talk to you
and I was like what is this guy talking about," Vorwold said.
News
4 Investigates learned Tresslar still has an office in downtown St.
Louis. Tresslar wasn't in his office when News 4 stopped by.
During
a phone call Tresslar said he stopped working with Vorwold. When
questioned if he ever notified Vorwold in writing that he was disbarred
Tresslar said, "yea I didn't represent her for any hearings or
anything." Tresslar was unable to provide a copy of the written notice
and said it was in Vorwold's case file, which he no longer had.
As
it turns out, the Missouri Supreme Court required Tresslar to file
proof that he followed the disbarment rules. News 4 Investigates learned
that record doesn't exist. If the record existed, it should include
proof clients were notified in writing, proof that clients were given
their complete case files, and proof of a surrendered law license.
"There's
no gray area at all, this is a real serious thing," said Attorney Tony
Behr, a partner at Behr, McCarter, Potter, Neely & Hyde. "Most
attorneys don't even realize what happens until a complaint is filed
against them."
Behr was not involved in Tresslar's case, but represented other lawyers and helped them follow the disbarment rules.
"If we don't do it right, then we really haven't served the public," Behr added.
Behr explained that notifying clients can get complicated.
"You have to find the clients first of all, you don't always know where they live," he said.
Once Behr helps find a client, he makes sure they get their case files to bring to a new lawyer.
"We
actually hand them the file and have the receipt that they say, I so
and so, signed for receipt of my file and then I have them sign and date
it," Behr said.
Behr said he uses that signature as part of the proof to send to the court.
It's
a step News 4 Investigates learned not everyone takes. A search of
Missouri court records for lawyers disbarred in 2021 shows out of nine
people, two surrendered their law license, and one submitted an
affidavit claiming they took every step. The majority of lawyers
disbarred this year haven't followed the court order.
During a
second phone call, News 4 Investigates asked Tresslar if he could
provide proof he followed the Missouri Supreme Court disbarment rules.
Tresslar was unable to do that.
"I certainly did not practice law
without a license and any allegation that I did is completely false,"
Tresslar said on the phone.
Tresslar said Vorwold was his only client with a pending case at the time he was disbarred.
Vorwold
is taking matters into her own hands and reported what happened to the
Missouri Supreme Court. It's a side of the law she believes she should
have been protected from.
"Somebody needs to be following up on lawyers that are disbarred to make sure they're doing the right thing," Vorwold added.
Tresslar
said he's still practicing law, just not in Missouri. He is currently
licensed in Illinois. Tresslar told News 4 that he plans to reapply to
the Missouri Bar.
You can search Missouri lawyer disbarment and discipline records here.
Facilities understaffed following the pandemic failed to provide basic care in some nursing homes, investigators found.
by Justin Heinze
PENNSYLVANIA — Pennsylvania
has released the details of hundreds of investigations into complaints
at nursing homes across the state in October, including dozens related
to COVID-19 response and safety measures.
Three
nursing homes were sanctioned as a result of the investigations,
resulting in a total of $16,500 in fines. Investigations addressed a
wide variety of issues, ranging from policy deficiencies to overworked
staff and the consequences of understaffed facilities.
At
Abington Manor in Montgomery County, for example, an inspection found
that understaffing amid the pandemic had led, in certain cases, to
significantly reduced quality of care.
"It
was determined that the facility failed to provide and/or efficiently
deploy sufficient nursing staff to consistently provide timely quality
of care and services, including toileting/incontinence care, response to
residents' requests for assistance with activities of daily living, and
medication administration to maintain the physical and mental
well-being of the residents in the facility," the report states.
State officials, who oversee
688 homes in Pennsylvania, say they're working to respond to these
issues. But enforcement only goes so far.
"The Department of
Health continues to investigate complaints to ensure nursing home
residents receive the best quality of life and care," Acting Secretary
of Health Alison Beam said in a statement. "If you see something that
may jeopardize patients' safety or well-being, you can file an anonymous
complaint by calling, filling out an online form, emailing or even
mailing a letter to the department."
At
Guardian Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Luzerne County, staff
similarly failed to provide fundamental care, the investigation found.
Some residents did not "consistently receive showers as planned to
maintain good personal and oral hygiene."
In one case, a resident
who was dependent upon staff for basic needs was not given a shower for
the first 20 days after admission. Investigators noted a "pattern" of
neglect but were unable to name a cause beyond the obvious lack of
personnel. "The Director of Nursing was unable to state why Resident 1
had not had a shower since her admission 20 days ago or why direct care
staff were not aware that that the resident had dentures."
A
resident at Embassy of Hearthside in State College told inspectors
about the staffing issue. "He confirmed that he would like to get two
showers a week," the report states, "But feels the facility does not
have enough staff to be able to do this."
State officials
conducted a total of 504 inspections of nursing homes throughout October
month, covering 345 separate homes. Out of those investigations, 306
were launched due to complaints, and 67 were specifically due to
COVID-19 complaints.
Rio Hamilton stands by a courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Friday,
just after a judge officially ended Britney Spears’s conservatorship.
(Philip Cheung for The Washington Post)
By Ashley Fetters Maloy
WEST
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The second floor of the thumping, dimly lit Naughty
Pig bar transformed into a dance floor almost immediately once the
Freedom Party beganFriday night. Speakers pumped out one Britney
Spears hit after another, and boos briefly ensued at a song from ’N
Sync, whose singer Justin Timberlake has apologized for the way he
treated Spears when they were dating. Jubilant guests dressed in short
shorts,light-wash denim and pink accessories in every shade bumped up against each other while shouting out the lyrics to“Gimme More” and “Piece of Me.”
On the outskirts of the rose-colored throng, bobbing his head happily in a“Free Britney” tee, was Rio Hamilton.
He had flown in just that day, arriving at the rally outside Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles just seconds beforethe good-news confetti cannons burst. A judge inside had finally ended the 13-year conservatorship that had controlled Spears’s finances, movements and other aspects of her life. Rio’sflight
out would leave first thing the next morning. The celebration would be
just the briefest of respites from his own guardianship ordeal back in
Las Cruces, N.M., where his mother, 93-year-old Dorris Hamilton, has
spent more than two years under a guardianship he said they hadn’t asked
for.
Rio,
58, has seen Spears in concert three times. But he didn’t come all this
way just for her. He wanted to show support for others fighting
conservatorship abuse: “I wanted to show them I was completely, you
know, on their side,” he said. “ ‘You need me here, I’m here for you.’ ”
It
would be easy, given its brief but memorable bursts into the spotlight
over the past few years, to mistake the #FreeBritney movement for simply
a collection of vocal, die-hard Spears fans who supported her as she
fought for her freedom in court. But a formidable contingent say they
haveexperienced guardianship or conservatorship abuse in their own lives.Now
that Rio and others like him are newly organized and inspired, the
aftershocks of #FreeBritney could continue to rattle the American legal
system long after Spears’s victory.
Conservatorships and guardianships are typically intended to protect vulnerable individuals. (The difference between the two varies by state.) But Rio and Dorris’s story is one of many allegations ofthe guardianship industry overstepping beyond what a family feels is necessary.
Dorris
Hamilton was one of the first Black women to attend the University of
Arkansas. She met Martin Luther King Jr. before he was famous, when he
came to speak nearby. She married a mathematician, and when he took a
job building missiles, she moved with him to New Mexico and took a
teaching job.
They
divorced, but she stayed, eventually serving as the principal of a
middle school for more than 20 years. She was the first Black principal
in the district, and according to a representative for the district,
when it came time to rename another nearby middle school last year,
“Dorris Hamilton” was a popular suggestion.
Rio Hamilton said of Spears’s case, “It just made everything so much
easier for the rest of us to really explain what was going on.” (Philip
Cheung for The Washington Post)
The Hamiltons’ guardianship battle was the subject of a February investigation by Searchlight New Mexicoand
a speech by Rio at a #FreeBritney rally in September. In July 2019,
when Rio lived in New York, he visited his mother for his birthday and
noted that the house she had lived in for a half-century had fallen into
disarray. He decided he would hire a company to clean out her house on
her behalf, and perhaps find some home caregiving help — so Rio and
Dorris began proceedings to give Rio power of attorney.
Soon after Rio returned home, he learned that a lawyer he and Dorris had consultedabout that process had “filed an emergency petition claiming my mother was incapacitated, and that I
was the one who was claiming she was incapacitated,” Rio said. They
were later informed that a court had approved the petition and appointed
a company called Advocate Services as Dorris’s guardian, granting it
control of her estate. “They had the legal authority to close all of my
mother’s bank accounts, without her knowledge, transfer the money to a
different account and then leave my mother going around every day to
banks that she’s been banking with for more than 40 years, and having
those people explain to her that she doesn’t have any control over what
has happened.”
Within
weeks, Rio said, Dorris had been escorted by a police officer to a
hospital, then admitted to a facility that Rio describes as ahome
for incapacitated elderly people. Dorris, he noted, went to aerobics
classes even at age 91; she can converse with almost no trouble hearing.
With those kinds of abilities still intact, Rio wondered, “Why would
you be in a unit where everybody who’s around you is either incapable of
holding a conversation or can’t walk or talk?”
Dorris,
in an interview, agreed. She hopes to move back to her house, she said,
and wishes she could visit the last two living siblings of the nine she
once had. “I miss being able to move about and greet people and attend
meetings of various kinds,” she said. At the home where she lives now,
“I’m almost locked in.”
The
lawyer did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment but
told Searchlight New Mexico that she had called Rio and had left a
message informing him of the petition. (Rio says he is not aware of any
attempt by the lawyer to contact him before Dorris’s assets were
seized.) She also told Searchlight she was not separating elders from
their relatives but protecting them.
Advocate
Services maintained in a statement that “as guardian and conservator,
it is our statutory responsibility to protect the persons self and
assets. Ms. Hamilton was adjudicated to be an incapacitated person upon
testimony and evidence entered. Her home was unsafe due to a 20-year
infestation of mice and a hoarding situation. All evidence of which was
presented to the Court.” The company has previously defended its work in an op-ed in the Las Cruces Sun News.
At
first, trying to explain Dorris’s position to friends was a frustrating
errand for Rio. “Even people who were genuinely interested, you could
actually see when you were putting them to sleep,” Rio remembered,
“because they just had no clue.”But once Spears’s case began
generating national headlines earlier this year, “it just made
everything so much easier for the rest of us to really explain what was
going on.”
#FreeBritney supporters celebrate Friday in front of the courthouse in Los Angeles. (Philip Cheung for The Washington Post)
The #FreeBritney movement has also enjoyed mutually supportive
relationships with other efforts to free conservatees. At a protest
earlier this month in New York City, a crowd gathered outside the
offices of the law firm representing the guardian of Peter Max, 84, an
artist renowned for his psychedelic pop works in the 1960s.
According to his daughter, Libra Max, for the past two years, Peter’s
guardian has put restrictions on his children and friends’ access to
him.
One
of the protesters in the crowd was John Fernandes, the founder of the
#FreeBritney-adjacent Touch of Rose Project. During the chants, a man
walked by on his cellphone, saying, “I guess there’s, like, a Britney
Spears-style thing happening to this guy.”
For
Libra Max, 54, the media attention the Spears family saga has generated
has been a godsend. The #FreeBritney movement was small at first, and
“no one really took them seriously. But I’m actually in awe of them,”
Max said. “They opened the door for stories like my father’s to be
heard.”
At
Friday night’s party in L.A., Max greeted Rio Hamilton with a hug, and
the two posed together in a photo booth under metallic-pink Mylar
balloons spelling out “#FreedBritney.”
(Peter’s
personal needs guardian, Barbara H. Urbach Lissner, said in a statement
to The Post that the guardianship, which began in 2016, is overseen by
someone neutral “due to conflict” among his late wife and his children.
She said that Peter is not isolated but receives visitors most days of
the week, and that he is “well, safe, and happy.”She added, “I have done my best to help him.”)
The
public’s new familiarity with conservatorships has also been a boon to
Lisa MacCarley, a lawyer in Glendale, Calif., who has specialized in
guardianship and conservatorship cases since 1990. Two years ago, she
founded Bettys’ Hope, a charity to address abuses of these legal
arrangements — and the Spears case is the kind that lawyers in her field
pray to the heavens for.
In
her 30 years in the legal system, MacCarley said, she has seen a lack
of oversight in the probate court system lead to violation of
individuals’ rights and families being financially drained while lawyers
profit. “So, in my point of view, the #FreeBritney movement has been,
like, literally the miracle that finally brought the whole problem, the
systemic issues with our guardianship and conservatorship courts, to
light.” In September, MacCarley filed an amicus brief in the Spears
case, arguing that the singer’s right to her own counsel had been
violated by the court.
Advocates for conservatorship reform have often called for clearer national standards
around guardianships and firmer protections around conservatees’ rights
to retain their own lawyers. And the Spears case has spurred action on
both state and federal levels. After the singer’s emotional testimony in court over the summer, for example, Reps. Charlie Crist(D-Fla.)
and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) introduced the Free Act, which would give
people like Spears the right to petition to have their private
conservators or guardians replaced by a public one. (Some #FreeBritney
activists, however, opposed empowering even them.)
Melanie Mandarano leads hundreds of #FreeBritney supporters on a march
Friday in Los Angeles as they wait for the results of the hearing.
(Philip Cheung for The Washington Post)
Rio Hamilton left Los Angeles on Saturday morning with an iPhone camera
roll full of wide-grinning selfies against festive, fuchsia backgrounds
(MacCarley is in one of them) and a feeling of renewed, cautious
optimism. Earlier this year, Rio was granted temporary guardianship over
his mother. He can now pick her up to take her to church and to some
social outings.Advocate Services said it resigned from the
arrangement when Rio was appointed guardian. Still, as Rio sees it, work
remains to be done for his mother to live as she pleases.
Spending Friday with many people who had gathered to support Spears, he
said, “I was thinking: Is this going to make any kind of difference in
her life? You know, now that this one famous conservatorship,
guardianship thing has been put on the right track?” He’s not certain.
But he’s hopeful.
A Philadelphia-based former attorney will spend up to more than two
years in prison for stealing almost $1 million from his cousin's estate.
On
Monday, Aaron S. Friedmann, 63, was sentenced to 15 to 30 months in
state prison for stealing $981,023 from Dr. Sheldon S. Farber, who had
named Friedmann as the executor of his will, according to a Bucks County
District Attorney's Office news release.
Common Pleas Judge Wallace Bateman Jr. also sentenced Friedmann to 10 years of probation, and ordered he pay back what he stole.
The money, the DA's office said, was meant to go to charity organizations.
Friedmann,
of Conshocken, pleaded guilty in August to theft by failure to make
required disposition of funds, theft by unlawful taking, receiving
stolen property and access device fraud. All charges are felonies.
Lower Southampton police began its investigation in March 2017, when a
lawyer representing Farber's estate reported the theft. Farber died
four years earlier.
The attorney told authorities that Farber created a will in December 2006, and named Friedmann the executor.
Friedmann
was an attorney at the Disability Law Advocates Group in Philadelphia,
and handled monetary aspects of Farber's estate, according to the DA's
office.
Investigators found that a check for $200,000 was written
out from Farber's estate and deposited into an account owned by the
Disability Law Advocates Group in February 2013, the release states.
Officials
found an additional 81 fraudulent transactions were committed by
written checks or withdrawals from Farber's estate linked to the
advocate group's account or Friedmann's personal account, according to
authorities.
Friedmann's law license was suspended for his
handling of the estate in 2017. He was disbarred a year later, according
to state records.
