Nevada state office investigates allegations about vulnerable, elderly adults
by: David Charns
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A recent allegation of elder
abuse and neglect involved a man telling police he had not eaten in
three days, documents obtained by the I-Team said. The case began with a
report made to Adult Protective Services (APS), a state program
investigating claims of suspected abandonment, abuse, exploitation,
isolation or neglect.
A team of investigators and social workers is tasked with keeping our
parents and grandparents safe, including any vulnerable adult who is
entrusted into another person’s care.
The office, formerly known as the Elder Protective Services program,
classifies a vulnerable adult as someone who is in the care of another
person between between the ages of 18 and 59. A person older than 60 is
considered an older person when it comes to the state definition.
In one case, a supervisor informed APS about an allegation at an
independent group home in Las Vegas. According to an arrest report for
the homeowner, one man in the home was “bedridden and unable to care for
himself” and begged “for food and stated that he [had] not eaten for
three days.”
The home’s owner, Salome Rosales, is charged with four counts of
abuse and neglect of an older or vulnerable person, court documents
said. The report said one resident told police the home is full of
tenants with “memory loss” who “need additional medical care.”
One resident told police she had fallen off her bed and broke a
finger and “did not get any medical attention at the time of the fall,”
according to the report.
“Even just one case of elder abuse needs to be considered a problem,”
Tammy Seaver, social services chief with APS, said. “I think one of the
most important things you could do is to make sure our vulnerable
population is protected and receiving the care that they so deserve.”
Last year, APS responded to more than 9,000 allegations involving adults over the age of 60.
Reports to APS
can come in several forms. Oftentimes, a family member will report an
allegation. Mandated reporters, including doctors, hospital employees,
social workers and musical therapists, are required to report any
suspicions.
But, not all cases move forward.
“If a client does not want us to pursue, we cannot go further into the investigation,” Seaver said.
Data obtained by the I-Team shows out of more than 6,600 closed cases
statewide last year, APS found 565 cases of substantiated abuse, 442
cases of exploitation and 258 cases of neglect. The total number of
cases was slightly higher year-over-year from fiscal year 2020 to 2019,
Seaver said.
“It’s starting to be talked about more, and people understand that
there are problems out there that need to be reported,” she said.
If criminal charges are warranted in Southern Nevada, APS will forward the case to Metro Police.
Rosales remains out on bail with the stipulation she not house any elderly adults.
Stripping a person of their legal rights is inherently dangerous and dehumanizing.
By Sara Luterman
Britney Spears supporter Alandria Brown holds a sign outside a court
hearing concerning the pop singer’s conservatorship at the Stanley Mosk
Courthouse on Thursday, February 11, 2021, in Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello / AP Photo)
Guardianship only makes the news when
something goes terribly wrong. Take Rebecca Fierle-Santoian: Acting as a
professional guardian, she placed a do-not-resuscitate order on an
elderly man who said that he wanted to live. He died. Fierle-Santoian
served as the guardian for some 450 people, and it was later discovered
that many of them were placed under DNRs or denied life-sustaining
medical care without their input or permission or that of family members
or the courts.
Or consider the case of William Dean, who was placed under state
guardianship after his mother’s death. Maine’s Department of Health and
Human Services sold his home for below market value, got rid of his
beloved musical instruments, and euthanized his cat, Caterpillar. Most
famously of all, there is Britney Spears and the ongoing battle over who should control the pop star’s life and sizable estate.
These cases make it obvious that guardianship needs reform. But
the problem is not a few individuals abusing their power; it is
guardianship itself. Stripping a person of their legal rights is
inherently dangerous and dehumanizing. Guardianship is built on the
patronizing assumption that people with certain disabilities are
incapable of being full citizens and need a nondisabled person to act as
their proxy in all things. While I do not discourage reform, what we
ultimately need is abolition.
According to AARP,
about 1.3 million Americans are currently under guardianship. It is
hard to say exactly how many because the record-keeping is poor and
there are no national standards or federal oversight. As a system,
guardianship relies on the assumption that guardians are benevolent and
always want the best for their wards. And this is probably true for most
guardians: They want to protect their elderly parents or disabled
children from financial exploitation and worse. But unfortunately, no
system that depends on the individual benevolence of someone with
absolute power can be relied on. People under guardianship still have
their own opinions and feelings, and they deserve the respect that
everyone else is afforded.
Significant disability is real. Some people struggle to make
decisions or understand the world around them. In calling for an end to
guardianship, I am not being Pollyannaish about the individuals whom it
is usually imposed upon. There will always be some need for proxy
decision-making. But guardianship should be the nuclear option: It
strips every legal right a person has, and once entered, it is extremely
difficult to end. Disabled children in schools are legally entitled to
the “least restrictive environment” under federal law. This means that
children who receive special education are entitled to spend as much
time as possible in non-special-education classes, making the same
choices as their nondisabled peers. Their educational plans are
regularly reevaluated, as people’s needs are rarely static. The same
standard is not applied, however, to disabled adults. If a person has
difficulty managing money, why should they lose their right to vote or
to marry? Instead of stripping them of all legal rights, as is the case
with guardianship, courts should consider where a person is vulnerable
and what that person needs, just as schools are supposed to do. While
schools aren’t always successful in determining the least restrictive
environment, at least this standard is something to aspire to. No such
standard exists with guardianship.
When it comes to serving disabled adults, there are alternatives
to guardianship that attempt to preserve as many of their rights as
possible. Supported decision-making is a system in which trusted
advisers—usually family members, friends, or care workers—explain
complex choices to help a disabled person make their own decisions. Such
choices can involve something as simple as what color to paint a
bedroom wall or as complicated as whether to get surgery. While
supported decision-making is increasing as a legal alternative across
the United States, it is still rarely considered as a first option for
vulnerable people. It is also generally used only for people with
developmental and intellectual disabilities. The support needs of a
young person with an intellectual disability and an older person with
dementia aren’t too dissimilar, but they exist in different legal
universes.
Supported decision-making is not without its own limitations. Depending
on the degree of disability, supporters still exert some measure of
control over the person they’re assisting. If a person needs help
leaving the house, they must rely on someone else’s good will,
regardless of the legal rights involved. These practical difficulties,
however, are still an improvement over that person having no legal
rights at all.
NASGA supports the growing "Free Britney" movement and the dedication and determination of her fans from all over the world to peacefully protest for Britney's release from conservatorship!
The rally will be Wednesday, March 17th at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Los Angeles at 1:30 PM PST.
(Please respect COVID guidelines if you attend this rally.)
This report is part one of an investigative series looking into
reported corruption in the Missouri Judiciary and family courts. Part 2,Part 3, Part 4,Part 5,Part 6
A St. Louis, Mo., family court judge, Nicole Zellweger, has launched an
all-out judicial assault on Angela Freiner and her minor daughter, who
are refusing her order to make the 14-year-old girl return to the man
who she says sexually molested her. The minor at the center of the
controversy recorded a hearing on her smartphone, which got into the
hands of investigative journalist Michael Volpe, who posted it on
YouTube. In the video, the minor child begs the judge not to send her to
live with the man she says is a child molester.
The audio is hard to hear, but it’s very plain that the minor child
is in distress and begging the adults around her to take her concerns
seriously. In return, Zellweger tried to coerce the daughter to comply,
threatening to jail her mother for contempt. In the recording above,
Zellweger can be heard telling the minor child that Freiner’s freedom is
at stake if the child doesn’t cooperate. “She has free will but her
free will can end up putting her in jail,” Zellweger says.
The child, in obvious distress, pleaded with Zellweger, “I don’t want to live with him.”
The judge replied, “When your mom is taken to jail you will have no
other parent to live with but dad…I understand you’re not happy with the
court’s judgment.”
When the child refused to consent, the judge continued threatening to
arrest her mother. “We can do it the easy way or we can do it the hard
way,” Zellweger said.
“I still don’t understand,” said the minor. “I told you that he was
touching me [unintelligible] and you’re still going to make me go with
him?”
“There’s no evidence…” Zellweger interrupted the minor’s plea.
“This is what I’m telling you,” continued the child while sobbing. “I
have a personal experience,” she said, begging. “You don’t understand,
you’re just going to force me to go with a child molester.”
At that point a male voice jumped in and scolded the child to be
quiet with a loud “No!” and the minor fell silent while the judge
repeated to the young girl that her story doesn’t matter in the eyes of
the court because Zellweger didn’t hear any evidence of the molestation.
But if only the child and the abuser were there at the time of the
molestation, what evidence would there be, other than the child’s word?
The child reported the alleged abuse to her school counselor and
Child Protective Services in Montana (where she lived with her father)
filed a report, but her allegations fell on deaf ears. When the child
went to visit her mother for Christmas, she disclosed the allegation and
refused to go back. Zellweger still ruled to send her to live with the
father full-time, in spite of the allegations of abuse the child made in
Montana and in her own courtroom. In the age of #MeToo and
#BelieveWomen, why are girls ignored and silenced and sent back to
alleged abusers in Zellweger’s courtroom?
Court documents reveal that the minor was candid in court.
As planned, the GAL [guardian ad-litem] conducted
examination of the Child in camera. The Child expressed her wishes to
remain with Petitioner during the school year. The Child expressed her
view that Respondent does not listen to her feelings and makes her feel
insecure at times. She further testified that she feels manipulated at
times by Respondent. She testified that she is more “comfortable” with
Petitioner.
The documents also reveal that the father has a criminal record and is on probation for domestic abuse.
Petitioner and the GAL asked questions of Respondent
about his past/current criminal convictions. Respondent testified that
he is on probation until July of 2021 for disorderly conduct related to a
domestic/family dispute that involved his wife and his
step-daughter…Respondent testified that he has a temper and that there
have been arguments at his house, although he testified that things have
improved and he is working … on this issue. These facts trouble the
Court greatly, but the Court finds Respondent credible in his testimony
that he is working on his anger issues.
Most normal family arguments don’t end in arrests and convictions.
But despite the testimony that the father has anger issues that led to
arrest and conviction, Zellweger ordered the minor into the custody of
her father over the custody of her mother, who had failed a marijuana
test. The judge sided with a convicted abuser over a mom who smokes pot
and let her daughter have a nose piercing. This brings into question why
states are legalizing marijuana all over the country without changing
the way judges treat pot-smoking parents.
There was additional evidence about Petitioner’s
lifestyle that the Child witnessed, but which was entirely inappropriate
for the Child to have witnessed, including Petitioner smoking marijuana
at the home.
The judge did not enter into the record what the “additional
evidence” was that the mother was unfit, other than an allegation that
she left the minor with a family friend when she went out of state and
got stranded and was unable to return quickly. Freiner denied that her
daughter was in any danger during that time. Court documents also reveal
that the father took the minor child to the home of his father, a
level-three sex offender who had been convicted of “rape/fear, force,
and sexual battery,” according to the registry, and stayed several
nights at his house.
Additionally, Respondent testified that he took the Child
to Arkansas to visit his parents. At that time, the GAL raised a
concern about the Child spending nights at Respondent’s father’s house
and Respondent told the GAL that he was staying at a hotel. However,
Respondent acknowledged during testimony that he only stayed in a hotel
one night and spent the rest of the nights at his parents’ house, which
was in complete disregard of the GAL’s communications with Respondent.
Such flagrant disregard for the GAL’s position (that the Child not spend
an overnight at paternal grandfather’s house) concerns the GAL and this
Court.
#JudgeNicoleZellweger gave custody of a child to a man on probation for domestic abuse who also took her to a level 3 sex offender's house and stayed there overnight for a week. Child alleges sex abuse by dad. Zellweger knew this. She did it anyway. #StLouisCountypic.twitter.com/1e4QkHRM7s
In many cases, child abuse complaints are treated as hearsay even
though the victim is begging for help. Children are not believed. PJ
Media confirmed multiple cases in St. Louis County that were reported to
the police and were dropped by the county prosecutor, Wesley Bell, a
controversial figure who supports defunding the police and has been
publicly accused of creating a hostile working environment for white women and refusing to prosecute fathers who owe back payments of child support.
Sources who were in the courtroom on Friday told PJ Media that in
response to the child’s heartfelt pleas to stay with her mother,
Zellweger made good on her threat to arrest Freiner. She was held in
criminal contempt and jailed for two days. Then sources told PJ Media
that Zellweger called the county juvenile detention and had the child
committed to the behavioral center at Children’s Hospital of St. Louis
in retaliation for the refusal to obey. Upon her arrival at the
hospital, sources say the child immediately informed the doctors that
she experienced sexual abuse. As doctors are mandated reporters, that
disclosure should have triggered a call to the St. Louis County abuse
hotline. If the doctors did their job, Zellweger now has two reports on
her desk saying that the man she has ordered to have physical custody of
the minor should be investigated for child sexual abuse.
When the secret court recording was posted to YouTube, Zellweger
issued a sweeping rebuke of the mother and convened an emergency hearing
on Friday to order the mother to remove all postings from the internet.
She is gagging everyone involved from talking about what she is doing
inside her courtroom. She is also threatening the mother with six months
in jail if she does not have members of the media delete the above
video from the internet.
This is an impossible order. Freiner does not have control over
members of the media who are doing their jobs and reporting court
corruption and judicial overreach to the public. Zellweger herself is
responsible for the seeming judicial overreach in this case that alerted
the press to her actions. The fact that Zellweger thinks she has the
power to tell the media what to report should concern the public. She
does not have the power to control what the media prints, but she sure
thinks she does. In the order, Zellweger wrote:
The Court also intends to enter an Order requiring that
the parties/counsels remove any and all recordings previously posted on
the internet, obtain all recordings disseminated to third parties, and
turn over to the Court all originals and copies of all Court proceedings
that were recorded by the parties or in the possession of the
parties…no later than March 3, 2021.
If Freiner does not obey this order, the judge is threatening to put
her in jail for up to six months for contempt and, based on her previous
decision to jail Freiner for two days, it seems likely she will do it
unless some higher authority stops her. The court is not only silencing
Freiner but also attempting to silence a minor child who is desperate
for anyone to believe that she is not safe where the court has placed
her.
Zellweger’s excuse for not wanting the public to know what is going
on inside her fiefdom at the St. Louis County circuit court is that the
case is a “paternity case.” This is news to people connected to the
proceedings who say previously the case was a custody case until the
YouTube video of Zellweger threatening Freiner and her child was posted
online. In fact, court records refer to this case as a “custody case” up
until the gag order, when records switched to calling it a “paternity
case.” Did Zellweger change the type of case in front of her to trigger
secrecy so the press cannot investigate her behavior on the bench?
Previous to the February 10 hearing, Freiner had been posting many
videos of court hearings on her Facebook page. The judge had never
commented about these videos, not even when Freiner posted one showing
the guardian ad litem (GAL), Venus Jackson, admitting to Zellweger that
the minor child reported that she was scared of her father and did not
want to live with him because of the alleged abuse. That video is now
unavailable to the public because Freiner removed it to comply with the
judge’s orders. However, PJ Media reviewed the recording before it was
deleted and can confirm that Jackson informed the judge of the child’s
concerns. Zellweger is actively engaged in hiding the child’s pleas for
help from the public by issuing the gag order.
Many questions need to be answered:
Does a child have a right to due process and proper legal
representation in a court of law? If so, the GAL should be removed and
the child should have an attorney who represents her interests and her
interests alone. If she were an LGBT minor who wanted a sex change, she
would have the ACLU fighting for her. Instead, she is stuck with a GAL
who is not only ignoring her but is on record in a separate video
bragging that many of her clients complain about her but she isn’t
concerned about getting sued because her clients are too poor to do it.
“The clients on my GAL cases don’t have money. My clients complain all
the time, but most of them don’t have money for [unintelligible]
anything,” she said in a secret Zoom meeting. Her comments come at the 38:54 mark here. Is Venus Jackson an appropriate advocate for the minor child after that admission?
Does the court have the power and the right to order a parent to remove something from the internet?
Does anyone have the power or capability to remove content from
social media and news platforms in different states or across the world?
Is it reasonable to order a litigant to do so knowing it is impossible?
Are examples of making humanly impossible demands upon litigants a
pathway to giving custody to abusers and offenders under the guise of a)
failure to comply with court orders, b) uncooperative conduct, and c)
refusals to reunify a child with a parent with allegations of abuse or
neglect?
Does the higher level of confidentiality create a license for the
GALs and the courts to act in a manner inconsistent with conduct that
they might exhibit if there were cameras and press in the room?
PJ Media reached out to Zellweger’s office and the county
spokesperson with these exact questions. Neither responded.
Investigative journalist Michael Volpe attempted to question Jackson
about her secret Zoom activities here.
Volpe is compiling statements of parents who have had the same
experience as Freiner in St. Louis County. Many parents claim judges
ignored children who claimed they are being sexually molested and
remanded them to the custody of their alleged abusers. The stories of
parents reporting the same patterns in St. Louis County Circuit Court
are piling up. Here is one of many such stories on Volpe’s YouTube
channel below. Judge Zellweger’s actions to attempt to stop the media
from reporting what’s going on in the St. Louis County Circuit Court
have only made journalists more interested in this case. What is Judge
Zellweger trying to hide?
If you or someone you know is a victim of Saint Louis County court guardians, judges, or psych services, please reach out to MeganFox.Writer@protonmail.com.
This report is part two of an investigative series looking into
reported corruption in the Missouri Judiciary and family courts. Part 1, Part 3, Part 4,Part 5,Part 6
In St. Louis County, Mo., Evita Tolu has filed a lawsuit against
family court guardian ad litem (GAL) Elaine Pudlowski, psychologist
James Reid, and clinical social worker Jennifer Webbe VanLuven, alleging
that the trio conspired to use her custody dispute as an opportunity to
get rich while sentencing her children to life with an abuser. The
lawsuit alleges a scheme perpetrated by a group of professionals to
drain parents involved in custody battles. At the end of the court
process, parents are broke and kids are traumatized while GALs,
court-appointed psychologists, and therapists are enriched. Tolu says
the scheme kept her in court for three years, drained her bank account,
and alienated her children from her. The suit alleges that this pattern
is a regular family court occurrence when Pudlowski is involved.
Plaintiff contacted parents from four cases which were
pending at the same time as Plaintiff’s case in saint Louis County and
Saint Louis City courts, where Pudlowski was a Court Appointed GAL.
Plaintiff talked to [redacted] who filed a Motion to Disqualify, after
Pudlowski recommended custody to father who was sexually abusing the
child despite the DFS finding of abuse and pending criminal
investigation. Pudlowski interfered with the DFS and criminal
investigation. The court, however, did not disqualify Pudlowski in
[redacted’s] case.
Another parent told Plaintiff that she filed a Motion to disqualitfy
Pudlowski in her case after Pudlowski placed the child with the father
who molested child and who had a well-documented history of substance
and drug abuse. In that case, Pudlowski violated every single GAL
Standard, but the mother’s motion to disqualify Pudlowski was still
denied.
In the above case, Pudlowski’s bill came to a whopping $71,000, which had to be paid by the parents.
Another parent told Plaintiff that Pudlowski recommended
the Court award custody to a father despite the father’s record of
medical abuse and neglect of the children. Pudlowski also intrfered with
the DFS investigation in that case and never reported to the Court the
scientific evidence which proved children were poisoned. Pudlowski
talked about this case with Plaintiff and told Plaintiff that Reid, Van
Luven and WCPA diagnosed mother to be delusional. Pudlowski disclosed
the mother’s protected private medical information to Plaintiff, who
Plaintiff did not know at the time, in violation of the Court Orders in
that case, mother’s HIPPa and WCPA’s Notice of Privacy Rights.
In that case, Pudlowski’s bill for services was $80,000. According to
court dockets, Pudlowski had 86 hearings on 86 separate cases just in
the month of December, and Pudlowski and Reid worked together on twelve
of them. Pudlowski’s caseload is the highest in the county, if not the
entire state.
Tolu’s lawsuit alleges that the defendants “knew that the actual
services they would render were harmful and injurious” and that they
“billed and received payments from Plaintiff for the services they were
ordered by the Court to provide,” which were not provided. The suit also
alleges that the trio had “personal and business relationships with
each other” and that they “fraudulently billed and overbilled Plaintiff
for the injurious litigation support services they provided.” Tolu paid
$18,000 to Pudlowski, $5000 to VanLuven, and more than $8000 to Reid,
who admitted to altering evidence in violation of the law.
Reid falsified testing data in his report; altered
evidence in violation of the Missouri law on evidence spoliation,
omitted evidence from his report and crucial testing data, altered and
did not preserve the testing and assessment data; misconstrued and
misrepresented objective test data in his report, engaged in ex parte
communications with Pudlowski…
“[Reid] diagnosed me as a sociopath
and a narcissist with borderline personality disorder,” Tolu told PJ
Media. Tolu and one of her two attorneys, Timothy Roldan, say the number
of people Reid has diagnosed with the same disorders is statistically
unlikely. Tolu says she’s talked with between thirteen and fifteen of
Reid’s victims who have suffered the same pattern that they describe as a
form of psychological abuse. “All of us have ‘borderline personality
disorder (BPD),” according to Reid, Tolu said. According to national
statistics, Cluster B Disorders in the DSM-IV are not that common and, in addition, many people under immense stress can be easily misdiagnosed with BPD.
Roldan, who is also a licensed clinical social worker told PJ Media,
“mental health professionals will attest that when we are under stress,
we regress.”
Cluster B personality
disorders include antisocial personality disorder, borderline
personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and histrionic
personality disorder. These tend to be the least common disorders but
are often the most challenging to treat.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, only 1.4% of
the population suffers from Cluster-B disorders. Could misogyny and
greed be driving the diagnosis of “histrionic” women in Reid’s office
instead of science?
The suit also alleges that Pudlowski is very friendly with circuit
court judges. “Four family court attorneys and numerous family court
litigants told Plaintiff that Pudlowski has professional and personal
relationships with all St. Louis Family Court judges, with whom
Puldowski has ex parte communications on a regular basis.”
Bolstering Tulo’s claim, a listserve called gal@groups.outlook.com
got caught disseminating an email from Saint Louis Circuit Court Judge
Michael Burton, the presiding judge over the entire 21st Judicial
Circuit of St. Louis County Courts, that was highly prejudicial and
violated the judges’ code of conduct. In the email Burton admitted to
holding a meeting with the bar organizations about the lawsuit.
“Are you aware of the meeting that I am holding with leaders from the
bar orgs re this?” wrote Burton. “They’re all on board. I don’t want to
get into a meeting with Elaine or anyone else involved in any lawsuits.
Feel free to share this with the GALs that have responded and all that
you trust.”
Judge Burton went on to call the allegations in the lawsuit
“horrible,” “scurrilous” and called custody cases “the most toxic
cases.” He also disparaged parents fighting in court. “Many parents
cannot accept that their behaviors could be the basis for their not
getting the custody arrangements that they had desired,” he wrote. He
went on to call those parents “unhinged.”
Then, unbelievably, Burton admitted he knew he wasn’t supposed to be
discussing any cases before the court but decided to do it anyway and
implicated another judge in violations of the judges’ code of conduct.
“Further, we are not advised to comment to the public about the pending
cases of other judges in our circuit. That being said, Judge Hemphill
and I thought that we could reach out to some leaders of the bar to
discuss this problem. We want to be proactive in some way.”
Burton then reached out to a clandestine group of GALs, known as “The
Swamp” by litigants, to meet with him to scheme against Tolu in an email
newsletter, “Daily Docket News” that had been reporting the events. “We
would like to meet with you via Zoom/WebEx in the near future to
brainstorm,” Burton wrote.
#StLouisCounty#JudgeDouglasBurton writes ill-advised email calling parents in his courts "unhinged" and engages in plot with GALs to scheme against litigant claiming GALs are scheming with judges. You can't make this stuff up. The ENTIRE circuit court recused themselves pic.twitter.com/KcENcXvAei
Shortly after that email and video
of the secret meeting became public, every judge on the Saint Louis
County Judicial Circuit recused themselves from hearing the lawsuit. The
Missouri Supreme Court will now assign a judge to hear the Tolu case.
Roldan told PJ Media that “It is unclear where the case might land at
this point. It is rare to have every judge in a judicial circuit recuse
themselves.”
The lawsuit alleges that Pudlowski and Reid have a pattern where Reid
diagnosis the healthier parent with a rare personality disorder they
don’t have, which keeps them fighting in court and allows Pudlowski to
declare them unfit. The suit alleges that Pudlowski then accuses the
falsely diagnosed parent of alienating the children from the other
parent and recommends the child go to the parent the child has often
accused of abuse.
Pudlowski involved Reid knowing in advance that Reid
would produce a biased report (like Reid did in numerous other cases
with Pudlowski) and that Plaintiff would challenge the Reid Report
through arduous, painful and expensive litigation that would destroy
Child A and Child T’s college savings but would enrich Reid, Pudlowski,
Van Luven and WCPA’s pockets while injuring Plaintiff, her children and
destroying Plaintiff’s relationship with her children.
As an officer of the Court, Pudlowski vexatiously delayed the trial
in the Plaintiff’s case demanding more of Van Luven and WCPa’s
“alienation services” which injured Plaintiff and her children and
destroyed Plaintiff’s relationship with her children.
The problem of guardians and other court professionals enriching
themselves at the expense of their clients is not new, nor is it rare. A
new hit movie was released on Netflix about the outrageous abuses that
guardians have engaged in called I Care A Lot,
which fictionalizes the extreme terror that seniors have faced when in
the clutches of such people. Ex-guardian April Parks is serving forty
years in prison for her scheme to enrich herself with the savings and
property of seniors she trafficked through the Las Vegas court system.
She had many of her clients committed to mental institutions where they
were drugged unnecessarily so they could not object to her raiding their
life savings. She alienated them from their families and pillaged their
estates. There was a documentary made about the families that sought
justice for the crimes committed by Parks called The Guardians,directed by Billie Mintz, that should be required viewing for every American.
In the Saint Louis County Circuit Court at least one judge, Nicole Zellweger, has followed an alarming pattern of abuse
and sent a fourteen-year-old girl to a hospital mental ward for
refusing to go live with the father she says sexually molested her. It
seems that Saint Louis County GALs, psychological experts, and courts
are setting themselves up to star in one of Mintz’s next hit films.
PJ Media reached out to the defendants but did not receive any comment by the time of publishing.
If you or someone you know is a victim of Saint Louis County court guardians, judges, or psych services, please reach out to MeganFox.Writer@protonmail.com.
This report is part three of an investigative series looking into
reported corruption in the Missouri Judiciary and family courts. Part 1, Part 2,Part 4,Part 5,Part 6
Guardians ad litem (GALs) have a good thing going in Saint Louis
County, Mo., or at least they did before Evita Tolu filed a lawsuit
against GAL Elaine Pudlowski and Dr. James D. Reid, psychologist, and
others exposing what looks like one of the biggest money-making schemes
to ever hit family courts. GALs are usually appointed by judges to
represent a child in a custody dispute. The GAL is paid by the parents
and in Tolu’s case, her GAL was paid $30,000. (See part 2 for details of that suit)
Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Saint Louis County GALs held a
secret meeting, starring Pudlowski and 37 other GALs, which was leaked
to investigative journalist Michael Volpe,
who posted it to YouTube. The video gives credence to Tolu’s
allegations of “ex parte communication” between GALs and judges. In the
video, the GALs can be heard discussing friendly judges and judges who
want to help them fight the lawsuit against them and their friends. A
judge conspiring with a defendant in a case before his court may be
obstruction of justice and should be investigated as a criminal matter.
When the video was made public, every judge on the Saint Louis County Circuit Court recused themselves.
But perhaps even more shocking is the reason for the clandestine
meeting. GALs are attorneys and as officers of the court, they must be
familiar with the First Amendment requirements that say citizens have a
right to a free press. Despite knowing this, these lawyers plotted
together to target and abolish the “Daily Docket News,” by hiring a
private investigator at $425 an hour to dox the author of the
newsletter. Daily Docket News (DDN) is a newsletter that is sent out by
email and has been reporting on what it calls a “Kids for Cash” scheme
in Saint Louis County. The scheme allegedly uses children stuck in
custody battles, trafficking them and their families through the court
system, which enriches psychologists, GALs, and other
professionals—anger management companies, mediation companies, and any
other company that would profit from a custody case. There are many such
companies and persons.
DDN has reported on many cases working their way through family
courts that have all the same players, including Pudlowski and Reid.
They report:
There is an alleged large network of law firms working in
conjunction with each other on the same family court case, each
representing one of the parties and allegedly promising to have you and
your child’s best interest at heart, but the only interest they have is
to pit the parties against each other and to drain the party with the
smaller financial portfolio prior to reaching a settlement. Unknown to
the party with the smaller financial portfolio, their case will never go
to trial, but will drag out as long as they have disposable cash to
throw away, which is in the best interest of each attorney involved in
the case. In most cases that were reviewed, the party that has the
finances to drag the case long enough to drain the opposing party, is
awarded the minor children by the family court, regardless of their
mental, criminal and/or child abuse history.
Daily Docket News is dedicated to shining light on the grave
injustices taking place in the family court swamp, in the state of
Missouri. It has been a national scandal for decades in which daily
courts in this country systematically failed to protect our children
from physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by predatory parents. What is
equally scandalous is the silence on the coverage of this unimaginable
issue. It is a dreadful reality of child trafficking through family
courts in the United States of America…These cases present a clear
pattern of child trafficking through the family courts which involve
colluding attorneys, guardians ad litem, therapists, and forensic
evaluators, who engage in divorce, child custody, adoption, and
paternity cases, which coincidentally all involve well to do predatory
parents.
If the DDN was far off base, it would seem unlikely that the Saint
Louis GALs would go to such lengths to uncover who is responsible for
the reports. In fact, they admit in the secret meeting that DDN
publishes information they know to be true, but their main concern is
not the families who were harmed by this system but how Daily Docket
News accessed the information. The GALs say in the secretly recorded
meeting that they are willing to spend up to $10,000 to uncover and dox
the author of DDN. Why would a large group of lawyers spend thousands of
dollars identifying the author of DDN except to engage in lawfare
against him or her and/or to silence, harass, and punish the author for
exercising the First Amendment right to report news that is critical of
them?
DDN claims to have received hundreds of letters from St. Louis
attorneys who did not want to be named because of an atmosphere of
extreme intimidation and fear that they too would be retaliated against
by this powerful cabal of colluding attorneys and judges. A short
excerpt from two of the letters alleges a disturbing pattern.
I find that the family court judges are abdicating their
responsibility to make these life altering decisions for children, but
instead leave it all up to the ill-trained and biased guardians ad litem
like Pudlowski. Pudlowski always determines, at the get go, which
parent has more financial resources, then labels that parent as good,
and subsequently the other parent as bad throughout the case ,shutting
down any evidence to the contrary. Vilifying one parent as Pudlowski
always does, equipped with Reid’s fraudulent reports based on
fabrication, hearsay and not on actual evidence together with Van
Luven’s fake therapy, is complete neglect of children’s best interests
aimed at siphoning enormous sums of money in profits while destroying
the lives of children they are hired to protect. It is nothing else but a
legalized scheme of child trafficking through family courts in Saint
Louis County. Pudlowski knows exactly what she is doing as the swamp
ring master.
Attorney t, Saint Louis domestic relations attorney, 17 years in family law practice.
I have seen case after case where literally no evidence was allowed
from one parent to refute false statements by the other parent, that
were mere hearsay unsupported by any evidence. The family court judges
are pulling their custody decisions out of thin air on the advice of
corrupt guardians ad litem like Pudlowski and pseudo psychologists like
Reid masquerading as trained evaluators of family interactions. Reid
told my client that he is married to the almighty and powerful Judge
Laurence Mooney, who sits on the Court of Appeals, and that my client
would be foolish to challenge Reid’s opinions. Pudlowski bragged to my
client that she is Larry’s friend and that they spend holidays together.
Pudlowski told my client that if she did not do exactly what she was
told, Pudlowski would make sure my client only sees her children for one
hour once a month with strict supervision. If this is not child
trafficking then what is it? I strike her from my cases immediately.
Attorney E, Saint Louis domestic relations attorney, 24 years in family law practice
DDN has published reams of similar letters purporting to be from
whistleblowers. PJ Media has spoken to at least six alleged victims of
the scheme who have experiences that match up to the anonymous
whistleblowers’ accounts. Tolu’s lawsuit also alleges similar claims. In
Tolu v. Reid, Tolu says Pudlowski threatened her to get her to
discontinue the legitimate therapy she and her children were receiving
in favor of Pudlowkis’s favored therapists, Reid, Jennifer Webbe Van
Luven, and others of Pudlowski’s choice.
Pudlowski threatened that if Plaintiff did not terminate
Plaintiff’s and Child T’s therapy at Safe Connections, Pulowski would
consider Plaintiff a ‘non-cooperating parent’ and recommend that she
suffer the total loss of custody of both her children, Child A and Child
T.
In the secret leaked meeting, the GALs were notified live that the
first judge had recused himself. At minute-mark 2:45, Pudlowski says,
“Okay, I just got a note that maybe we are not having a hearing
tomorrow. The judge just recused himself. It was Judge [Evan] Wallach.”
GAL Sarah Pleban of Grant, Miller & Smith, LLC, who appeared to have
called the meeting, replied, “I had heard that was probably a good
place to be, I mean he studies the law and he does all that.”
A long stunned silence filled the Zoom meeting after that.
Pudlowski continued, “So I guess I don’t know where that leaves us…my
motion to dismiss is about judicial immunity, or quasi-judicial
immunity [and] standing.”
People who work for the state in any capacity, including police
officers, social workers, GALs, court professionals, etc., always claim
“immunity” when they are caught doing bad things. They rely on this
protection racket where they claim that if they work for the government,
then you little people out there have no recourse against them because
they were “just doing their jobs.” Jay Schweikert of the CATO Institute describes it this way.
Qualified immunity is a judicial doctrine that protects
public officials from liability, even when they break the law. The
doctrine has no valid legal basis, it regularly denies justice to
victims whose rights have been violated, and it severely undermines
official accountability, especially for members of law enforcement.
Then the conversation turned to the purpose of the call: silencing DDN.
Pudlowski claimed she’s being “cyber-stalked” by the news
organization because her neighbors have read it. Unfortunately for
Pudlowski, news services reporting about publicly available court
documents, or whistleblowers leaking court documents that might
implicate her in crimes, do not meet the threshold of “cyber-stalking”
even if the news outlet sends its reports to people she knows. It’s
called “journalism” and it used to be practiced everywhere. Since our
news organizations became obsessed with pushing political agendas, no
one recognizes actual journalism anymore. “Cyber-stalking” is an absurd
claim, but one that is used quite often by any target of investigative
work.
PJ Media reached out to Pudlowski over email, despite the threat of
being called a “cyber-stalker,” with questions about the clandestine
Zoom call. She did not respond. However, Mike Volpe did get one of the
participants, GAL Venus Jackson, on the phone for a short time. Jackson
made herself famous in Part 1 of my investigation.
She was recorded on the Zoom call saying she doesn’t worry about being
sued because her clients “don’t have money.” Volpe’s YouTube page is
full of videos of St. Louis County citizens speaking out about the
terrible experiences they’ve had in the court system with GALs and
therapists.
At minute-mark 7:19 Sharon Remis gets to the crux of their problem
with DDN. “They [Daily Docket News] had access to a lot of confidential
information, so the question is, what’s the resource?”
“There is a concern that licensed attorneys might be getting this
information and feeding it to them,” said Pleban. But if that were the
case and the information revealed pointed to criminal activity, wouldn’t
those attorneys be whistleblowers and entitled to protection under the
law?
“Is it a lawyer? Is it someone in the circuit clerk’s office?”
continued Pleban. An unidentified woman piped in, “Or a paralegal!
Somebody’s paralegal might be getting it.”
At the 9:14 minute-mark, Remis revealed that she had called Judge
Michael Burton to help her identify the leaker. This is the exact kind
of ex-parte communication that Tolu’s lawsuit alleges. GALs,
who are supposed to be representing the children, are communicating with
judges behind the scenes to collude against the parents who went to the
media seeking help in the family court system. Remis admits that this
is what they are doing. Stopping the leak, or hunting it down with the
help of judges, only serves to help the GALs in their defense against
the parents. Judge Burton is on the record allegedly colluding with the
GALs in an email to “help” in any way he can with their defense, and now
we hear from a GAL’s own mouth. Remis enlisted his help in tracking
down the whistleblower too. Burton is the presiding Judge over the 21st
district Judicial Circuit Court of Saint Louis County. Someone should be
investigating him immediately. PJ Media attempted to reach every member
of the state Senate Judiciary Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee to question them about the legality of Burton’s behavior and received no response. Republican Tony Luetkemeyer is the chairman.
“I put a call into Judge Burton so he could look into that [Sarah
Moehler case]. He hasn’t called me back yet. When I talked to his clerk
she said he’s so overwhelmed with everything that, you know—so I have
information about that and I can get that to you after the call.”
The GALs also talked about forming an LLC with which to raise funds
to pay for the forensic investigator to track down DDN. Within that
conversation, they callously mocked the parents alleging that their
children’s lives have been sacrificed for cash payments. GAL Greg Brough
is heard suggesting they call their LLC “Kids for Cash” to raucous
laughter (32:29). They also spent time denying that any of them make any
money. This is absurd. Pudlowski lives in a $700,000 house and drives a
Lexus, according to public records and Zillow. Reid and Mooney live in a
house valued at over $900,000, according to the same public records.
Each office seen in the Zoom videos is well-appointed, some with
expensive-looking art on the walls. They are all surely far
better off than any of their clients who are now broke, unemployed, and
struggling to survive after being drained of every resource in their
years-long battle in family court. The GALs’ economic privilege is
evident and easily discovered.
Another striking moment was when GAL Amy Diemer wanted to discuss
fighting legislation to require GALs to have higher standards. “Has
anybody figured out if there’s a connection between this and Senate bill
623 that was introduced? [Senator] Doug Libla [former R-Mo.] is the one
who constantly introduced bills that were taking away powers of
guardians ad litem or adversely impacting our ability to do our work…I
think he is a part of that Mad Dad group.” The bill she referred to,
among other things, aimed to improve standards for children reporting
abuse and give priority to family reunification.
1. The division shall develop protocols which give
priority to: 2 (1) Ensuring the well-being and safety of the child in
instances where child abuse or 3 neglect has been alleged; 4 (2)
Promoting the preservation and reunification of children and families
consistent with 5 state and federal law; 6 (3) Providing due process for
those accused of child abuse or neglect; and 7 (4) Maintaining an
information system operating at all times, capable of receiving and 8
maintaining reports.
Every parent who has spoken to PJ Media has alleged that when their
children reported sexual abuse to professionals, GALs, therapists, and
judges in the Saint Louis County Court system, they were ignored and
returned to their accused molesters. According to LegiScan, the bill passed. Whether anyone is enforcing it is uncertain.
None of this would have come to light if the GALs had not called this
hasty and ill-advised Zoom meeting, knowing they might have a mole, but
doing it anyway. Perhaps the most telling moment of the whole meeting
was when Diemert said, “Once they take you down [Pudlowski] we’re all
next.” The whole video is worth watching because there’s a lot more that
can be analyzed and none of it seems to be about protecting children.
If you or someone you know is a victim of court corruption in St. Louis County please contact MeganFox.Writer@protonmail.com. If you are a whistleblower attorney or court employee, your identity will be protected.
Given that this is a crime and justice column it is pretty safe to say this will likely be the only time I do a movie review.
But given the subject matter of the new movie, “I Care A Lot” this film is right up my alley.
As
long-time readers may remember I have frequently written about the
nationwide evils of exploitative elder guardianships and that is the
world so descriptively depicted in this new Netflix offering.
Actress
Rosamund Pike portrays Marla Grayson, a diabolic, self-dealing guardian
appointed by a judge to manage the lives of elderly people he has found
to be “incapacitated.” What leads him to believe that these seniors
cannot manage their own homes, medical care and finances? The guardian
has filed a petition with the court declaring that to be the truth and,
as happens in real life, this movie judge simply accepts that this
officer of the court is telling the truth.
I found a myriad of
actual cases, nationwide, in which that original petition for
guardianship was grossly exaggerated and in some cases completely
fabricated. But once a judge accepts such a petition and the senior
becomes a “ward of the court” it is next to impossible to undo.
Guardians, often paid hundreds of dollars an hour, and those they hire
on to attend to the elderly are paid for out of the ward’s life savings.
It is a cottage industry of elder law attorneys, guardians, caregivers,
real estate agents and others who feast on the spoils of the ward’s
life after guardianship takes hold.
Actress Pike so accurately
embodies the reprehensible behavior of unscrupulous guardians that I
found myself remembering real life court appointees who have employed
the same tactics. Targeting a wealthy, lonely elder who needs no (or
minimal) care, quickly placing them in a nursing home, selling their
house and all possessions and using every dirty legal machination they
can to sink their claws deeper into their prey. If the elder person (or
their family) reacts negatively the guardian tells the judge there is
danger afoot and more restrictions are put in place. Wards are often
locked away from their family and over mediated to keep them docile.
I’ve
seen all these things happen in guardian cases from Florida to
California, from New Mexico to Maine and lots of states in between. This
stuff really happens no matter what the “professionals” in the field
tell you. Some states have passed reform legislation, but little has
changed and unbelievable indignities and illegalities continue. I hear
about new cases on a weekly basis.
In the movie guardian Grayson colludes with a doctor who is
handsomely rewarded for pointing the guardian to “a cherry” patient. To
wit: Jennifer Peterson, a wealthy older woman who appears to have no
family (wonderfully portrayed by actress Diane Wiest.) Grayson also
conspires with a nursing home operator to carefully restrict her ward’s
access to the outside world. Nurses and orderlies comply with orders to
never let Peterson use a phone or leave the property.
When
Peterson acts out in desperation her guardian convinces the judge she
needs to go to a locked psychiatric ward. Over medication continues.
Again,
I’ve investigated real life cases in which all these things – and more
dastardly actions – happened. Some guardians have gone to prison but not
enough of them in my opinion. Law enforcement mostly declines to get
involved in disputed guardianships by waving them off as “civil matters”
to be decided by the courts.
The film goes off into Hollywood
devised storylines I won’t give away. But “I Care A Lot” gave me the
same sinking feeling I had during my deep dive investigation into
exploitive guardianships. It is a field that often attracts the criminal
element, those who figure it’s easier to fleece an elderly person out
of their savings than be one of those guardians who really care about
helping seniors in need.
So my movie recommendation? Watch “I Care
A Lot” and take heed. Fake petitions for guardianship can and have been
conjured up by angry family members or total strangers, approved by
overworked or uncaring judges and perpetuated by lawyers with dollar
signs in their eyes.
It really happens. And it could happen to you or someone you love.
Diane Dimond is a syndicated columnist and television reporter of high-profile court cases.
Lisa Racine has spent the past three months working part-time at her dad's nursing home
by Boyd Huppert
STILLWATER, Minn. — In a year when nursing home windows have been as
close as many people could come to parents and grandparents, Lisa Racine
punched her ticket to see her dad inside.
“I was shocked, really. I was kind of dumbfounded,” Harold Racine,
Lisa’s dad, says of the moment his daughter walked into his nursing home
room.
“How did you get in?” he asked.
Last fall, Lisa, a fulltime project manager for a printing company, had a brainstorm.
“One day I just was thinking, ‘How can I see my dad more?’” Lisa recalls. “And I thought, ‘Hey, why don't I get a job there?’”
As luck would have it, Good Samaritan Society - Stillwater was hiring.
Let's just say it wasn't an executive position.
Since December, Lisa has been mopping floors and scraping plates in the nursing home kitchen.
“It's quite glamorous,” she laughs.
No glamor, but Lisa’s part-time job on evenings and weekends opened the doors to also see her dad.
“That's priceless,” she says. “I can't believe they pay me for this.”
Good Samaritan Society - Stillwater administrator Rene Racine, Lisa’s cousin, calls the hire a “win-win.”
Rene says nursing homes have struggled to fill positions the past few months due to concerns about COVID-19.
“Having her reach out and wanting to come to work was an absolute godsend for us,” the administrator says,
Harold goes a step further, calling his daughter’s arrival at his nursing home, “one of the happiest days of my life.”
The 87-year-old former printer raised eight kids with his late wife.
“The trials and tribulations of raising that many children, in the
end it certainly paid off,” Harold says. “I’m getting my rewards back,
tenfold.”
His daughter considers the kitchen work a privilege.
“I could take a yoga class or do a happy hour, but I'd rather come
and mop the floor and clean dishes so I can see my dad,” Lisa says.
Last month, Lisa's second job allowed her to get her first COVID shot alongside her dad.
With residents now vaccinated, Good Samaritan Society - Stillwater has begun allowing brief visits from family.
Yet, Lisa says she plans to hold onto her kitchen job, at least on an on-call basis.
“It makes me feel like I’m doing something good for other people,” she says.
Lawyers recovering funds for theft victims request $315K for fees
By Arthur Kane
Lawyers working to recover money for the
victims of disgraced attorney Robert Graham want more than half of the
funds the trustee has on hand for legal fees, records show.
On Feb. 9, Las Vegas attorney Jacob Houmand and his associates filed a request to the court for nearly $316,000
in fees and expenses for work on the case since 2016. U.S. Bankruptcy
Court Judge Bruce T. Beesley is scheduled to review the filings March 9,
records show.
The trustee is holding $528,000, the filing says, adding the trustee will have collected $807,106.78 over the whole case.
But UNLV law professor Nancy B. Rapoport,
who has reviewed fees for several bankruptcy courts in other cases, said
victims can ask the court to reject any fees they believe are
unreasonable. After reviewing the detailed billings at the
Review-Journal’s request, Rapoport was concerned that some of the items
that the lawyers billed for may not be necessary.
Rapoport said the court could question
billings for legal research that experienced bankruptcy attorneys should
already know and hours billed for attorney work that could likely be
handled by the trustee, or lesser-paid staff.
“There are issues raised here that a court
might want to review, whether or not a party in interest is objecting,”
she wrote in an email exchange.
Graham’s victims filed an involuntary
bankruptcy case in 2016 against his firm to recover any remaining
assets, but after more than four years, only accountants and lawyers have been paid.
Thane Parton, who lost nearly $500,000 to
Graham’s thefts, said he is concerned about paying an attorney to
contest the fees when the court will likely still award the money to
lawyers and contractors.
“Every time you talk to an attorney, you’re afraid that there will be a bill,” Parton said.
Houmand did not respond to repeated requests
for comment, and trustee Shelley Krohn emailed that she will not do an
interview on the expenses in the case.
“Everything that … I have done … has been
documented in the Bankruptcy Court docket and is fully accessible to you
and the public,” Krohn wrote. “Every settlement agreement, every dollar
collected, every professional employed and paid, etc. — it’s all there
in black and while (sic). Thus, there is nothing for me to comment on.
With regard to any matters that are still pending, I know you understand
that I cannot and will not comment on these issues while they remain
unresolved.”
Assets and bills
It’s not clear if the approximately $800,000
that the trustee collected includes about $400,000 of past due accounts
receivable. Rapoport said outstanding debts that old are nearly
impossible to collect.
In asking for fees and expenses, Houmand wrote that the fees to pay him
and other attorneys are billed at $250 and $375 an hour, and were for
case administration, asset analysis and recovery, meetings,
communication and other items in collecting assets for victims.
Houmand’s detailed billing statements repeatedly
show thousands of dollars going for research an experienced bankruptcy
attorney should know or work others could do more cheaply.
For example, on Dec. 22, 2016, Houmand
billed about $1,200 for “research and analysis regarding the ability of a
Chapter 7 Trustee to avoid transfers made from an IOLTA Trust account.”
Five days later, he billed $942 for “research and analysis regarding a
Chapter 7 Trustee’s standing to avoid transfers of property held in
trust.”
More than $600 was billed on Dec. 29, 2016,
for researching and obtaining documents from the Washington County
Recorder’s office about a property Graham owned in Utah. On Jan. 4,
2017, attorneys billed $225 for less than an hour to visit a potential
auction site to get rid of any Graham property they identified. Six days
later they charged $585 for less than two hours to upload materials to a
website to provide information to creditors about the status of the
case, records show.
Bankruptcy law requires that contractors and secured debtors get paid before the victims, Rapoport said.
While some of the expenses need
justification, Rapoport said finding assets is expensive and the court
has to pay professionals to get experienced help.
“If the fees consume most of the estate,
that’s a sad outcome, but the Code was designed to find ways to
encourage professionals to work on cases, which is why administrative
expenses are a high priority,” she wrote.
More money for contractors
The Review-Journal reported in January that accountants and attorneys
have already been paid $113,000, including $108,000 to a forensic
accounting firm to determine what Graham assets could be seized. A firm
spokesman declined to comment about how much money the firm recovered.
In recent filings, Century City, Calif., attorneys Diamond McCarthy LLP are asking for $4,500 for dealing with Graham’s malpractice insurance, and reviewing the criminal case and Graham’s wife’s bankruptcy records, records show.
But another attorney already billed for work on the malpractice insurance, records and interviews show.
Las Vegas attorney Ryan Andersen was hired
on a contingency basis to see if he could persuade Graham’s malpractice
insurance company to pay victims. He obtained an agreement for the
company to return about $11,000 in premiums to settle the case. Andersen
received 40 percent of that — or about $5,000 — for 60 hours of work.
He said it was considerably less than he would have received if he was
allowed to bill his hourly rate.
“In a case like this — and in other
financial fraud cases — it is very expensive and time consuming to
unwind and it does require specialized knowledge,” he said in a January
interview. “Distribution takes a long time in a case like this.”
He said Diamond McCarthy stopped working on
the insurance issue months before he came on board. “Diamond McCarthy
firm was doing general overview work in an effort to determine avenues
of recovery to pursue,” he wrote in an email exchange this week.
Additionally, on Feb. 9, accounting firm Paul M. Healey and Sons asked for $3,337.50 for about 10 hours of work reviewing Graham’s tax returns and tax preparation, records show.
Missed asset opportunities
Parton said his attorney informed the
trustee about client money Graham spent on donations to Colorado State
University, Boy’s Town and accounts Graham held at City National Bank.
But Parton said he hasn’t seen any efforts to investigate and recover
those funds.
“Every time we bring it up, nobody wants to talk about it,” he said of the City National account.
Parton said his fears that attorneys and contractors will draw most of the money appear to be coming true.
“There won’t be anything left,” said Parton
in response to the latest filings. “It is a concern that (lawyers and
accountants) are fighting over all the rest of the money and none will
go to victims.”
Healey and representatives of Diamond McCarthy did not return calls and email seeking comment.
A previous version of the story
incorrectly described Nancy B. Rapoport’s qualifications. She has worked
for bankruptcy courts examining fee requests for other cases.
