Financial Adviser Pleads No Contest to Bilking Elderly Clients

A financial advisor pleaded no contest this morning to charges that he stole more than $38,000 from two elderly former clients.
 

The state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs filed a criminal complaint in state Circuit Court last week charging Scott Akashi, 31, with 11 counts of second-degree theft. 

Akashi waived indictment and pleaded no contest to all 11 counts.
 

The state says Akashi stole $38,773 in January, February and March last year from the former clients who were 88 and 90 years old. He promised them higher returns on their investments and even drove them to the bank to get their money. Instead of investing the money, the state says Akashi pocketed it for his own use.

 

The state said it got word of what was going on after a relative of one of the victims noticed that her grandmother had a new checking account from which she wrote checks to Akashi.

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Financial Adviser Pleads No Contest to Bilking Elderly Clients

Registered Nurse and Disbarred Attorney Charged with Stealing More Than $2 Million from Elderly Woman’s Estate

ANCHORAGE February 28, 2013 — U.S. Attorney Karen L. Loeffler announced today that a registered nurse, formerly of Anchorage, and a recently disbarred California attorney were indicted by the federal grand jury in Anchorage, Alaska, of devising a scheme to obtain in excess of $2 million between May 2007 and August 2009 from the Trusts of Juanita Gielarwoski, now deceased.

Brian Ben-Israel, 53, of Duluth, Georgia, and Philip Eric Myers, 60, of Santa Barbara, California, were charged by the federal grand jury with one count of mail fraud and three counts of wire fraud. Ben-Israel was also charged with three counts of filing false tax returns.

According to the indictment, in 2006, Ben-Israel was a registered nurse residing in Anchorage and working at Meridian Psychiatric Consulting Group. Ben-Israel met and befriended Gielarowski and her daughter, who were both patients of Meridian Psychiatric Consulting Group; Ben-Israel became a health care provider and “financial advisor” to both. Myers, an attorney licensed at the time in the state of California, was versed in trust and estate matters. From at least 2004, Ben-Israel was a business partner and friend of Myers; Ben-Israel introduced Myers to Gielarowski and her daughter.

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Registered Nurse and Disbarred Attorney Charged with Stealing More Than $2 Million from Elderly Woman’s Estate

2 men plead not guilty to bilking elderly Anchorage woman of millions of dollars

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A former nurse and former attorney took millions of dollars from an elderly Anchorage woman’s trust fund, federal prosecutors said.

Brian Ben-Israel, 53, and Philip Myers, 60, both pleaded not guilty Wednesday, the Anchorage Daily News reported (http://bit.ly/XKCPsS).

In December, a grand jury indicted friends and business partners Ben-Israel and Myers for mail fraud. In February, jurors handed up a superseding indictment adding charges of wire fraud and, for Ben-Israel, charges of filing false tax returns.

Ben-Israel, once a registered nurse in Anchorage and now a Georgia resident, and Myers, a disbarred California lawyer still residing there, worked together to pilfer the accounts of Juanita Gielarowski, a longtime Anchorage resident and the widow of Thomas Gielarowski, documents said.

The two men emptied the Gielarowski trust, leaving Juanita destitute, according to court filings in a separate civil case. Without funds to pay for her in-home care, and with her house in foreclosure, Juanita was forced to live in a state-funded nursing home, where she died during the legal wrangling over the stolen money, according to the indictment and civil court filings.

Both men face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

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2 mean plead not guilty to bilking elderly Anchorage woman of millions of dollars

Update on Bessie Blue Case

Source:
Bessie Blue Abduction From Natural Law_Common Law_Maritime Law_2.m4v

See Also:
Bessie Blue’s “Abduction” on Tape

Bessie Blue’s ‘Abduction’ on Tape

Source:
YouTube: Bessie Blue Abduction Away From Natural Law, Common Law, Maritime Law

Alaskan Conservator Breached Fiduciary Duties

In Foster v. Professional Guardian Services Corporation, the Alaska Supreme Court determined that a court-appointed conservator breached its fiduciary duties through a number of acts and a failure to timely act. Even though the conservator prevailed on a majority of the claims brought against it, and thus prevailed in the “global” scheme of the litigation, the Alaska Supreme Court determined that the conservator could not have its attorney’s fees paid from the ward’s estate for those claims on which it lost.

In reaching its decision, the Alaska Supreme Court suggested that there is no such thing as a de minimis breach of fiduciary duty.The facts and procedural history of this case are long and convoluted (but also a very familiar factual scenario worth reading), but the bottom line is that Professional Guardian Services Corporation was the court-appointed conservator of Ann Davis. Professional Guardian Services Corporation either breached or may have breached its fiduciary duties by:

• Failing to conduct an adequate inventory of the ward’s property. The conservator prepared an inventory of the ward’s property, but did not list anything in the inventory worth less than $400. The conservator contended that National Guardianship Association Standards require an inventory only of items valued over $400. There was nothing in the applicable Alaskan statute, however, that relieves a conservator from listing items worth less than $400 in an inventory and, thus, the inventory was inadequate. While, viewed in isolation, the inadequate inventory may have been harmless, combined with the next point, the issue was remanded back to the trial court for further proceedings.
• Use of paid storage. The conservator paid storage fees to store certain of the ward’s items contending that valuable items in the house required preservation. Again, in isolation, payment of the storage fees may have been permissible, but given the conservator’s contention that there was really nothing of value to inventory, payment of storage fees for valuable items appeared inconsistent with the conservator’s inventory argument. Therefore, the trial court was ordered to clarify this inconsistency on remand.
• Missing pension payments. The federal government thought the ward died before she actually did. As a result, 13 monthly pension payments were not sent to the conservatorship but were paid out directly to the beneficiaries of the pension plan. The trial court found that the conservator had not corrected the issue in a timely manner, resulting in a loss to the conservatorship estate.

The trial court sympathized with the conservator and accused the plaintiff of engaging in wide-ranging, often unclear litigation against the conservator. The court tallied the “small” issues on which the plaintiff prevailed and concluded that the conservator overwhelmingly prevailed on the global attack against it and, therefore, could charge the entirety of its attorney’s fees to the ward’s estate.

Not so fast, held the Alaska Supreme Court. The conservator did actually breach its fiduciary duties here – no matter how small or insignificant the damage to the ward’s estate. It would be unreasonable to reimburse the conservator from the estate for its attorney’s fees spent defending the breaches of fiduciary duty.

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Alaskan Conservator Breached Fiduciary Duties

Mediation Offers Resolution (and Solutions) Without Court

There is an alternative to going to court when individuals or businesses are in conflict. Mediation can be not only less expensive and divisive than traditional lawsuits, but also carry the weight of a court ruling.

Attorney Christine Pate says mediators are not judges.

“If two or more people have a dispute, they may be thinking about taking it to court. Mediation is a form of alternative dispute resolution. You may have one or two mediators assisting the parties to facilitate an agreement. I think the term is that the ‘mediator owns the process, and the participants own the content.’ So the mediator doesn’t really make decisions for the parties, they just help them reach an agreement.”

Bosman also says mediation can be far less expensive than going to court.

Still, most people who end up in mediation are referred by the court system. There are two mediation programs within the state courts: Child Custody and Visitation, and the relatively new Adult Guardianship and Conservatorship, which is designed to settle disputes involving “vulnerable” adults over the age of eighteen. But Bosman says mediation is useful over a spectrum of issues.

“Almost any type of dispute can be mediated. There are certainly a few exceptions to that. One would be child abuse or neglect; the issue of domestic violence itself can’t be mediated; also criminal guilt cannot be mediated. Beyond that, mediation is used in a broad realm of issues: labor disputes, property disputes, all kinds of domestic disputes.”

[Attorney Corrie]Bosman also says mediation can be far less expensive than going to court. Still, most people who end up in mediation are referred by the court system. There are two mediation programs within the state courts: Child Custody and Visitation, and the relatively new Adult Guardianship and Conservatorship, which is designed to settle disputes involving “vulnerable” adults over the age of eighteen. But Bosman says mediation is useful over a spectrum of issues.

And, according to Christine Pate, people leave mediation feeling better about a decision than they do in a court setting – especially in domestic disputes. Arguments are exchanged in court; in mediation it’s all about dialogue.

“Almost any type of dispute can be mediated. There are certainly a few exceptions to that. One would be child abuse or neglect; the issue of domestic violence itself can’t be mediated; also criminal guilt cannot be mediated. Beyond that, mediation is used in a broad realm of issues: labor disputes, property disputes, all kinds of domestic disputes.”

Full Radio Interview Source:
Mediation Offers Resolution (and Solutions) Without Court

Office of Children’s Services On Trial

The boy was just 6 years old back in 1997 when the state first got a report that his mother’s friend was sexually abusing him.

Over the next four years, the reports about a child in danger kept arriving at what’s now the state Office of Children’s Services, but the agency didn’t do its job and the child continued to be molested and worse, a lawyer for the child told an Anchorage Superior Court jury Wednesday.

The man, Claire Thomson, is a retired Anchorage junior high teacher who eventually was convicted of criminal sexual abuse of a minor.

Now it’s the state Office of Children’s Services on trial.

Lawyers for the boy want $4 million to provide for his medical expenses, support and treatment for the rest of his life, plus an unspecified amount above that to compensate him for his lost childhood.

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State knew for years child was in danger, lawyers say

>Office of Children’s Services On Trial

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The boy was just 6 years old back in 1997 when the state first got a report that his mother’s friend was sexually abusing him.

Over the next four years, the reports about a child in danger kept arriving at what’s now the state Office of Children’s Services, but the agency didn’t do its job and the child continued to be molested and worse, a lawyer for the child told an Anchorage Superior Court jury Wednesday.

The man, Claire Thomson, is a retired Anchorage junior high teacher who eventually was convicted of criminal sexual abuse of a minor.

Now it’s the state Office of Children’s Services on trial.

Lawyers for the boy want $4 million to provide for his medical expenses, support and treatment for the rest of his life, plus an unspecified amount above that to compensate him for his lost childhood.

Full Article and Source:
State knew for years child was in danger, lawyers say