Dear Scott,
I understand your frustration at not being allowed to testify. BUT the fact is that Osorian had disallowed all testimony which he judged to be underlying the ARDC case. You were not allowed to be in the courtroom for most of this.
Nevertheless, the excellent cross examinations of Ken and of Larry Hyman of the ARDC witnesses caused the three lawyers/guardians Schmiedlel, Stern and Farenga to admit that they were guilty of failure to exercise any of their powers to protect Mary. Farenga even had to admit that she had only seen Mary in her office, because Naperville was too far for her to travel to and Adam lived closer. Farenga and Stern admitted that they were not present when Carolyn had the safety deposit box drilled, so that they had not protected Mary’s potential interest against Carolyn, even though they knew that Mary had initially accused Carolyn in her initial action of stealing $4000. Farenga admitted that most guardianships end after a few months and do not continue with no pay for three years and five months. In the cross examinations it was brought out that Schmiedel knew that the Lumberman suit was against Gloria only and Mary had no part in it. Stern made numerous factual admissions which showed that he was not acting in Mary’s interest at all. But most important was that the arrogance of Mr. Apostel (or whatever his name was) allowed Ken to bring in just about everything that Torosian had previously disallowed!!! The result was that Ken got to make his closing statement during the redirect questioning of him as the adverse witness, and THEN Larry was able to make his own closing statement that the three : Schmiedel, Stern and Farenga, could have merely blocked all Ken’s emails FOR ALL THE USE they made of them to investigate anything whatsoever. The implication was that their discomfort was clearly the result of their inaction and time wasting. Their witness, Dr. Patel, clearly indicated that he, an ordinary family physician, did NOT see anything in Ken’s letter that he thought required him to take action; thus, the letter did not in fact contain anything implying that it was mandatory no matter how the guardians, the attorney for Carolyn Toerpe, OR the ARDC wanted to parse it. Only persons who were looking for trouble could even imagine that there was trouble.
In the meantime, even Orosian, seeing my demeanor, had to see that Apostel was doing his best to drive Ken into a stroke. I saw him take immediate though subtle action, once he saw how distressed I genuinely was (I got up and gave Larry a note, and I suspect that I was pale and possible shaking) and Ken’s color all too slowly did go back to normal. I do not think Osorian wanted 911 ambulances or a corpse in his hearing room. He and Hilliken could see that Ms. Black was wagging her fanny at them and emphasizing her bosom to Apostel every time she consulted with Apostel. These hearing officers, and hearing officer Mrs. Williams could see Ms. Black rolling her eyes and making faces like a pre-teen. Both men doubtless have much prettier and younger females whose shoes (with six inch heels) fit doing the same in their offices all day long and are not in need of or in awe of her attempted stimulations. Ms. Williams probably had my reactions to Ms. Black’s activities.
Until much after the hearing, I was under the false impression that the three hearing officers were employees of the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois. In fact, they are pro-bono lawyers from big firms — at least the two men are from large and probably national law firms and I missed which firm Ms. Williams is employed by, frankly, because I thought these were the activities that qualified them for a paying job as hearing officers, not their current affiliations. Taurig-Greenberg, of course, represents many politicos, including, in the past Abamoff, and all of the Indian tribes he was setting against each other. I think it might have been involved with either Rezko or Cellini but I have not researched that. Nevertheless, if you noticed, the men’s suits did not come off the sale rack at TJMaxx, Cosco, J.C.Penney, or the like. Hilliken’s tonsure probably cost what Romney’s, Clinton’s, Kerry’s did. These are the kind of people who CONSTANTLY have to guard their own personal assets against their own financial managers, their former wives, their former trophy wives, their feuding step-children — and there have been plenty of well publicized cases in the last few years of heirs and heiresses and other business titans who have been dispossessed by family members. Also, they also probably have to appear occasionally in court, and certainly have to manage the way their cases are run. If THEY THEMSELVES happen to guess wrong as to which political or economic powerhouse to displease, they could also be hauled before the ARDC. Maybe they were not favorably impressed by a twenty eight year old twerp almost pornographically rhapsodizing about the “Disciplinary” powers he had been granted. You and I don’t know anything about the fond family relations that may OR MAY NOT exist in hearing officer Williams’ family, or what depredations her immediate or extended family might have suffered in the recent or more distant past from over-reaching governmental agencies.
So, until they make their finding, which could be tomorrow but is more likely to be six months or a year distant, we do not know what they are going to do. We do know that in theory, this was not a trial of the ARDC; the hearing officers, however, do have the power to make a finding in which they denote that they expected not to have to use the second day of the hearing at all, and were reserving it only for emergency purposes. Instead they were forced to listen to the Administrator attorneys wasting their time pretending that an investigation of someone accused of miscreant behavior was properly made by asking them under oath whether they were miscreants for hour after hour, whether they were forced to listen to the administrators’ lawyers reading to them as if they illiterate after they had been told not to, whether they thought that it was appropriate for Ken’s arrival ten minutes late on Thursday would be mentioned when they (the hearing officers) themselves did not enter the courtroom until 9:40 AM on Friday, and when Black was herself late several times after breaks (when there were no possible issues of traffic or holdups at the front desk). They may well have noticed that hours were spent detailing a sanctions motion which was declared a non-entity by an appeals court, and they could mention that. The superiors of Black and Apostel (or whatever his name is) had OFFICIAL eyes and ears in that courtroom as well, such as the lady in purple in the desk behind me, the security guard and even the court reporter.
In short, your support was much appreciated. Both Ken and Larry are experienced courtroom lawyers. Drew Peterson was convicted by the fact that Brodsky and his cohort over-reached and allowed in testimony which totally incriminated their witness beyond a reasonable doubt to the one person who took the attitude you or I as a juror would take when faced with a defendant already adjusted guilty by the 11 other jurors — the defendant MUST be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I did take that position in the one jury trial I was a juror in, which cost eleven other people, many of whom made little more than minimum wage, two days work instead of only a day’s work for the pittance of seventeen dollars a day… and they were very gracious about that because they too wanted to be sure they were doing justice). When Ken and Larry decided that the case had been made by the unforced errors of their opponents, they did not continue the game and take a chance that they might make forced or unforced errors. They made points by ending early (a 20 minute instead of a 30 minute closing statement) and that donkey Apostel surely lost even more points by taking advantage of Osorian’s invitation to use up a few of those ten minutes.
So if the panel is straight, they had all the evidence they needed that the proceeding was a waste of time and money. If they are not straight, no facts would change their minds!
~Judy Ditkowsky
For more information on the Ken Ditkowsky/ARDC hearing:
ProbateSharks
The hearing board consisted of its chair, Debra J. Braselton (pictured at left), Andrea D. Rice and Donald D. Torisky, a non-lawyer. In the matter of Lanre O. Amu, No. 2011 PR 00106.
National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse 