CT: Probate Judge Bryan T. Meccariello Censured

The Council on Probate Judicial Conduct unanimously agreed to publicly censure Probate Judge Bryan T. Meccariello for judicial misconduct in his handling of Josephine Smoron’s estate.

The five-member council was asked to investigate the matter after Smoron’s heir Samuel Manzo complained that her conservator John T. Nugent had disinherited him by creating and funding two trusts giving all her land to three local churches. Meccariello approved the trusts at meeting only he attended on May 12, 2009.

“I’m not shrugging it off and unfortunately the underlying issues have to get resolved,” Meccariello said, adding that he is working to mediate a settlement over the land.

Manzo’s initial complaint implied a possible conspiracy between Meccariello, Nugent and the town to funnel Smoron’s land to local developer Carl Verderame who needs it to build an $18 million sports arena. A purchase agreement between Nugent and Verderame would enrich the churches.

Meccariello said Tuesday’s council finding, although harsh, vindicated him on the corruption charges.

Full Article and Source:
Probate Council Censures Meccariello

See Also:
Read the Report From the Council on Probate Conduct

Judge Bryan Meccariello Faces Misconduct Charges

Former Atty Pieter J. DeJong Charged With Stealing From Client’s Estate

A disbarred attorney who lives in Long Valley was arraigned Tuesday on charges of stealing $265,552 between 2005 and 2008 from a deceased woman’s estate.

Pieter J. DeJong, 62, was indicted by a Morris County grand jury on Sept. 3 on three theft-related charges that allege he stole between February 2005 and June 2008 money that belonged to the estate of Jane Davis.

DeJong did not speak during the brief arraignment in state Superior Court, Morristown, but defense lawyer Thomas Fischer entered a not guilty plea on DeJong’s behalf.

DeJong, who was licensed to practice law in 1972, was disbarred by the state Supreme Court in September 2009 after he failed to respond to allegations of misappropriation of monies. His practice consisted mainly of real estate law.

He previously was reprimanded in 1985 for gross neglect and lack of diligence, and five times between 1992 and 2008 was on the state Supreme Court’s list of attorneys ineligible to practice law because he didn’t pay an annual attorney fee to the New Jersey Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection, according to state records.

Full Article and Source:
Ex-Attorney Pieter DeJong Who Ran Flanders, NJ, Practice Charged with Stealing Over $265,000 From Client’s Estate

CT: Judge Bryan Meccariello Faces Judicial Misconduct Charges

Rare is the chutzpa so shamefully displayed by Southington Probate Court Judge Bryan F. Meccariello.

The judge who presided over a court process that expunged Sam Manzo, a humble farmhand, from Josephine Smoron’s will, now wants to be the hero.

Meccariello told the Council on Probate Judicial Conduct this week that it was but a small mistake that he ignored Smoron’s will in May 2009 when he gave the OK to the creation of two trusts that allowed the Smoron Farm to be acquired by a local developer.

The judge said he was merely trying to bring Smoron home before she died in June 2009at age 92.

At the time, Smoron lay dying in a nursing home. Her wish was to give the family farm, worth at least $1.5 million, to Manzo, her long-time caretaker. Meccariello hadn’t seen her in more than a year. The man he appointed as her conservator — local lawyer John Nugent — never bothered to meet her. (“I don’t speak dementia,” Nugent artfully explained to the council this week.)

A Democrat who channels both Richard Nixon and Eddie Haskell, Meccariello told the council that he was merely adhering to a plan — a secret one unbeknownst to anyone but the judge — that would have brought dear old Josephine Smoron back to her beloved farm.

“The game plan,” Meccariello declared, “was to create the vehicle that would allow her to get back to her house … My intentions were to get her back to that farm … I was blinded by the fact that this woman wanted to go home.”

Manzo, who mortgaged (and lost to foreclosure) his home to help pay for some of Josephine Smoron’s bills and who was removed by Meccariello as her conservator in 2008, could only shake his head. After Meccariello appointed Nugent, “there was no plan,” Manzo told me.

Meccariello is the man who allowed the entire mess to unfold, who never would have been caught were it not for Manzo’s complaint about a railroad job unfolding in the Southington Probate Court. This is the judge who, as Smoron’s sad fate unfolded before his court over her last year, never bothered to find out how she was doing in the hospital or nursing home.

Yet he had a plan to save her.

Wednesday was the third time that Meccariello testified under oath before the council, but the first time he mentioned “the plan.” He is before the council because he failed to notify Manzo about the hearing at which Meccariello changed the will. “A mistake,” Meccariello said.

This mistake created two trusts that handed the farm to three local Catholic churches after Smoron’s death. The churches, under an agreement arranged by Nugent, were then to sell the farm to a local developer. The developer, Carl Verderame, has already submitted plans for an indoor sports arena for the property, which is just off I-84.

All of this occurred despite the fact that in a 1996 will, Smoron stated that she was “intentionally” omitting any churches.

Full Article and Source:
Southington Probate Court Judge Bryan Meccariello Faces Judicial Misconduct Charges

See Also:
Appeal Filed in Smoron Case

Iowa Supreme Court Disciplinary Board Disciplines Stephen J. Lickiss

Charles L. Harrington and Wendell J. Harms, Des Moines, for complainant.Stephen J. Lickiss, Altoona, pro se.

This matter comes before us on the report of a division of the Grievance Commission of the Supreme Court of Iowa. See Iowa Ct. R. 35.10. The Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board alleged the respondent, Stephen J. Lickiss, violated ethical rules in four probate matters by neglecting these matters, failing to respond to clients’ inquiries for information, taking probate fees without prior court approval, failing to notify his clients that he had ceased to represent them, and failing to respond to the board’s inquiries. The grievance commission found Lickiss violated the Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct and recommended a three-month suspension. Upon our respectful consideration of the findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendation of the commission, we find Lickiss committed several ethical violations and suspend his license to practice law indefinitely with no possibility of reinstatement for three months.

Full Document and Source:
IOWA SUPREME COURT ATTORNEY DISCIPLINARY BOARD, Complainant, v. Stephen J. LICKISS, Respondent.
No. 10-0363.

OH: 3 Other County Judges Under Investigation

Three other county judges are coming under scrutiny after they were mentioned in the bombshell federal indictments announced that accused County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and two Common Pleas Court judges of corrupt activity.

One is the brother of former county Auditor Frank Russo, who pleaded guilty to 21 corruption charges. County Probate Court Judge Anthony Russo has not been charged but fits the description of Public Official 11, described in the indictment of Dimora.

Then there’s county Domestic Relations Judge Cheryl Karner. She isn’t named in the indictment, but the description of Public Official 8 matches her description.

The federal indictment also involves an unidentified Common Pleas Court judge. Prosecutors said Dimora used his influence on the judge to arrange a meeting involving a halfway house that’s been linked to bribes and a trip to Las Vegas that Dimora went on in April 2008.

Judge Steven Terry was charged with judicial corruption after being accused of accepting bribes and political help from Russo, in return for helping Russo’s friend in a civil case.

And Judge Bridget McCafferty was accused of lying to FBI agents about her secret dealings on court cases with Frank Russo and Dimora.

Full Article and Source:
Investigator: Three More Cuyahoga County Judges Show Up in Indictments

OH: Judge Anthony Russo Denies Wrongdoing

Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo is accused of helping an employee get a second job in exchange for the worker hosting a campaign fundraiser for the auditor’s brother, Judge Anthony Russo, who now oversees the Cleveland Metroparks system.

Cuyahoga County Probate Court Judge Anthony Russo responds to questions about the indictment of his brother, recently resigned Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo.
Jerry Skuhrovec helped raise $8,200 for the judge’s 2008 campaign and also paid unspecified bribes to the auditor for help in landing an appraiser’s job with the Sheriff’s Office, according to new charges released by federal prosecutors.

Anthony Russo went on to win his bid to become presiding judge of the Cuyahoga County Probate Court, an especially powerful position responsible for the appointment of the three Metroparks commissioners.

[T]he judge denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. “There were no accusations against me,” said Russo.

Full Article and Source:
Judge Anthony Russo Benefited From Brother Frank’s Misdeeds, Feds Say

Your Honor?

Juli Alexander, Executive Director of Redress, Inc. candidly discusses the present condition of the American judicial system. Examples of life destroying decisions void of common sense, morality and law handed down by judges are cited.

Source:
YouTube

IN: Forgery Charge Added Against Lawyer

Allen County prosecutors added additional charges to the criminal case against local lawyer Daniel E. Serban after investigators said he admitted misappropriating money from an estate account.

Charged with corrupt business influence and theft, Serban, now faces additional charges of forgery and theft.

In the original charges, Serban is accused of failing to distribute money paid into Serban Law Office’s Trust Account to the appropriate clients or to those entitled by court order to receive it.

But when he was arrested Thursday, Serban told officers some of the money he used to pay off the original client, after he was confronted, had been taken from money put into the trust account for an estate. He told investigators he forged the name of the estate’s personal representative on the check.

Full Article and Source:
Forgery Charge Added Against Local Lawyer

See Also:
Attorney Charged With Fund Thefts

Attorneys Ordered to Repay Legal Costs

A state Superior Court judge has ordered lawyers for Revlon Chairman Ronald Perelman to reimburse nearly $2 million in fees that his former father-in-law and brother-in-law paid to defend themselves against a lawsuit Perelman filed over his daughter’s inheritance.

The lawsuit, which Superior Court Judge Ellen Koblitz dismissed last year, claimed that Perelman’s daughter, Samantha, was entitled to half of the fortune amassed by her grandfather — Robert Cohen of Englewood, the 85-year-old founder of the Hudson News chain.

Perelman, who is appealing, was married to Cohen’s only daughter, the socialite and gossip columnist Claudia Cohen, from 1985 until their divorce in 1994. Samantha was born in 1990. Claudia Cohen died in 2007 of ovarian cancer.

Perelman’s suit, which he filed in his capacity as executor of his former wife’s estate, claimed that Robert Cohen made an oral promise to his only daughter in the 1970s to leave half of the family fortune to her even though he had three children living at the time. Claudia’s brother, James, also was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Koblitz ruled Perelman’s suit was frivolous because no documents were provided to back up that claim.

The lawsuit also alleged that Robert Cohen, who suffers from a Parkinson’s-like condition called progressive supranuclear palsy, should be declared legally incapacitated and, therefore, not capable of deciding how to divide his fortune among his heirs. The suit further claimed that James Cohen had taken advantage of his condition, persuading his father to leave him a greater share of his estate.

Full Article and Source:
Attorneys for Ron Perelman Ordered to Repay Legal Costs

See Also:
Family Feud May Test Boundaries of Inheritance Law

A Real-Life Judge Judy Gets Smacked Down

When a defendant showed up on a traffic charge, Judge Judy delivered a zinger: “If you drive like an idiot ’cause you’re late for work, you’re gonna have to pay for it.” Then she piled on: “You can see your picture on the headlines of the Seattle Times, stupid young man who shouldn’t be driving.”

Another defendant recalled that the tart-tongue jurist humiliated and bullied her until she broke down in tears. “She frequently interrupted answers with insults,” the woman recalled.

This bullying Judge Judy was not Judge Judith Sheindlin, the tough-talking former New York City Family Court judge who has the top-rated judge show on syndicated television. It was Judge Judith Raub Eiler, her real-life doppelgänger, who sits at a county court in Seattle. Instead of high ratings and rich syndication fees, this Judge Judy’s aggressive demeanor earned her a five-day suspension without pay courtesy of the Washington State Supreme Court.

Full Article and Source:
A Real-Life Judge Judy Gets Smacked Down