Nurse and PT Teacher Charged With Theft

A nurse and a part-time kindergarten teacher have been charged with the theft of more than $700,000 from a 94-year-old North Side man.

Deborah Johnson, 53, of Columbus, the nurse, and Anita Esquibel, 68, of Columbus, the teacher, are accused by Columbus police of stealing more than $700,000 from Peter Svaldi.
The two met him at an apartment building near Graceland Shopping Center, said Kevin Craine, attorney for Svaldi’s newly appointed guardian. The women were the property managers, said the guardian, Lorelei Lanier. The women gained Svaldi’s trust, then bought real estate, a car and jewelry with money they took from his accounts after gaining power of attorney, Craine said.

“I think this stuff happens a lot more than anybody knows, through power of attorney,” Craine said. “I don’t know the circumstances how he gave them power of attorney, but he definitely gave it to them. In the wrong hands, it can become a license to steal.

Svaldi is “definitely incapacitated,” Craine said. “That’s how this happened. He’s aware of what happened, but it took him a while to process that. It’s one of the more heinous cases I’ve seen, and we do a lot of this kind of work, unfortunately.”

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2 Women Accused in Rip-Off of Senior

Agency Named Woman’s Guardian

Guardianship of a 96-year-old woman removed from the home where police and humane officials found nearly 200 animals in conditions described as deplorable has been given to a Trumbull County agency that specializes in providing those services.

On Monday, Probate Court Judge Thomas Swift appointed Guardianship and Protective Services guardian over the person and estate of Helen DiMarsico, removed from the Gustavus home of her daughter, Kathy Witzman, for evaluation and medical treatment.

The hearings examine the need for a guardian, competency and who should serve as guardian.

Joshua Garris, agency attorney, said the agency will oversee DiMarsico’s estate, and social workers there will oversee her medical and personal decisions for an indefinite length of time.

Returning care back to DiMarsico would need court action.

At Monday’s hearing, done via Web conference, interim guardian and licensed social worker, Alvin J. Weisberg, testified that DiMarsico has moments of lucidity and confusion and that she worries over her daughter’s situation, but has shown no desire to return to the house with Witzman.

He said she suffers from cardiovascular and degenerative joint disease as well as hypertension and dimentia. Guardianship, Weisberg said, would be ”well advised, at least for an indefinite period of time.”

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Agency Named Woman’s Guardian

OH Standards of Practice for Attorney Guardians

Judge Eric Brown got an earful – and dozens of e-mails – when he asked the public’s opinion on rules to protect the addled, aged and disabled from busy or unscrupulous attorney guardians.

Some examples:

• Don’t require us to visit each ward personally at least once every three months, some attorneys pleaded with the Franklin County Probate Court judge. Many attorneys have only a handful of wards, but others have a large staff to work with hundreds.

That rule stays, Brown said.

• Don’t require those alleged to be incompetent to open their homes to prospective guardians, who lack legal authority to visit, others said.

Got a point, Brown decided. He told guardians to ask to visit.

• Put as Rule No. 1: “Take no actions which are not in the best interests of the ward,” a Texas judge suggested.

Brown agreed that would cover everything. An early paragraph now reads, “In all matters, the guardian shall always consider and act in the best interest of the ward.”

Other states have embraced guardian guidelines, and Brown hopes his standards will help the Ohio Supreme Court as it works to do the same.

“These standards will improve the quality of work by the (attorney) guardians,” Brown said. “They’re going to be better trained. They’re going to be more personally involved. They’re going to be held to higher standards with regards to ethics and standards.”

The rules will be mandatory starting in late summer for attorneys, who are usually paid from their ward’s assets. Brown has the authority to impose rules on anyone before his court, though his rules for licensing, training and other requirements apply only to attorneys. The judge hopes relatives and volunteer guardians will still find them helpful.

Brown’s rules will forbid the attorney guardians from self-dealing: They can’t hire their relatives without court permission. And they must respect a ward’s wishes and privacy.

Brown made guidelines a priority when he took office a year ago. As a Common Pleas judge, he’d heard the case of Milous Keith. The retired city worker lost his freedom and allegedly more than $400,000 in assets under an attorney guardianship before Brown found him competent.

Today, Keith is suing his former guardian’s law firm, alleging that guardian Jim Hughes sold assets at a loss, hired his father-in-law as a real-estate agent and failed to inventory safe-deposit boxes.

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Opinions Fervent on Rules for Attorney Guardians

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Read the Standards of Practice for Attorney Guardians

Ohio Lawyer Pleads Guilty

Gerald Baker couldn’t say exactly where he spent more than $34,000 he was supposed to have given clients, only that he took the money “without [it] being forwarded on to the parties involved.”

A lawyer who was placed on an indefinite suspension last year by the Supreme Court of Ohio, Baker pleaded guilty in Lucas County Common Pleas Court yesterday to grand theft. He admitted stealing the money that had been entrusted to him as an insurance settlement for a client.

Baker, 60, of Spencer Township, faces up to 1 1/2 years in prison when sentenced April 21. As part of the plea, he agreed to pay $34,380 to one client and $1,739 to another.

“I received a check from an insurance company as a result of a settlement for a homeowner’s fire,” Mr. Baker told Judge Gene Zmuda yesterday. “I deposited the money into my [client trust] account and [depleted] the account over time.”

Baker’s license suspension was a result of charges filed by the Toledo Bar Association alleging nine counts of misconduct dating to 2003. One of those counts led to criminal charges against Baker.

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Toledo Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Taking Clients’ Funds

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Lawyer Accused of Grand Theft

No Raise for Probate Judge Tommy Crosslin

Colbert County commissioners passed a resolution opposing a bill that would have increased Probate Judge Tommy Crosslin’s salary by more than $50,000 a year.

The decision is likely unnecessary because the bill in its current form is unconstitutional and will not be introduced, State Sen. Bobby Denton, D-Muscle Shoals, said.

“As far as I know right now, there wouldn’t be any need in pursuing this issue,” Denton said. “I’d be foolish to introduce a bill that would be unconstitutional.”

[State Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia] said any effort to increase Crosslin’s pay should be based on the duties of his office and have the input of the county commission, which pays his salary and employee benefits, including retirement.

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Judge’s $50,000 Raise Dead

Ohio Judge Retiring

After more than three decades on the bench, Judge Richard Evans has decided to hang up his robe.

“I used to think that 37 years was an inconceivably long time,” Evans said.

But Evans was just a few years short of his predecessor in probate court, Judge C.M. Ross, who was with Coshocton County Probate and Juvenile Court for 37 years. Evans is the seventh common pleas judge to hold the office here since the position was created in 1917.

In 1980, he ran for common pleas general division judge and has held the seat ever since.

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Judge Evans Hanging Up His Robe

Ohio Lawyer Charged With Grand Theft

A Sylvania lawyer appeared in Lucas County Common Pleas Court on charges that he stole from clients.

William A. Garrett, 68, who is charged with two counts of grand theft, was suspended from practicing law in November. Mr. Garrett had been licensed in Ohio since 1970.

[H]e requested additional time to hire an attorney before he was taken to the Lucas County jail to be fingerprinted and photographed. Judge Gary Cook set a Feb. 17 arraignment date and released him on his own recognizance.

Mr. Garrett is charged with misappropriating between $16,700 and $26,500 from two clients last year. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison.

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Sylvania Lawyer Charged With Thefts From Two Clients

Judge Facing Drunk Driving Charge Can Hear Same Cases, Court Says

City Municipal Court Judge Robert E. Messham Jr. is not in violation of any state law by hearing drunk driving cases despite awaiting pretrial on the same charge, according to the Supreme Court of Ohio.

On Jan. 26, Messham, 63, was arrested in Miami Twp. for operating a vehicle under the influence and sideswiping another vehicle. Police said he refused a Breathalyzer test, which warranted an automatic suspension of diver’s license for one year under Ohio law.

Messham, who was appointed by Gov. Richard Celeste in 1989 and re-elected three times, returned to the bench Feb. 1 after pleading not guilty.

His driver’s license has been suspended and his pretrial hearing is set for April 13.

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Judge Facing Drunk Driving Charge Can Hear Same Cases, Court Says

Discipline Action Goes to Ohio Supreme Court

The Ohio Supreme Court’s disciplinary review board has recommended Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul be suspended from practicing law and, in effect, removed from the bench for one year for violating judicial codes.

But the court’s Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline also recommend the yearlong suspension be stayed, which would allow Gaul to continue working. His case now goes before the full Supreme Court, which will later determine whether to accept the board’s recommendation or come up with a sanction, if any, of its own.

Gaul is being penalized for threatening to jail a defendant in an assault case if the 83-year-old victim did not show up to testify in a 2007 case. Gaul had feared that the elderly victim, Emma Ingram, had been intimidated to not appear in court to testify against her attackers.

The disciplinary board, however, said Gaul’s threat violated the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct and Rules of Professional Conduct. In particular, the board said Gaul violated canons that require judges to promote public confidence in the judicial system and requires them to be unbiased and not make public comments that might impact the fairness of a case.

Gaul, who did not deny threatening to jail the defendant, Jeffrey Robinson, has said that he was acting in the best interest of the public and the justice system by attempting to prevent witness intimidation. He also alleged that he was being tried by the board because of a personal vendetta against him by the Supreme Court’s disciplinary counsel, Jonathan Coughlan. Coughlan denied the accusation.

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Disciplinary Board Recommends One-Year Suspension for Cleveland Judge, but Penalty Would be Stayed

See Also:
Before the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline of the Supreme Court of Ohio

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul Faces Disciplinary Hearing for Threatening Defendant With Jail After Witness Went Missing

OH: Judge Seeks Standards for Court Guardians

Attorneys who hold in their hands the lives of the addled, elderly and disabled soon will get a set of common-sense rules, partly inspired by a man wrongly stripped of his freedom and property.

Franklin County Probate Judge Eric Brown is asking for public comment on 46 standards to govern attorneys who serve as guardians to wards of his court.

“These are the most vulnerable citizens in our community,” Brown said. “We can do better.”

Brown was the Common Pleas judge appointed to hear the case of Milous Keith after the previous Franklin County Probate judge recused himself. Keith, then 76, fought a court-appointed guardian for two years to regain control of his life.

“My learning experience with the handling of that case certainly caused me to be concerned about the issues that arose,” Brown said.

Keith still lives in fear “at an undisclosed location,” said his sister, Etta Brown. “They took Milous out of his house in handcuffs and put him in a police car and locked him in an Alzheimer’s ward for nearly two years.”

The former city housing administrator had assets of more than $600,000, court records say. Today, Etta Brown figures, her brother has less than $150,000. Keith is suing his former guardian’s law firm, alleging that guardian Jim Hughes sold assets at a loss, hired his father-in-law as a real-estate agent and failed to inventory safe-deposit boxes.

Brown found Keith competent in February 2006. He removed the guardianship.

Brown’s standards will apply only to attorneys, but he hopes family, volunteer and other guardians will find them helpful. He’s sending his draft to attorneys, other guardians, nursing homes and fellow probate judges, among others.

Proposed rules include requiring attorneys to attend training, visit wards personally at least quarterly, not hire relatives without permission, and designate someone to take over if the guardian dies or quits.

“There are some guardians who have one or two or three wards,” Brown said. “Some have hundreds. Those may have trouble meeting the standards.”

But the rules, he said, are to protect wards.

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Judge Seeks Standards for Court Guardians

See Also:
Proposed Standards for Attorney Guardians