Preceding the plundering | The plundering, or stealing

This is a summary of events leading up to and including the plundering of the trust accounts preceding my unsuccessful efforts to persuade the trustee to restore the assets. I’m starting to name names. If culpable parties want to avoid exposure, they will fish or cut bait.

The trust was funded June 29, 2011. Immediately the executor and trustee sent me a document to sign giving my permission for them, jointly or individually, to assume the trust’s assets and my future social security payments and reassign them. This would have taken me to zero money and zero cash flow. There was a line for my signature. I told them no and shredded the document.

The executor has behaved as if to construe the trust agreement document provides for reversion of the trustee role to her upon my death. In August, the executor and trustee got into an argument over issues undisclosed to me. The trustee immediately packed her furniture and moved away without telling me. In October, I was poisoned by the executor’s daughter and granddaughter. In November, the trustee sent a girl to my house ostensibly to help pack, a service I didn’t need. Instead of packing, she built a firebomb.

The firebomb consisted of a box with a couple rows of VHS tapes on bottom and the bottom half of a hurricane lamp laid on its side. Filled with oil, the lamp oil, number one diesel fuel, or kerosene, was dripping on the tapes and was absorbed by the box. The box was positioned under a bay window with a spaghetti sauce jar containing a couple inches of lamp oil sitting on the windowsill. The trustee insisted this was my fault, then insisted it was a dumb mistake, then insisted she wasn’t responsible for what other people did. I named the firebomb “fuel box.”

I survived these poorly conceived attempts to do…what? The DHS APS specialist advised me not to talk about it.

By mutual agreement, I replaced the trustee because she would not perform, and I felt she shouldn’t have played a role in an attempt to burn down my house, although she denies any knowledge of a scheme. As a practicing attorney, she would not want rumors of this mischief. I appreciate that she surrendered voluntarily; otherwise, I’d have had to take her to court, which would have been hard with no money.

I didn’t bother the police with this childishness. I was disappointed but unconcerned. The alternate trustee assumed duties December 2011. He is a CPA I met over 30 years ago in a corporate environment. I employed him to do my taxes after I left the corporation. He was careful, by the book, had jumped a thousand hurdles, and I trusted him.

The executor attended my first meeting with the trustee December 2011. She, the executor, and he, the trustee, emphasized the importance of investing the trust’s assets, $150,000.00. I told them it wasn’t that much money, and that I was more interested in moving than investing. The trust also receives a monthly oil lease royalty payment.

I live in a 14-foot by 52-foot mobile home that is old and falling apart. It’s about 650 square feet inside with no storage, so the floor is mostly taken up by things I can’t put away and haven’t discarded. I’ve lived here almost 10 years and am sick of it.

It is located in the Oak Ridge Mobile Home Community in Edmond, OK. The park was owned by Warren Buffett until 2009 when it was purchased by Yes! Communities of Denver, CO.

The house is owned by the trust.

The new owner’s management began telling the residents they wished they had nothing but Mexicans living here. It was strange and made people nervous. (This practice has ceased.) There were gunshots in the wee hours. The office began issuing fine notices for minor housekeeping issues in a growing list of eviction, or “lease termination” offenses. I had been threatened with expulsion for not removing the hitch from my house. The house next door has a hitch, but that neighbor was not threatened. A neighbor under pressure from the office hanged himself from a park tree on a fine summer morning.

The house was falling apart. The doors didn’t work, even after replacing the back door. Overgrown trees were beating holes in it. I cut and removed a couple dozen trees and replaced the roof on the house, requiring expensive contract services, in preparation for more repair. There was a limit to what I could afford. The house’s assessed value is only $3,100.00, so I wondered about spending anything. I wanted to move.

After January 2012, four skirting panels fell off because the wood bottom rail to which they were attached was rotten. I knew there was more rotten wood because parts had been coming unattached from the year I arrived. The manager told me I’d fix the skirting or the owner would “ask me to leave.” The trustee paid a visit to assess it and charged the trust $375.00 for his time and expert opinion. I didn’t want to fix it, considering it a waste of money. He insisted. I was friendly to the idea of moving the house, and if we did that it wouldn’t need new skirting. The trustee said he wouldn’t allow me to move the house. That seemed odd.

As this happened, the Social Security Administration requested a review of my eligibility. That meant spending a tidy sum for testing and evaluation by a clinic. The trust paid for it. The monthly payment was restored, fortunately, because I can’t use trust assets for living expense. It pays medical, housing and educational cost, with an invoice. All it directly contributes is the lot rental at Oak Ridge, little money but a big blessing.

The stage was set.

We removed the skirting, and replaced the substructure components and installed new skirting. That cost about $2,000.00. We removed some of the siding around the front door and found so much rotten wood, it was decided we’d pull off all the siding and inspect the whole exterior wall.

The exterior wall on the east and west was rotten, as was the framing around all the windows and doors. I hauled the stuff to the dump and purchased, loaded and delivered new materials. This job should have taken about three weeks with my very able workers, a couple who live down the street.

With the clandestine direction by the executor, my helpers stretched the repair out to three months. I knew that was happening because I heard her voice talking to them on the phone constantly, along with little verbal cues from all of them. The entire project cost nearly $6,000.00. Considering what we did, it was a very fair price.

It was now July 2012. The trustee issued his first report. It looked all right except for $20,025.00 in checks he wrote to himself at the beginning. He said this was an investment in an online company. The executor told me it looked odd and might present a conflict of interest. I told the trustee I didn’t like it and to restore the money.

His response came as he handed me the last construction reimbursement check. “You might want to keep whatever money you have,” he said, “because that’s the last of the trust’s money you’ll see ever.” I told him not to think, say or do that, because that was not what was supposed to happen. I told him he was supposed to let me spend the money.

Within a few days I found myself in a three-way phone conversation with the executor and trustee. “Take the money out,” the executor told us. “Take it all out,” she said. I told both of them, “no, don’t take the money out, don’t take any out.”

I reminded them I wanted to move, and they said I should look for a place. As months passed I questioned the trustee about what he was doing and how much money was in the accounts. He told me all was well, but he was too busy to show me bank statements or make a report. I was uneasy.

Between July 2012 and December 2013, the trustee wrote his personal and business accounts unscheduled, unauthorized checks totaling another $154,450.00 plus a cash withdrawal of $450.00. That’s a preliminary accounting. I have new figures. It looks like he’s been feeding at the trough since July 2013, when he finally made his report.

What he did was withdraw all the money and put it in his bank accounts. Then he waited another six months to show the statements. There should have been nearly $200,000.00 in the bank. Instead, there was less than $2,000.00, and his report said the trust had a worth of $216,000.00.

In the first 18 months, the trustee billed about $11,000.00 paid by 15 checks for this service. He wrote 92 other checks to himself totaling $174,450.00 (plus $450.00 cash).

It didn’t make much sense, I thought, as I reviewed it the first time. I felt dizzy. As I regained consciousness on the floor a couple days later (just kidding) I realized this was no investment. It was stealing, and nothing but stealing.

What works and what doesn't

With no money, you can’t fix this. Otherwise, what you’d do is call your lawyer, say you have a problem, write the check and forget it.

I’ve worked day and night for months on an effort that’s gone nowhere, so here’s some advice. Don’t waste time with things that don’t work. Because I receive SSDI, I’m eligible for support from the state’s Department of Human Services Adult Protective Services (DHS APS). It’s a great program.

The APS specialist and I have assembled much needed for a department’s investigative report to submit to a prosecutor. Legal Aid advised me that APS could submit a report to a prosecutor, but that is incorrect. APS can, however, provide persuasive evidence to police, and the specialist’s opinion matters.

Police want a legal team to examine the complainant’s statement and documents. They want an accountant’s forensic audit. Then, they want a definitive report linking events and figures with violations of statutes, including citations and possibly a case law study.

Most lawyers run from this job, saying they don’t do litigation, don’t want involvement with a possible criminal case or for some other reason. Certain lawyers handle litigation and interfacing with law enforcement.

The willing few want a sizeable retainer, as in cash up front. They are wise to want that. The figure regularly mentioned is twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars. I’m on SSDI and don’t have a bundle like that.

Someone asked me why I need a lawyer. The answer is I shouldn’t. Police want someone to do their work in regard to this sort of case. They don’t know how trusts work, and are too overloaded to face the entire learning curve in hopes of straightening out this unholy mess. I can sympathize. The police are actually trying to help me. They figure my fastest, best road to recovery lies elsewhere.

The problem for me is that is not the case. I require their signed investigative report delivered to a prosecutor who files charges. Until that happens, the clock is ticking. Statutes of limitation for the various causes will run. I either achieve timely filing or I don’t, and timely filing refers to the filing of charges.

People repeatedly advised me to contact the district attorney’s office. I called them. When I asked what the report should contain, they hung up. I went to their office with my document package.

I was told their office doesn’t begin work until it receives law enforcement’s investigative report, and that they can’t talk to me. I can’t submit a report myself. They told me any department or agency in the county can submit a report. Whether or not that presents jurisdictional problems I don’t know, but the district attorney’s office represented to me that it doesn’t.

That’s why you need a lawyer. You see it isn’t easy to explain.

I would like to hire a lawyer for a few hours to make a short report about events and give citations. That might be enough. My case is blatant, obvious, open and notorious. The trustee committed the one cardinal sin: he put the bulk of the money in his own accounts. I’ve asked several lawyers to do this. They want a retainer and open billing arrangement at best.

I need a more exact work description, because I can’t waste money.

I need a pro bono lawyer. No one can predict what will happen. Every case is different. This one is very different. Thousands of people want a pro bono lawyer at any given time and place. One needs a referral I don’t have. Legal Aid doesn’t handle this kind of case, but said they’d help me find a pro bono lawyer. The federally funded Disability Law Center also filtered it.

The local police kicked this case out because the trustee’s office is in a different suburb. The trustee’s police department kicked it out, saying they lacked the capacity to investigate it. They referred it to the attorney general’s office for the purpose of investigation.

The attorney general’s office did not understand why they were contacted. Based on the APS specialist’s comments, the documentation and the extraordinary nature of the complaint, the AG’s public protection unit committed to turning it over to their investigators.

A week later, we were told they decided to wait two months, then review the case and consider its disposition. The following week, I asked what they thought would happen. They told me the FBI was interested in the case, and that they had taken up the investigation. The APS specialist delivered a document package.

Not knowing that, I delivered my own document package. The duty agent knew nothing about the case.

Three weeks later, the FBI and attorney general’s office both declined to investigate. The FBI told the APS specialist they were shorthanded. The AG’s staff said they don’t handle this kind of case.

Meanwhile, I contacted the state securities commission. They don’t recover money. They prepare cases to punish investment wrongdoers. They don’t handle this kind of case, only cases involving stocks.

Five months have passed. The case went everywhere and nowhere. The criminal case can provide for recovery. The defendant either pays back the money or goes to jail. The measure of damages can include an exemplary award that is the amount in controversy times three, plus costs.

That happens in a fairy tale dream world where the victim is a company or association that has other money and can hire a lawyer to perform the audit and analysis. Many eyes are watching. Police don’t have to guess, and they’re on the spot to perform. Here, stealing isn’t tolerated.

The private individual who has no other money is filtered. Stealing from him is tolerated because he can’t do the police investigation himself, and fewer people are watching.

The civil lawsuit is another story. Certainly one should launch an aggressive collection effort, and that takes cash up front. So, what just happened? A man took a whole lot of money out of my account. He’s getting away with it. It’s the wild, wild west. The man who can fight is the man who is right. Stealing is legal. CPAs can steal from gimps.

Those are the real, unsatisfying facts, and this isn’t finished. Everyone agreed the trustee should face a judge, yet no one wanted to be a part of it. I listed all the checks the trustee wrote himself from December 2011 to August 2013. He paid himself $10,752.50 with 15 checks. The money he says he invested was 92 checks written to his business and personal accounts totaling $174,450.00, plus one $450.00 withdrawal. I paid $11,000 for a man to steal $175,000.00 and do my taxes. This bad deal was his idea, not mine.

What works? DHS APS helped me. Nobody else did. That’s ridiculous to the point of insanity. Everyone I’ve talked to says it makes no sense at all. The house where I live is owned by the trust, and the trustee wants to liquidate it, too. He continues to withdraw money as it arrives. What a nice guy. Stay tuned for the exciting, specific details.

The setup

The facts are straightforward and easily understood.

The issue is how to collect money removed from the bank accounts of an estate trust.

The trust was initially funded with $150,000 plus money from an oil lease royalty paid monthly. I am the beneficiary of the trust and its assets. I receive social security disability income, or SSDI.

The bank can’t show me statements, and I can’t do a transaction on the bank accounts. So, I’m totally dependent on the trustee. He must be forthcoming and honest, and he must follow instructions. In most cases, that happens more or less satisfactorily.

In this case, the trustee wrote himself and his business checks until the bank accounts were depleted. They should contain around $200,000; instead, they have about $2,000. As misconduct, this is among the worst.

The trustee is a CPA, a state-licensed professional. Having asked him to restore the assets, and being fully assured he will never put back one dime, I’m placed in a time frame to respond.

As beneficiary, there are two appropriate action plans. One is to pursue criminal charges, because stealing from a trust is a crime. The other is to launch an aggressive collection effort in the form of a civil lawsuit. The goal is to restore the assets. If a favorable judgment is rendered, the trustee is ordered to pay back the money or make payments according to a schedule.

I can’t make those things happen by myself, even if I’m king. A legal process remedy depends on what the facts and I can convince other people to do, the trustee’s ability to restore the money and the role of unexpected intervening variables. The process has no integrity. Derailment waits at every step.

There is now at least a 99.9% chance recovery will fail. Does it matter that I don’t have the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars lawyers want to pick up the file and pursue collection? Probably not, which is amusing and sad. Lawyers don’t want it, and don’t want to refer it because I have no money.

No doubt, the trustee can show he is cash poor. However, he can probably command more than adequate legal funding. He isn’t bonded, and his insurance portfolio is unknown and no help. He has been a trusted business associate for more than 30 years, so the trouble is disappointing.

The trust agreement document is a piece of schlock work from a $900/hr. lawyer. The executor helped engineer it. The adequately funded executor exerts backpressure. Law enforcement assigned a case number. It was passed to the attorney general’s office, then to the FBI. It was declined, with the curious comment they were “shorthanded,” as per the APS specialist.

The trustee represented he was investing the money he placed in his personal and business accounts in short-term loans. He says a government contract bottleneck has tied up the money. The trustee is the borrower’s registered agent, and the borrower looks like a phony company.

That the trustee laundered the money should be enough for the criminal case. To hire a lawyer to perform a forensic audit and analysis or file a lawsuit to litigate collection requires a large initial retainer I don’t have. The criminal case is at square one after months of frantic, desperate effort.

Public and private advocates generally have little practice in this area and little financial incentive, particularly in a learning curve situation—another way both criminal and civil cases are losers for the complainant.

The trustee assured me the investment is routine. I opposed it, and told him not to do it. In a three-way phone conversation with the executor, she and he decided to commit all the money. I told them not to withdraw any. The trustee told me I had seen the last of the trust’s money, “ever.” That was July, 2012. Thereafter, the trustee withdrew bulk money the next six months, and waited another six months to show the bank statements, despite growing concern and requests to see them and for a report.

According to one lawyer, the statute of limitations for fraud runs in two weeks. Fraud is the centerpiece of the recovery action. If nothing can happen, the law will allow a CPA to steal about $200,000 from a client on SSDI.

How to earn extra money: JUST STEAL IT

Welcome to a new blog, CPA loots trust. It is SIMPLY DARLING.

Are you a licensed professional and smarmy weasel who'd like to earn extra money? Just steal it! That's right, that's what I said: just steal the money.

As a trustee, you are well-positioned to fatten your bottom line by writing yourself checks from someone else's bank accounts. You can do it, so JUST DO IT, steal your sorry, loser client's money like there's no tomorrow.

In upcoming posts, I'll detail how my trustee, an Oklahoma certified public accountant, helped himself to the assets of my trust accounts, lying, concealing and stealing his way to financial independence while evading law enforcement and condemning me to old age in abject poverty. He has a bitter, mean old woman worth tens of millions helping him and supporting his defense, so he has no worries about silly things like consequences.

They plot my death to keep this teeny, $200,000 accounting irregularity quiet. You can see the whole thing is JUST DARLING.

If you're a CPA, or someone who'd like to get rich with unearned money, learn it from these experts and subscribe to my RSS feed. I'll tell you all about it and show how all my countermeasures simply don't work, because in Oklahoma, STEALING AND KILLING ARE PERFECTLY LEGAL. That's what I call really darling.