Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: Good morning. This is Carol Leonnig, Lena Sun and Sarah Cohen. Thank you for reading our series on guardians and the D.C. Superior Court's probate system. We're looking forward to answering your questions.

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Arlington, Va.: 1. Is there a role for the Federal Govt in this unbelievable, heartbreaking scandal, given there is a federal attorney in Washington?

2. Will any of these lawyers and judges be held accountable? Could they be disbarred?

3. It is such a stunning description of greed and pure theft by "officers of the court," we are simply outraged!

4. What remuneration to families will be forthcoming? For example, how much of the $800,000.00 estate mentioned can be expected to be retrieved?

5. Can criminal charges be brought? What are chances that individual civil suits could be brought? Or a class action civil suit brought on behalf of the entire class of victims?

6. THANK YOU WASHINGTON POST FOR CAROL LEONNIG, LENA SUN, AND SARAH COHEN FOR THIS BEST EXPOSE SINCE WATERGATE!

FROM MARSHA AND JOEL

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: First, let's deal with the role of the federal government. When judges and investigators find major problems, including theft by a guardian, they can refer a case and an attorney's handling of it to the U.S. Attorney's Office for criminal investigation. For example, last year , the U.S. Attorney's Office prosecuted a man named Kinley Howard, who had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from his aunt's estate in the District. He was convicted and sentenced to prison. But , generally, there is no ongoing role for the federal government.
As to your question about lawyers being held accountable, the judges can refer a case and an attorney to the Office of Bar Counsel, which prosecutes attorney misconduct. Members of the public can also complain directly to that office. (See the DC bar website, www.dcbar.org)
There are a range of punishments for attorneys who commit ethical violations, including disbarment. Disbarment in the District, however, is only for five years.
Generally speaking, when a guardian or conservator actually steals or loses money of a client, that fiduciary should be bonded with a bonding company, to insure any loss. But, in the case you mention, of Nettie Banks, the personal representative was not bonded and those losses will not be automatically recovered.

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Alexandria, Va.: I have some concerns about your representation of attorney Gazzola in your article.
You list his accolades, then in the same breath you insinuate wrongdoing without ever providing proof
or even reasonable suspicion. You mention that some decisions he made for his client were beneficial to
him. He maintains that he was working for the benefit of his client. Is it impossible for an attorney to act
in his/her client's best interests, and also by doing so increase his/her involvement and thus fees? I see
nothing concrete or real in your article to justify you placing attorney Gazzola's name in a "Misplaced
Trust - Key Players" box. This title conveniently and equally condemns all those listed under it, though
your full article does not support this. In fact, per attorney Gazzola, I see only the unsubstantiated
complaints of an elderly woman, who, per the court's determination, is overly influenced by her
granddaughter, and is clearly caught up in a system which is in dire need of reform. There is no need to
drag an attorney's name through the mud, simply because he is working within a broken system.

washingtonpost.com: Rights and Funds Can Evaporate Quickly (Post, June 16)

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: We can understand your concern and your question. But this is what reporters do:we put out information, report all sides, document what happened in a case, and let the readers make their own decision.

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Washington, D.C.: You are so right, I have visited nursing home and saw for myself how the psychiatry have talk to the patience like, they were not human, and to know that these are the people overseeing care for our love ones, something has to be done and I know their are people who care for people and not just for there pay check, who will hear there cry, God help our elderly and mental patience because they need love and support.

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: Thanks for your comment.

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Forestvill, Md.: If you feel you have been victimized by a court appointed conservator who can you notify and what avenue can you take to file legal action?

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: Great question. You can always file a complaint with the court, by letter to the Register of Wills. However, if you want to be sure that your concerns are raised in court and at a hearing, you will likely need to file a petition or a motion in the case. Some family members have complained to us that if you don't have money to hire a lawyer, that can be hard to do.

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Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.: This series blew me away. Thank you for bringing this sad situation to light. you represent journalism at its best and you all deserve the highest praise.

What really got me was the quote from the probate attorney who finally admitted that she was going to take care of her family first, and that she really didn't care. wow! criminal charges ought to be brought against her, and justice cheryl long. seems to me that those two are running some kind of racket.

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: Thank you for your nice note.

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Washington, D.C.: Many, many thanks to all of you for exposing these nefarious practices. What can a citizen do to srop this behavior??Where does one go to find out what judge is handling a probate of a decedent's estate?? Also, how does one find out about what the judge has ruled or directed the attorney to do regarding probate?? Are there any records of the court cases or hearings available to interested parties??

B Brooks

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: Any one can go to the fifth floor in the D.C. Superior Court on Indiana Ave. and look up estate and guardianship cases in a printout. Then ask for the case file. Most of it is public record. You will see which judge is handling the case by reading the jacket in which the file is stored.

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Sacramento, Calif.: This series is so similar to the Invisible Lives/Invisible Deaths series in 1999-2000. Has the mayor said what he intends to do? I realize it was not one of his administrators that dropped the ball this time, but once again it is his most vulnerable citizens being neglected and outright robbed.

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: Thank you for your comment. As for Mayor Anthony Williams, he really doesn't have a role in this system. The person in charge of the D.C. Superior Court is Chief Judge Rufus G. King III, who is both a judge and the administrator of this court. He may decide to make changes in how the probate court is run, and he has the authority to do that. He has already said he wants to improve the monitoring of attorneys and cases through a more effective computer system.

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Annandale, Va.: I may have missed this in your stories, but what is your overall impression of the families of these individuals who are victimized? Especially the elderly victims. Have their families just put them aside, lost track of them?

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: What's really sad about some of the stories we reported is that some of the elderly or mentally ill people have no close family nearby. Some have children, who, like many of us, live far away from their parents.

Others never had children and depend on sisters, nieces or nephews.

One issue in the court is that there sometimes is no one to advocate for the person who might be victimized or neglected.

We also found cases in which old friends or neighbors got involved when there was no one else to help them.

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Monett, Mo.: Dear Carol:

An elderly woman in Monett recently became the victim of an involuntary guardianship. She did not need a guardian or conservator, She had a Durable Power of Attorney. She was not incompetent and had current medical records from one of the best hospitals in the state to prove it. Her court appointed guardian ad litem did not review them. She did not have a trial, a private attorney or any evidence presented on Her behalf. She has five grown children, four of them live here in town. The oldest son is the circuit judge and presiding judge where we live. Associate judges who work in his district signed the orders. The public administrator is her guardian. It appears that She is following the judges's orders. The woman is in a nursing home and extremely over-medicated. She has been in a wheelchair since December because of some strange accident to her feet. Now that the sores have finally healed, She is still waiting for physical therapy. Missouri Adult Protection Service says that a family member is stopping their investigations. They said to try the ACLU or someone on a national level. The conservator is selling her home for the original appraisal, selling her stocks and has had an auction in less then a years time. Just over a year ago this woman was on the golf course. Isn't there a way to get this out of Her son's control?

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: We're not familiar with laws in other states, but attorneys in the area complained a lot about the District's banks, financial institutions and health care facilities failing to respect and enforce durable powers of attorney and other advance directives. Attorneys and social workers said they wish such institutions were better trained in the legal power of these documents, so that people's wishes are respected about who they want to care for them and make their decisions. Some courts have sanctioned fiduciaries who knew about a person's advance directives and failed to notify the court.

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Vienna, Va.: Now that you have exposed the cases, what has been the response and do you know if any cases will be looked into by the courts?

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: The response from the public- family members and others close to elderly, incapacitated people - has been very surprising. People are very passionate about protections for vulnerable people, even when they don't know someone in the system, and are very glad to see this issue on the front page of the paper.

Because of the judicial ethics rules, judges can't talk about what they think about individual cases, so we don't know for sure about individual responses to cases. But we know from being in the courthouse that these case files are being reviewed.

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Washington, D.C.: Ahouldn't many of these attorneys be subject to disbarment? How does that work in DC? Who governs attorney discipline?

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: Hi. See the earlier response to this question.

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Virginia: Why is the federal government involved? Can DC takes care of their own problems? Maybe the DC's DA should be a "city" prosecutor than a federal DA.

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: We dealt earlier with the federal government's role, which is very limited. But we should mention that many families we interviewed complained about the lack of interest and aggressive prosecution in cases in which there were allegations of attorneys and others stealing from vulnerable mentally ill or elderly people.
For example, attorney Rozan Cater said her secretary, Lena Summers, forged 34 checks totalling $42,000 from the account of one of Cater's clients. By the time the court found out, the client, Charlie Mae Morton, was already dead. Summers has not been prosecuted, to our knowledge. And family members have complained that no D.C. law enforcement authorities have expressed any interest in finding Summers to figure out whether Cater's account was accurate.
Also, in the case of Nettie Banks, her granddaughter has complained that there seems to be little progress in the investigation of how personal representative Arthur Freeman spent or lost more than $400,000 of her grandmother's estate.
The U.S. Attorneys office has declined to discuss the case. Their policy is to not comment on ongoing investigations.

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Vienna, Va.: Have you heard any feedback from the court judges who appointed the questionable guardians or from judges who have reappointed new guardians?

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: Not so far. Also, we don't expect to hear from the individual judges because judges cite judicial cannon of ethics for declining to comment on individual cases.
Chief Judge Rufus G. King III has said that if the court finds that a conservator has lost a client's money through their own fault, then judges should not be reappointing them to manage other people's money.

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Washington, D.C.: Do you plan on doing a follow-up series in the future to see what came about from your investigative reporting?

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: We're getting lots of calls and response to our stories, and if there's something we feel can be added to what we have already reported, we will certainly do so.

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Washington, D.C.: How do I thank the team for its perspicacity for exposing these heinous crimes being perpetrated against the estates of the incapicated and deceased?? How can these travesties be brought to conclusion??
Booker Brooks

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: Thanks for your reading and sharing your comments.

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Somewhere, USA: Any advice for families with elderly parents? How do we ensure that they will be protected by the courts and what can we do to prevent prowling agents who look to represent or manage the finances of the elderly?

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: We wrote a short story about the importance that estate and guardianship lawyers put on advance directives. Whether you are elderly or not, lawyers advise that you think about how you want your health care and financial decisions made, and who you trust to make them. You can actually name a guardian for yourself, if you should ever become incapacitated. Then, you can execute legal documents to make your choices clear. Again, some area social workers and attorneys complain that you have to sometimes be forceful in convincing local institutions to respect these documents. As we reported in the case of Mollie Orshansky and others, the D.C. court has sometimes overruled the choices that people made earlier.

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Olney, MD: I hope you can take my question this late in the session, as I think it is the key to changing the current system:

How can we hold the DC Superior Court and its judges responsible for not following the law when it comes to the preferred order of guardians and assigning guardians who have been taken off the list? How are they appointed and to whom would they have to answer?

Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: That's a great question. The judges have complete discretion to appoint whomever they feel is appropriate. They say they appoint attorneys they trust, especially for complex cases, and believe have some expertise in the case before them.
In the past, this list has been informal and for the convenience of the judges. But now, Chief Judge King has said he is moving towards a more rigorous and formal apointment system that would hold attorneys to certain standards.

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Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen: Thanks for all your questions. We were really saddened by some of the cases we came upon in our investigation but we want to thank all the family members who shared their stories with us.

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