Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Non-investing personal finance issues including insurance, credit, real estate, taxes, employment and legal issues such as trusts and wills.
Mudpuppy
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by Mudpuppy »

BeneIRA, I'm not sure why you're talking about suing. I think the consensus was to report this to the appropriate authorities, which would be the elder and disabled adult services in the OP's mother's area. The divorce case will be enough lawyers involved, but the state needs to know what the BIL did as well.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by AndrewXnn »

phatkev;

This is a very sad situation for your Sister, Mother, nieces and nephews as well as for yourself to deal with. My condolences. However, what is also troubling is that your BIL works as a Financial Advisor. He has clearly proven himself to be both a liar and thief and can not be trusted. That this behavior has also gone on for an extended period of time is indicative of some type of personality disorder. As much as I'd like to suggest that you forgive him and just move on, there is also a serious risk that this behavior will continue and that he will actively seek out other victims. His clients need some protection and you are in position to help them too.

At a minimum, his employer should be notified of how he treated your mother finances. Also, does he have any type of financial license? If so, then they should also be notified as well. He should not be handling other people's finances and needs to find honest work as he has committed more than one felony.

Sadly, these types of criminals are difficult to prosecute and can ruin many peoples lives. Allowing him to continue working as a Financial advisor is very wrong. He needs to be stopped! :(
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maria00200
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by maria00200 »

You should immediately, like today, remove your BIL from being financial power of attorney. Then file charges against him for fraud. Best of luck.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by Saving$ »

Your posts states you are "in the process of reporting everything." I hope this includes reporting him to his employer, so he cannot do this to others. Do NOT assume his employer has enough checks and balances in place to prevent this. Reporting him is also vital to get this information to show up in a background check on him; otherwise he may, unbeknownst to you, ingratiate himself with others, using his status as a financial advisor as leverage, and clean out some other unwitting person (neighbor, someone with no relatives, church member, etc.).

There have been many comments about not pursuing him for reimbursement of what he stole. I did not see mentioned that as a financial advisor, he or his firm may have insurance. If so, and if it would improve your mothers situation, you may wish to pursue reimbursement from the policy insuring him. Based on what you posted it should be no problem to prove fraud and theft.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by cheese_breath »

Saving$ wrote:... There have been many comments about not pursuing him for reimbursement of what he stole. I did not see mentioned that as a financial advisor, he or his firm may have insurance....
If I understand all the previous posts he wasn't acting as a representative of his firm, so that insurance may not apply. Even if he has insurance of his own I doubt it would cover criminal actions when he's not acting in an official capacity. But I agree it would certainly wouldn't hurt to investigate it.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by TIAX »

BeneIRA wrote: The moral of the story, as hard as it is, I would let it go. There is nothing to gain by suing him. Sure, he deserves to be jailed, but really what he did was he saw an out for his financial situation by stealing from your mother. The money is gone and it isn't coming back. You are going to have your plate full. Best of luck to you.
Won't the criminal court order restitution?
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by BeneIRA »

Mudpuppy wrote:BeneIRA, I'm not sure why you're talking about suing. I think the consensus was to report this to the appropriate authorities, which would be the elder and disabled adult services in the OP's mother's area. The divorce case will be enough lawyers involved, but the state needs to know what the BIL did as well.
That's a little murkier, but I am not sure how much it would matter at this point. I would leave it up to the OP's sister, but I could go either way on that.
TIAX wrote:
BeneIRA wrote: The moral of the story, as hard as it is, I would let it go. There is nothing to gain by suing him. Sure, he deserves to be jailed, but really what he did was he saw an out for his financial situation by stealing from your mother. The money is gone and it isn't coming back. You are going to have your plate full. Best of luck to you.
Won't the criminal court order restitution?
The BIL is broke with a negative net worth. Having watched enough American Greed, a court ordering someone to pay restitution doesn't mean very much when they are bankrupt.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by aristotelian »

Setting aside the criminal aspect, your brother in law should be reporting to the Court that approved him to be guardian of an incompetent. He is supposed to report every expense to make sure it was spent on your mother. Call your county probate court immediately and find out what the process is for reporting it. (Most of the cases these days are public record and all the documents are posted online). The judge is not going to be happy.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by cheese_breath »

aristotelian wrote:Setting aside the criminal aspect, your brother in law should be reporting to the Court that approved him to be guardian of an incompetent. He is supposed to report every expense to make sure it was spent on your mother. Call your county probate court immediately and find out what the process is for reporting it. (Most of the cases these days are public record and all the documents are posted online). The judge is not going to be happy.
I don't recall seeing any mention of him being Mom's guardian, just having POA. And I don't know about OP's state but in mine I could just print some forms off the Internet, have my wife sign them with a couple witnesses, and I would have her POA. Period. No court involvement.
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aristotelian
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by aristotelian »

cheese_breath wrote: I don't recall seeing any mention of him being Mom's guardian, just having POA. And I don't know about OP's state but in mine I could just print some forms off the Internet, have my wife sign them with a couple witnesses, and I would have her POA. Period. No court involvement.
Sorry to confuse, I am sure you are correct. If she appointed him when she was of sound mind, then she would not need a guardian.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by cheese_breath »

aristotelian wrote:
cheese_breath wrote: I don't recall seeing any mention of him being Mom's guardian, just having POA. And I don't know about OP's state but in mine I could just print some forms off the Internet, have my wife sign them with a couple witnesses, and I would have her POA. Period. No court involvement.
Sorry to confuse, I am sure you are correct. If she appointed him when she was of sound mind, then she would not need a guardian.
In MI she'd need a guardian for her physical care and a conservator for her financial affairs. Both are appointed and monitored by the court. And you're right about the financial reporting. It's just the conservator that does it.
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Minot
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by Minot »

OP is the conservator; see his/her post at 8:21 on 3/12/2017.
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cheese_breath
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by cheese_breath »

Minot wrote:OP is the conservator; see his/her post at 8:21 on 3/12/2017.
He is now, but he wasn't when this started.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by denovo »

phatkev wrote:

I am in the process of reporting everything, but it is quite a long ordeal. This has been like a second full time job for me but luckily I'm making headway on everything. Thanks for the feedback.
Any update?
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by phatkev »

denovo wrote:
Any update?
Funny you should mention, but there has been a lot of updates. Also, now I am seeking out some very boglehead.org forum-specific advice.

For the past few months, I've been working on discovering how to make sure my mother's state aid was reinstated, and that I knew of the extent of her financial problems. I've also discovered a lot of ways to help offset some of her costs, and sought out help from various free agencies.

The judge gave my BIL 60 days to provide a financial accounting of all transactions from 2009. That date came and went and the BIL did not provide it.
We had a hearing scheduled to discuss the financial accounting set for earlier this month, and my BIL did not show up to court. While I was in court, I showed the judge the over $50K of suspicious charges, fees, etc made by my BIL. I told the judge that I needed to know whether or not the expenses were for legitimate purchases before I filed police reports saying the large cash advances were fraudulent. During that hearing, the judge filed for a contempt of court hearing, and arranged to have my BIL personally served with the summons to appear in court.

I'm betting that if the BIL ignores it, he will be arrested. I'm still awaiting the hearing date for that.

But here's where the situation gets tricky. I've been spending countless hours dealing with the various agencies to continue state aid on the assumption that my mother has no money. This had been set up for over a year by my BIL and I renewed it based on this information. While researching the transactions made by my BIL, I noticed that he had cleared out her Fidelity IRA a few years ago. I called to get more information on it (i.e. who made the transactions, where they went, etc). They had a hard time finding that account because it was purged since it was emptied 4 years ago. However, they mentioned to me that she had another account: a 403b from her previous employer. This account has over $245k in it, and has never been touched. I also found out that she had a Janus investment fund of around $5k.

Normally I would be thrilled to find out that she has additional money. However, we have been getting state assistance and now I think we will need to go off state assistance and spend this money down. That's going to be an incredibly difficult process to reapply and go through this all over again, though hopefully it would be easier now that we are in the system. I've spoken with my lawyer who said that we will probably need to do this. He suggested that I wait until we have this hearing with my BIL to get his explanation as to why he didn't spend this money before applying for state assistance. I'm sure he just didn't know about it, but why didn't he? It wasn't that hard for me to find and he already cleared out her IRA from the same broker.

What I would like to know from you is how should I best invest this money? What asset allocation would you suggest? It is 85% stocks 15% bonds, which we need to change. I am awaiting the statement from Janus, but I think it's all in the Janus 40 fund.
Here's a link to the investment options for Fidelity:
https://401k.fidelity.com/static/dcl/sh ... POOLED.pdf

I'm going to wait until the hearing with my BIL before I do anything, because as of this point, I would just be speculating on her finances. If we have the hearing and he denies everything, it's going to be very hard for him to prove that he did NOT commit fraud. There are soooooo many cash transactions over the years and I know that he will not have the receipts to show where everything went. I'm doing everything by the book and consulting with my lawyers on my actions, basing my decisions on the best possible information I have at the time, and always trying to do the right thing (and backing it all up with meticulous records). Also, the judge really likes me and doesn't like the fact that my BIL blew him off twice.

Thanks for the advice.
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ResearchMed
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by ResearchMed »

Glad you have made so much progress, but it must have been *tedious* (and stressful!).

About the newly found money... My guess is that the first thing, with respect to the "aid" she's received, is that the aid will need to be paid back.
Given the court case documentation, there shouldn't be any penalties, although I wouldn't be surprised at interest (which is likely to be *much* less than commercial loan type interest that we usually hear about).

You might try to get her "approvals" changed to some sort of suspended status until she's spent down and she could reinstate or such, rather then cancelling and needing to re-apply.

Good luck again!

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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by CAsage »

Invest the money conservatively, as though it was cash needed short term. Possibly an intermediate or short term bond fund, or just savings. It sounds like it will be spent down on your MIL over the next very few years... match the balance and budget to your expense window. If you think it's more than a few years' need, a 2015 Target retirement fund maybe?
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by dbr »

1. I agree the money should just be held as "cash" rather than attempting to invest at risk for return.

2. I suspect a previous suggestion that this just suspends the approval of assistance could be correct. I am engaged in some similar processes even as we speak -- but not involving nefarious activities or gross oversights, just standard procedure.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by gr7070 »

Been following the thread. Good for you for taking on this for your mother/family. I'm sure it's been a difficult ordeal for you and the rest of your family.

Most allocations for individuals should have a stock component. I don't think your mom differs in that regard, in general So I'd consider 30/70. I doubt I'd want higher than that and may opt for as low as, say, 20/80.

If the government will end up taking all of that in arrears or will soon have all of it the argument could be made to go ultra conservative to avoid any pitfalls that may exist in the systems legalities. Conversations with the layers would be needed to determine if going ultra conservative is potentially less harmful for you mother or more harmful (risk losing market returns).

Judges don't like getting the middle finger. For every party involved I hope he starts cooperating with the courts. Good luck to you and the family.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by F150HD »

please post updates as they occur! I had forgotten about this thread but it popped up again today.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by Sandi_k »

OP, thanks for the update, this has been a really sad (yet heartening!) thread. I am sad for your sister and MIL, and heartened by your obvious devotion to doing the right thing.

What concerns me in your most recent update - he cleaned out a Fidelity IRA, and now there's $250k he didn't touch. I suspect he didn't KNOW about it, or those accounts would be gone too. If he does find out about them, are you absolutely sure he couldn't Social Engineer additional liquidations and withdrawals, *especially* if he has old POA paperwork? I'd be so concerned about this, I'd consider a trustee-to-trustee transfer to a different institution altogether....
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by setancre »

phatkev wrote:
denovo wrote:
Any update?
Funny you should mention, but there has been a lot of updates. Also, now I am seeking out some very boglehead.org forum-specific advice.

For the past few months, I've been working on discovering how to make sure my mother's state aid was reinstated, and that I knew of the extent of her financial problems. I've also discovered a lot of ways to help offset some of her costs, and sought out help from various free agencies.

The judge gave my BIL 60 days to provide a financial accounting of all transactions from 2009. That date came and went and the BIL did not provide it.
We had a hearing scheduled to discuss the financial accounting set for earlier this month, and my BIL did not show up to court. While I was in court, I showed the judge the over $50K of suspicious charges, fees, etc made by my BIL. I told the judge that I needed to know whether or not the expenses were for legitimate purchases before I filed police reports saying the large cash advances were fraudulent. During that hearing, the judge filed for a contempt of court hearing, and arranged to have my BIL personally served with the summons to appear in court.

I'm betting that if the BIL ignores it, he will be arrested. I'm still awaiting the hearing date for that.

But here's where the situation gets tricky. I've been spending countless hours dealing with the various agencies to continue state aid on the assumption that my mother has no money. This had been set up for over a year by my BIL and I renewed it based on this information. While researching the transactions made by my BIL, I noticed that he had cleared out her Fidelity IRA a few years ago. I called to get more information on it (i.e. who made the transactions, where they went, etc). They had a hard time finding that account because it was purged since it was emptied 4 years ago. However, they mentioned to me that she had another account: a 403b from her previous employer. This account has over $245k in it, and has never been touched. I also found out that she had a Janus investment fund of around $5k.

Normally I would be thrilled to find out that she has additional money. However, we have been getting state assistance and now I think we will need to go off state assistance and spend this money down. That's going to be an incredibly difficult process to reapply and go through this all over again, though hopefully it would be easier now that we are in the system. I've spoken with my lawyer who said that we will probably need to do this. He suggested that I wait until we have this hearing with my BIL to get his explanation as to why he didn't spend this money before applying for state assistance. I'm sure he just didn't know about it, but why didn't he? It wasn't that hard for me to find and he already cleared out her IRA from the same broker.

What I would like to know from you is how should I best invest this money? What asset allocation would you suggest? It is 85% stocks 15% bonds, which we need to change. I am awaiting the statement from Janus, but I think it's all in the Janus 40 fund.
Here's a link to the investment options for Fidelity:
https://401k.fidelity.com/static/dcl/sh ... POOLED.pdf

I'm going to wait until the hearing with my BIL before I do anything, because as of this point, I would just be speculating on her finances. If we have the hearing and he denies everything, it's going to be very hard for him to prove that he did NOT commit fraud. There are soooooo many cash transactions over the years and I know that he will not have the receipts to show where everything went. I'm doing everything by the book and consulting with my lawyers on my actions, basing my decisions on the best possible information I have at the time, and always trying to do the right thing (and backing it all up with meticulous records). Also, the judge really likes me and doesn't like the fact that my BIL blew him off twice.

Thanks for the advice.
I read through this thread in full, and am so sorry to hear about your family's situation. With respect to the new 403(b) you found, I would not concern yourself with changing the current asset allocation. Your family will likely never benefit from this money as it probably (1) owed to the state, (2) owed to creditors, or (3) will just be used to pay down your mother's assets again for Medicaid. I would not want my fingers on any transactions in her accounts until the all of legal matters with your BIL are fully resolved.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by denovo »

phatkev wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2016 10:34 pm My family is going through an unfortunate situation that is continuing to unfold, and I suspect that the bogleheads could offer some words of wisdom.

Any updates
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by phatkev »

I thought I would post a reply with an update. I’ve been quiet because not that much has happened. My sister finally divorced my now ex-BIL and we had a contempt of court hearing because he ignored 3 requests by the judge for a financial accounting. He finally showed up after being hand served a summons and claimed that he didn’t receive the notices, though his mail was being forwarded to him.

At the hearing he claimed that he couldn’t provide an accounting until he had access to the documents which I had in my possession. The court set a date of 6 weeks for him to get the docs and review them. I scanned and organized all the documents and gave them to him. They court date was set but he asked for a continuance for a “medical procedure” and it was granted. We are having the next hearing next week.

During this time of waiting we discovered 250k in a 403b and subsequently had to go off Medicaid. We are waiting for that to go through.

I’m just waiting to see what explanation he has for all the financial indiscretions he made. ALso I’m not sure what the next step would be after the hearing where I am sure he can’t explain everything adequately. Over the course of 6 months I’ve spoken with at least 21 different lawyers on this subject. I’m amazed at how many there are! I’m sure I’ll be able to get some advice from some of them. Most of the have been free advice from friends and family lawyers which have been great. I’ll keep you updated.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by denovo »

Any more updates?
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by phatkev »

Quick update:
If you can believe it, it's been more than a full year since I discovered the financial indiscretions, to put it mildly, of my BIL and we still have no resolution.

As you might have suspected, he continued to drag his feet, avoiding the court summons until he was held in contempt of court and hand delivered a summons. They even charged me for the marshal to deliver the summons to him, and the court denied my request to have the BIL pay for it.

The judge continues to give continuance after continence, and we are still awaiting the next hearing for when his new "deadline" comes up.

In the meantime, my mother moved into a nursing home and my sister and I are no longer speak. It's a long story but to put it mildly, this whole thing has really been very difficult on our family.

I'm hoping to get some resolution soon because I'm very sick of going to probate court. [Darn it --admin LadyGeek] Jim, I'm a doctor, not a probate attorney!

I'll keep you updated as things come up.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by totallystudly »

This is fairly simple, from a purely financial/legal standpoint, but not easy. If the brother opened accounts in other people's name, that is fraud pure and simple, as in illegal, go to jail fraud.

If you report him to the police, he is almost certainly going to jail and there may be multiple other felonies such as wire or mail fraud and white collar crime type stuff that may draw the attention of the FBI/us atty especially for those types of amounts.

The upside is the wife is 100% insulated from personal liability for fraudulent acts, but she has to report it. All creditors are going to ask for police reports in this situation.

It may be a tough decision or it may not be depending on the relationship/divorce. If there is bad blood between them, no tears will be shed as he is carted off to jail and reclaims her financial affairs.

Anyone talking about familial ties and loyalty to the BIL should remember that fraudulently opening accounts in your name isn't a very friendly/helpful thing to do and shows the victim no individual loyalty. I wouldn't hesitate to report him.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by denovo »

phatkev wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:59 pm
In the meantime, my mother moved into a nursing home and my sister and I are no longer speak. It's a long story but to put it mildly, this whole thing has really been very difficult on our family.

No good deed goes unpunished :twisted:
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by Finridge »

phatkev wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:59 pm Quick update:
If you can believe it, it's been more than a full year since I discovered the financial indiscretions, to put it mildly, of my BIL and we still have no resolution.

As you might have suspected, he continued to drag his feet, avoiding the court summons until he was held in contempt of court and hand delivered a summons. They even charged me for the marshal to deliver the summons to him, and the court denied my request to have the BIL pay for it.

The judge continues to give continuance after continence, and we are still awaiting the next hearing for when his new "deadline" comes up.

In the meantime, my mother moved into a nursing home and my sister and I are no longer speak. It's a long story but to put it mildly, this whole thing has really been very difficult on our family.

I'm hoping to get some resolution soon because I'm very sick of going to probate court. [Darn it --admin LadyGeek] Jim, I'm a doctor, not a probate attorney!

I'll keep you updated as things come up.
So you still have not reported him to the police?
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by Chip »

phatkev wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:59 pm Quick update:
If you can believe it, it's been more than a full year since I discovered the financial indiscretions, to put it mildly, of my BIL and we still have no resolution.
Thanks for the update. I'm really sorry you are having to go through this and clean up this mess at such a high personal cost.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by phatkev »

Thanks for the responses everyone. The funniest thing is the amount of responses I got to my Star Trek quote.

I was trying to lighten the mood a bit with my Star Trek quote after unloading this depressing situation.

So my apologies to anyone I offended with my language. I apparently violated the forum etiquette policy and got reprimanded by the lady geek. Sorry :oops:

Also I appreciate the concern for privacy with my star trek quote. I thought everyone would get that I was not really taking to someone named Jim and I’m not really a doctor.

That’s what I get for trying to be funny.

I agree with the comments about my BIL stealing and with the advice of the multiple lawyers I’ve spoken with who know the entire details of the case, they’ve advised me to let the probate court saga play out first before we escalate this to a criminal court. It’s incredibly frustrating but I don’t want to go against the legal advice I’ve been getting not what the judge is suggesting.

I’m sure that there will be more to report on in the future and I’ll keep you updated.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by spammagnet »

phatkev wrote: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:33 pmAlso I appreciate the concern for privacy with my star trek quote. I thought everyone would get that I was not really taking to someone named Jim and I’m not really a doctor.

That’s what I get for trying to be funny.
Perhaps if you had used quotes and attributed it to Bones, it might have survived.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by Mudpuppy »

spammagnet wrote: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:53 pm
phatkev wrote: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:33 pmAlso I appreciate the concern for privacy with my star trek quote. I thought everyone would get that I was not really taking to someone named Jim and I’m not really a doctor.

That’s what I get for trying to be funny.
Perhaps if you had used quotes and attributed it to Bones, it might have survived.
I instantly got the Star Trek quote because "<word against the forum rules> Jim, I'm a doctor, not a <insert profession here>" is a pretty recognizable Bones meme for anyone who has seen Star Trek. The later Star Trek series also paid homage to the meme with a lot of "I'm a doctor, not a <profession>" sort of lines. In fact, the phrase has its own KnowYourMeme.com page, but it has the forbidden word in the URL, so I can't really paste it here. I can however link to TVTropes page on the phrase (and apologies in advance if anyone gets trapped in the TVTropes black hole): http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... laceholder

Edit: I should add that like several other famous memes that weren't actually found in their source material (such as "Play it again Sam"), the above phrase was not actually said with the forbidden word in the original series.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by Simple Simon »

phatkev wrote: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:33 pmI’m not really a doctor.
In this thread's opening post you said you were a physician. Maybe you have retired since?
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by TwstdSista »

Did people really not get the Star Trek reference? Inconceivable!
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by FedGuy »

TwstdSista wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:56 am Did people really not get the Star Trek reference? Inconceivable!
Yeah, I mean...am I really that old? I thought this was something everyone would recognize.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by mouses »

OP, I'm sorry that this is dragging out so long. I have not read the volume of posts since the first page, so I am not up to date about the situation with your Mom, sister, her kids, etc.

But my fortunately limited experience with people of this type is that they delay as much as possible, promise repeatedly things they do not do, etc. I would not be surprised if this takes another two years to sort out. It's too bad the judge is tolerating this.

You don't have to do this of course, but could you summarize for us late arrivals the current financial situation of the parties involved? For example, is your sister wiped out financially, or was she able to insulate herself from his actions? Has her business survived? Did the BIL manage to get access to other family members accounts or credit? Has he been fired as a financial adviser? Was there fraud with his clients' accounts? Have any assets of his been located and frozen? What the heck was he doing with the money?
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by tbone1 »

phatkev wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2016 10:34 pm My family is going through an unfortunate situation that is continuing to unfold, and I suspect that the bogleheads could offer some words of wisdom.

This is a bit of a story, so please bear with me. My sister discovered a few weeks ago that her husband of 18 years (soon to be ex) has been raking up tremendous debt in both of their names. He has maxed out several credit cards to almost $300K and has borrowed $60K from my sister's very successful business that she owns. He owes almost $50K in back taxes and there is a lien against their house. For years, he had been the one who controlled all the finances of their home and her business, which was their larger source of income. She trusted him because for years, he handled the billing of her company, their household expenses, and investing because his job is a financial adviser. Everything had been fine up until 4 weeks ago when she started discovering these bills.

She is having a tough time, but working through it with her lawyers and slowly discovering all the things he has done. It's a horrible situation and is going to be a horrible divorce. They have 4 wonderful kids together and it's incredibly sad.

While this situation alone would be bad enough, I'm not looking for advice right now for my sister.

I'm more concerned about my mother. She is a wonderful woman who had as series of unfortunate and sad things happen to her. She had a brain tumor and a subsequent severe brain injury, leaving her in a very debilitated state. After years of rehab, she is finally in a stable living and medical situation, living in a retirement community with a 24 hour aid, which is being paid for by the state. Shortly before her initial surgery, we made me her medical POA (I'm a physician), and my aforementioned brother-in-law her financial POA. Now you can probably see the problem.

My brother-in-law assured me that my mother's money has not been touched and he was willing to hand over the financial POA material. He has been dodging me to get this done and has been hard to reach. Today, I discovered that he had opened up 2 credit cards in my mother's name and maxed both of them out to over $45K and her credit score is 522. He had not paid one credit card in over a year. For years, I had been telling my brother-in-law that I wanted to see her finances, know the investing strategy, and be made a co-financial POA. He kept dodging me, but I never really had any issues so I never pursued it. This was completely out of the blue.

I'm letting my sister handle her divorce issues, but I'm taking responsibility to make sure that my mother is protected. However, I don't know what to do now. I'm really scared for my mom, and I'm afraid that he has ruined her financially. My father had been paying alimony checks to her for the past 10 years, but had been giving them to my brother-in-law.

What do you think I should do to secure her money? How should I go about having me be the financial POA? How can I get more information about these credit cards? Can I call the companies to try to get access to her accounts? How can I get access to her bank accounts? What should I do?

I looked into getting an involuntary conservatorship for my mother, which sounds like it would be a big hassle and very expensive. There are many illegal things my brother-in-law has done so far, including forging my sister's signature on loan applications and tax returns, and I think he spent my mom's alimony checks that were given to her.

I would appreciate any advice you can offer for me with regards to my mother's financial situation. This has been hell and I'm really panicking.

Thank you for the advice.
I was wondering if you could provide information regarding how you were able to get 24-hour care for your mother, provided by the state. I'm trying to be proactive for a situation that I might be in (very similar to your situation).
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by tbone1 »

the more I read about this, it's like a movie. but here is what I can tell you: if you've reported him to the police (or if you haven't), he will eventually be prosecuted and found guilty -- or he'll get a plea deal. he'll serve time in prison. during that time period, you and your family will get $0 from him. once he is released, he will be ordered to repay all the stolen money. but, it will be something, restitution-wise of perhaps $30 or $50/month. hardly enough to make a dent. for this reason only, I would see if there is a way you can come to some type of resolution where you are paid SOMETHING more substantial. and by substantial, I mean perhaps $100/month. look at it this way: if he isn't behind bars, he could hypothetically work at walmart and you could garnish his wages. in prison, he'll get about $2/day. then, the court will demand he repay his court fees FIRST, before you get a dime. I guess what I'm getting at here is: just get the possibilities up front. I wish you a lot of luck as this goes forward!
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by F150HD »

totallystudly wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2018 11:04 pm This is fairly simple, from a purely financial/legal standpoint, but not easy.
It clearly isn't that simple! :happy read back thru 5 pages of posts!
phatkev wrote: Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:59 pm Quick update:
If you can believe it, it's been more than a full year since I discovered the financial indiscretions, to put it mildly, of my BIL and we still have no resolution.
I recall reading this thread last year and it made me angry, guessing most felt that way. Yes, please keep us posted, maybe by a secure subspace message. :happy

You may want to copy the URL of your update and put it at the bottom of your very first post.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by Nate79 »

Has his employer been notified yet? It would be extremely bad if he is also doing this to his clients, especially if he is still stealing clients money. If there are other cases against this crook this is going to get complicated quickly and could negate any of this action.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by Mudpuppy »

TwstdSista wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:56 am Did people really not get the Star Trek reference? Inconceivable!
Is this a test to see how many get the Princess Bride reference?
phatkev wrote: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:33 pm I agree with the comments about my BIL stealing and with the advice of the multiple lawyers I’ve spoken with who know the entire details of the case, they’ve advised me to let the probate court saga play out first before we escalate this to a criminal court. It’s incredibly frustrating but I don’t want to go against the legal advice I’ve been getting not what the judge is suggesting.
Have those lawyers also advised you of the statute of limitations with regards to such crimes? The way your BIL is dragging out the probate proceedings, exiting the statute of limitations period becomes a more pressing concern with each passing month.
Nate79 wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2018 10:34 am Has his employer been notified yet? It would be extremely bad if he is also doing this to his clients, especially if he is still stealing clients money. If there are other cases against this crook this is going to get complicated quickly and could negate any of this action.
A lawyer in California was recently disbarred for embezzling a million dollars from a single client. However, I can't recall what financial certifications the OP's BIL has, so there may or may not be a professional group with which to register a compliant. And reporting the current proceedings to the employer directly may not be wise until the case is finalized. The OP's BIL seems like the sort who would potentially try to sue the OP for slander / libel if the OP reported the case to the BIL's employer.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by BeachGlass »

The OP could also have simply mis-typed. Back in 2013 he gave a thoughtful response detailing his medical training in a thread discussing medical schools. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=111896&start=100
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by LadyGeek »

I removed several posts which were continuing to bring up the Star Trek reference. The discussion was getting derailed.

Please stay on-topic.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by phatkev »

tbone1 wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2018 7:29 am
I was wondering if you could provide information regarding how you were able to get 24-hour care for your mother, provided by the state. I'm trying to be proactive for a situation that I might be in (very similar to your situation).
Tbone1, I’m sorry that you are needing to go through a similar situation like mine. We were able to get 24 hr aid coverage through a Medicaid program offered in CT called the elderly home care waiver program. You have to go through the typical qualifications for Medicaid including spending down all of the assets with a 5 year look back. I don’t know if other states offer this specific program as well. The idea is to try to promote living outside a nursing home for as long as possible since paying for a home care aid is less than paying for a nursing home.

It’s a long and difficult application process that my BIL set up and got approved, however he didn’t do it correctly (no surprise there). There are agencies out there to help with the Medicaid application process that are expensive but they get everything done quickly and accurately, and do not count towards the 5 year look back. It’s such a racket they have.

Good luck with the process and PM if you have other questions.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by dbr »

phatkev wrote: Tue Feb 13, 2018 11:00 pm
tbone1 wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2018 7:29 am
I was wondering if you could provide information regarding how you were able to get 24-hour care for your mother, provided by the state. I'm trying to be proactive for a situation that I might be in (very similar to your situation).
Tbone1, I’m sorry that you are needing to go through a similar situation like mine. We were able to get 24 hr aid coverage through a Medicaid program offered in CT called the elderly home care waiver program. You have to go through the typical qualifications for Medicaid including spending down all of the assets with a 5 year look back. I don’t know if other states offer this specific program as well. The idea is to try to promote living outside a nursing home for as long as possible since paying for a home care aid is less than paying for a nursing home.

It’s a long and difficult application process that my BIL set up and got approved, however he didn’t do it correctly (no surprise there). There are agencies out there to help with the Medicaid application process that are expensive but they get everything done quickly and accurately, and do not count towards the 5 year look back. It’s such a racket they have.

Good luck with the process and PM if you have other questions.
Medical assistance programs through states administering Medicaid are present in most (all?) states in some form. A good starting point is your local County Human Services Department or whatever name it goes by. The application process is onerous. You can Google Medical Assistance, Elderly Waiver, etc. for your state. An example of the kind of thing you might find for a random state is illustrated here: https://dhs.iowa.gov/ime/members/medica ... bs/waivers
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by tbone1 »

thank you. this is a great first step for me.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by denovo »

phatkev wrote: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:33 pm Thanks for the responses everyone. The funniest thing is the amount of responses I got to my Star Trek quote.

I was trying to lighten the mood a bit with my Star Trek quote after unloading this depressing situation.

So my apologies to anyone I offended with my language. I apparently violated the forum etiquette policy and got reprimanded by the lady geek. Sorry :oops:

Also I appreciate the concern for privacy with my star trek quote. I thought everyone would get that I was not really taking to someone named Jim and I’m not really a doctor.

That’s what I get for trying to be funny.

I agree with the comments about my BIL stealing and with the advice of the multiple lawyers I’ve spoken with who know the entire details of the case, they’ve advised me to let the probate court saga play out first before we escalate this to a criminal court. It’s incredibly frustrating but I don’t want to go against the legal advice I’ve been getting not what the judge is suggesting.

I’m sure that there will be more to report on in the future and I’ll keep you updated.
Any further updates OP?
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by phatkev »

denovo wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 3:14 am Any further updates OP?
Believe it or not, we are still in the courts trying to get a full accounting. The BIL is stalling, judge is getting inpatient, I'm at my wits end. Lots of drama ensued throughout the family over the course of this.

On top of all of this financial problems, my mother passed away a few months ago which has been difficult on all of us. She's in a much better place now, as she was suffering for the past 8 years. Now I'm dealing with trying to settle her estate which is difficult to do with all these outstanding financial questions. I'm sure that there will be lots more to come.

Thanks for checking in. I'll keep you updated.
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Re: Surprise financial disaster, severe debt $300K caused by brother-in-law - Please help!

Post by denovo »

phatkev wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 8:05 pm
denovo wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 3:14 am Any further updates OP?
Believe it or not, we are still in the courts trying to get a full accounting. The BIL is stalling, judge is getting inpatient, I'm at my wits end. Lots of drama ensued throughout the family over the course of this.

On top of all of this financial problems, my mother passed away a few months ago which has been difficult on all of us. She's in a much better place now, as she was suffering for the past 8 years. Now I'm dealing with trying to settle her estate which is difficult to do with all these outstanding financial questions. I'm sure that there will be lots more to come.

Thanks for checking in. I'll keep you updated.
I am sorry to hear this is still ongoing. My condolences in regards to your mother. Hopefully the relationship with your sister can be remedied.
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