Viola Stroud of CRC (The Journal News, September 26, 2004)
Posted By:
nafcjcal1
Thu Oct 5, 2006 1:12 am |
For those of you who have read the recent article in Newsweek, which described use of PAS in Genia Shockome’s case http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14870310/site/newsweek/%5B%5Bbroken link], here is an article from 2004 about the Children’s Rights Council affiliated “supervisor” — who served to prevent Genia from protecting her children — Viola Stroud, who was recently convicted for grand larceny theft: Click here: Mahopac Woman Convicted of Grand Larceny*
Please note that the link to this article has been removed from the Internet, but luckily a friend just forwarded this back to me (I had copied it in its’ entirety in the original email in 2004):
By BRUCE GOLDING AND TERRY CORCORAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: September 26, 2004)
CARMEL —
A Putnam County court insider who was entrusted with the finances of three aging and incapacitated women wrote tens of thousands of dollars in checks to herself, to “cash” and to an unregistered charity she heads, legal records show. Viola Stroud of Mahopac received judicial appointments to oversee the women’s assets even though she failed from the start to account for their money and property as required by law, the records show. And while two of the women have since died in nursing homes, the third, 64-year-old Doris Pope, lost her lakefront home and now lives in a cluttered apartment on a hill overlooking a gas station while battling in court for a full accounting of how her money was spent.
{{INTERESTING, THIS PUTNAM COUNTY INSIDER ALSO WANTED TO HELP CHILDREN VISIT THEIR NONCUSTODIAL PARENTS..}}
Court records show that some of Pope’s money went to Little Angels Supervised Visitation, a not-for-profit organization that Stroud created to provide court-ordered services in child-custody disputes. Although incorporated five years ago [[=CA. 1999]], Little Angels has never complied with state reporting requirements for charities. “I am so disgusted with the justice system … I just don’t believe what’s going on,” said Pope, a former attorney and Putnam’s first female prosecutor before a 1987 car crash left her brain-damaged and nearly blind. In a separate case, Stroud is accused of failing to account for the estate of former Carmel Town Historian Dorothy Jewell five years after her death. Court papers say the estate was worth $195,000, of which only $11,000 remains. A related lawsuit, since settled, accused Stroud of fraudulently renting out and striking deals to sell Jewell’s house after her death, and of selling off Jewell’s antique furniture, some of which had been willed to the Carmel Historical Society. Stroud, 60, declined to answer questions when The Journal New visited the Little Angels offices in Mahopac recently. Stroud said she was eager to be interviewed, but needed permission from her lawyer. “I have nothing to hide. I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said. But her attorney, Ronald Levine of Poughkeepsie, said that neither he nor Stroud would discuss the allegations. When asked why, Levine said: “No comment.” In an affidavit filed earlier this year, however, Stroud acknowledged errors in her accounting of Pope’s assets. “I am not an attorney at law. … I have no expertise in bookkeeping. I am not an accountant,” she wrote.
{{AS A BLOGGER WHO LOOKS AT THIS, A LOT, I HAVE TO SAY THAT MANY CORPORATIONS DO EXACTLY THIS — REGISTER AS CORPORATIONS, BUT NOT WITH THE STATE AS CHARITIES, EVEN THOUGH SOME EVENTUALLY DO REGISTER WITH THE IRS — JUST NOT THE STATE. THEREFORE PEOPLE SHOULD MAKE A ROUTINE HABIT OF DEMANDING TO KNOW WHO’S CONTRACTING WITH THEIR COURTS (OR COUNTIES) AND SEEING THEIR CORPORATION AND/OR NONPROFIT STATUS IF THEY CLAIM TO BE A NONPROFIT ON THEIR MATERIALS…BARRY GOLDSTEIN SHOULD’VE DONE THIS UPFRONT FOR THE SHOCKOME CASE. WE SHOULD ASK WHY HE DIDN’T….}}
One-day training Stroud received her appointments under Article 81 of the state Mental Hygiene Law, which lets court-appointed guardians take over the finances of people incapacitated by mental disability or other illness. In most cases, the guardians are attorneys, said Thomas Kilfoyle, counsel to the state judge who oversees such appointments. Otherwise, the appointees are usually relatives or friends of those in need, he said.
Court papers show Stroud won the appointments after attending a one-day training session in 1993. In 1996, then-Putnam County Judge and acting state Supreme Court Justice William Braatz named her Jewell’s guardian and awarded her $650 for earlier work as a court evaluator in the case. Jewell, 80, was suffering from dementia. She had never married, and her closest relative, a cousin, lived in Texas. The next year, Stroud signed a reverse mortgage for as much as $63,675 in advances against Jewell’s Carmel home, even though Jewell was collecting $1,155 a month from Social Security and had about $70,000 in savings when Stroud was appointed. The initial advance from the reverse mortgage, which allows homeowners 62 and older to convert their equity into spending money while keeping title to their homes, was $10,520.60, of which $5,000 was in cash, records show. On Dec. 11, 1997, Jewell moved into the Putnam Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. She died the next day of cardio-respiratory failure.
{{NOTE: there is now (I DNK if then) a “NASGA” __ National Association to Stop Guardianship Abuse.” Another investigative writer, Janet Phelan, who had to deal with a case with one of her own relatives (many of us have!!), did a series on “Probate MURDERS” and recounted how when guardians and judges get too cozy, real estate starts trading hands quickly (San Bernardino County, I think it was). As it seems to have in this case. This tells us something about the character of Ms. Stroud — and the culture of the court system there..}}
Braatz’s order had directed Stroud to file an initial report accounting for Jewell’s assets within 90 days, but in court papers, the Putnam County Department of Social Services alleged that Stroud failed to file that report and subsequent annual reports required by law. Stroud’s lawyer said in court papers filed last year that “a portion of the initial report was delivered to Judge Braatz during the first year of the guardianship” but was “apparently lost by the court.”
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