Theft trial begins over payments to lawyer

Theft trial begins over payments to lawyer


e-mail print By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel

Dec. 12, 2011


Though she suffered from dementia and couldn't name the president or identify a stapler, Dorothy Phinney could still understand her own finances enough to know she wanted lawyer Jeffrey Elverman to help her handle them, Elverman's own attorney told a jury Monday.

Elverman, 52, a former partner at Quarles & Brady, faces charges he stole more than $370,000 from the elderly woman in 2003 and 2004 by getting her to sign checks to him. A 2009 lawsuit brought by Phinney's new guardian alleged Elverman's take was more than $600,000.

"This case is about Dorothy Phinney's ability to consent," defense counsel Daniel Drigot told jurors in an opening statement. "It's not about whether she was too generous or Mr. Elverman was too greedy."

Drigot said Phinney, 94, "had a particularly strong interest in managing her own finances," and that Elverman brought bills to her weekly to explain them and answer questions.

Drigot noted that a woman hired to help take care of Phinney on what became a daily basis earned about $200,000 for her services. Phinney has no immediate family.

That woman is expected to be a key witness for the state.

Assistant District Attorney David Feiss told jurors that Marion Whelpley kept meticulous records of her own time with Phinney, and they will show that Elverman met with Phinney, on average, for about an hour a week.

If Elverman were really providing services at $150 an hour as he claimed, Feiss said, it would have been working more than 30 hours a week for Phinney at a time when he was also putting in partner's hours at Quarles & Brady.

Feiss said a financial adviser worried in 2003 that at the rate Phinney was spending under Elverman, her entire savings - which was a healthy $735,000 in early 2003 - would be gone in three years. Phinney lived in Mequon at the time and now lives in Milwaukee.

According to the 2009 civil suit, Phinney hired Elverman in 2000 when he worked at Quarles & Brady. The large payments weren't discovered until 2008, when a judge appointed Supportive Community Services as her legal guardian.

Elverman left Quarles & Brady in 2004. A managing partner said in 2009 it was not over Phinney, though an internal investigation done when Elverman left the firm did raise concerns about his representation. Elverman declined to allow Quarles & Brady to contact Phinney about those concerns.

In 2008, Elverman's law license was suspended for nine months after he failed to report $230,000 on his state and federal income taxes, money he collected between 1999 and 2004 as a trustee for an account. The money should have been turned over to Quarles & Brady. He claimed he was unaware that his trustee fees should have gone to the firm, and said he forgot to pay taxes on the money until 2002.

Elverman, who now lists a Genoa City address, did pay the taxes before lawyer regulators contacted him, and he was not charged with state or federal tax violations.

He wasn't charged in the theft case until December 2010, after an extensive investigation by the state Department of Justice.

If convicted of theft, Elverman faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000. The trial continues Tuesday before Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Conen.

The civil suit is still pending, and Elverman remains suspended from practicing law, according the State Bar of Wisconsin website

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http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/theft-trial-begins-over-payments-to-lawyer-p73drv0-135485698.html

Editor's note: You never hear about anthropologists, archaeologists, librarians, architects stealing estates...why just lawyers? Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com