Can Damning Memo Finally Unjam Gears Of Justice In Probate Case Over Farm?

Can Damning Memo Finally Unjam Gears Of Justice In Probate Case Over Farm?


Rick Green
6:24 PM EDT, May 2, 2012

There are few more frightening glimpses of probate court gone wrong than the story told in a new memo from the chief disciplinary counsel for the state committee that investigates complaints about lawyers.

An elderly, dying woman's valuable estate is hijacked and her will violated in what seems like a nightmare that just couldn't happen. Except that it did, just a few years ago, to an old Polish woman in Southington. It could happen to you.

I've been telling you about Josephine Smoron's probate debacle for years because Sam Manzo, the caretaker who was supposed to inherit the broken-down old farm off I-84, was so audaciously pick pocketed in full view of our probate courts. I'm still writing about this because an outrageous injustice still has yet to be remedied.

The Statewide Grievance Committee, which hears complaints about the more than 35,000 lawyers in Connecticut, is still considering what action to take against John Nugent, the lawyer appointed as Smoron's conservator. Superior and probate courts, meanwhile, have yet to sort out the shell game that snatched the farm from Smoron.

Nugent, who could lose his license to practice law, is still fighting efforts to resolve the case. In his responding memo to the grievance committee, Nugent's lawyer said his client "due to the fault of no one ... did not have complete and accurate information" and was never told that Manzo stood to inherit the farm.

During one hearing, Nugent was "distracted" and "simply did not hear" when told that Manzo had an interest in the property, the lawyer, James Sullivan, writes in his brief.

"He is hard of hearing and has been for many years because of his military service,'' said Sullivan, who adds that "there is no evidence of any financial benefit to Nugent ... he simply was not paying attention." Sullivan also writes that Manzo, who had been conservator to Smoron but was removed, "had left her financial affairs in a mess."

Meanwhile, the Smoron farm remains mired in the lawsuits stemming from Nugent's ill-fated conservatorship.

Manzo, broke and still the old farm's caretaker, hasn't inherited the property Josephine Smoron long sought to give him. This probate morality tale still stinks, which tells us plenty about a probate court system that politicians and judges often say has been reformed and brought into the 21st Century.

What's amazing – and most worrisome – about this case is that despite two lawyers looking out for Smoron's interests and a judge overseeing the matter, the old lady's will was ignored in routine, shuffle-the-papers fashion. This poor old woman had a court-appointed lawyer, a court-appointed conservator, and a judge who were all supposed to be in her corner.

But don't just take my view.

Here's what Suzanne Sutton of the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel -- which is part of the Judicial Branch and which investigates grievance complaints against lawyers -- wrote about Nugent, in her April 13 memo to Statewide Grievance Committee members:

"In direct contravention of his ward's interests and wishes [Nugent] unencumbered the real estate, executed a purchase agreement, created two trusts, and named himself a trustee, listed three churches as beneficiaries and transferred his ward's assets into the trusts," Sutton writes.

"[Nugent's] misconduct has at its basis a selfish and dishonest motive to orchestrate himself into an ongoing trustee position where he could have control over the disposition of his ward's valuable assets – not to do with as he she would wish – but as he wished. His dishonesty served to manipulate the probate court system and the ward that was placed in his care."

Smoron died in June 2009. While she was dying, Nugent never even met her – though he was swiftly moving to transfer her assets into two trusts and arrange for sale of the property to a local developer.

This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen, but in a probate court system that remains independent from our civil and criminal judicial system, it unfolded with astonishing, bureaucratic ease. Sutton's memorandum to the grievance counsel reads like an indictment of probate, a court system that handles estates, adoptions and difficult questions such as whether an elderly person can remain independent.

Smoron was a "victim of the most vulnerable type," Sutton's memo states. "She could not fight for her wishes. She had trusted the court to appoint a conservator to protect her wishes and act in her best interest because she could not do so on her own."

It's too late for Josephine Smoron, but the courts can still make things right for Sam Manzo.




http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/rick-green/hc-green-southington-farm-20120502,0,7523973.column