Financial exploitation case against Perry County coroner set for trial

Editor's note: Your ProbateShark wonders with all the crooks operating within the Probate Court of Cook County, why financial exploitation cases are not prosecuted? Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

Financial exploitation case against Perry County coroner set for trial

Sunday, November 9, 2014
By Emily Priddy ~ Southeast Missourian

Herbert Miller

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- The financial exploitation case against Herbert Miller is headed to trial next month.
Miller -- who has served as Perry County, Missouri, coroner since 1995 -- was charged in January with one count each of theft and financial exploitation of the elderly, both Class B felonies punishable by five to 15 years in prison.
Miller is accused of taking more than $80,000 from a 94-year-old woman over whom he had power of attorney.
The case is set for jury trial Dec. 9 and 10.
At a pretrial conference Friday, Circuit Judge Benjamin Lewis said 70 people would be summoned for jury duty.
From that pool, 12 jurors will be chosen to hear the case and render judgment.
According to a probable-cause affidavit filed by Gregrey Martin, an investigator for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, a woman, now 94, appointed Miller as her durable power of attorney in January 2004.
She entered a Perryville nursing home in August 2008 after being diagnosed with dementia.
At a preliminary hearing in February, Andrea Southard, the nursing home's billing manager, said after a billing issue arose in April or May 2013, she asked Miller to bring her some financial records so she could review them and submit a Medicaid application on the woman's behalf.
Southard said in reviewing the records, she noticed several checks payable to cash, beginning in 2009, and a few checks to Miller's business, Miller Family Funeral Home, in "excessive amounts" she characterized as "red flags."
Martin said during the preliminary hearing that Miller admitted writing the checks for cash but claimed half were for the woman's personal use, while half were for services he provided.
Miller also said more than $22,000 in checks to his funeral home were "gifts" the woman meant for him to use for operating expenses, Martin testified.
Martin said based on information from the woman's doctor and a conversation with her in July, he did not believe she was competent to authorize such gifts.
epriddy@semissourian.com
388-3642
Pertinent address:
Perryville, MO