A conservatorship has drained $1 million of my mother’s life savings, and no one can stop it. A court-appointed conservatorship in Santa Clara County has eaten up much of the money my parents saved over a lifetime for their retirement. The current system is taking away people’s rights, and our lives have been ruined in the process. By Anonymous In early 2020, Britney Spears posted a TikTok video that concerned her fans, and the #FreeBritney movement soon went viral. A petition seeking a congressional investigation into Britney’s conservatorship received hundreds of thousands of signatures, and news outlets nationwide reported on her plight. Eventually, she was released from her conservatorship. This was the first introduction much of the public had to conservatorships. But many of us with elderly parents or other vulnerable family members are in a battle with conservatorships that we feel leave them without agency in their own care and finances, for years on end. We have watched helplessly as our loved ones’ assets and savings accounts have been consumed by legal fees, with little accountability. And unlike Britney, they have no voice, and no one is on TikTok talking about them. My mother is under such a conservatorship. The road to this arrangement began around the time my parents were in their 80s and planning their will. My parents had worked hard since they arrived in the United States in the 1970s, and had managed to save a decent nest egg for retirement. But some of their decisions about their finances and care led to conflict with their son, my brother. He suggested that they go to a seniors home—something they did not want. He then wanted to be a beneficiary of my father’s life insurance, which my… Read More
By Janet Phelan A piece of legislation, revolutionary in its implications, has been drafted and is now in the process of seeking sponsorship in the California Legislature. Drafted by Richard I. Fine, a former prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice, founder and chief of the first municipal antitrust division in the U.S. and Special Counsel to the Governmental Efficiency Committee of the Los Angeles City Council, the legislation contains the quiet potential of massively disrupting the court corruption that is now endemic to California Superior Courts. Fine knows about this corruption first hand. In pursuit of confronting a situation in California where state Superior Court judges were receiving “extra monies and benefits” from the counties while hearing cases in which the counties were a party, Fine was summarily jailed on a contempt of court charge in 2010 and left to rot in solitary confinement in Los Angeles County Jail. Fine stuck to his principles and sat it out. He was jailed for a total of 18 months. Summarizing Fine’s plight, Tulanelink wrote, “By law, the judicial salaries of California’s Superior Court judges are set and financed by the state. Many of the counties, however, have utilized schemes for supplementing the salaries of appellate court judges. These supplements assist the judges in their reelection campaigns and help insure favorable outcomes in cases where those counties are defendants. Attorney Richard I. Fine was instrumental in uncovering these extra-legal payments, which began in 1988 and affect more than 1,600 judges. The payments, which currently amount to about $46,000, have been routinely omitted from the financial disclosure forms required of all judges. Fine’s campaign to expose this judicial misconduct led to his disbarment, and he was subsequently tried and imprisoned for contempt by… Read More
