By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — Records on all the wards of the Jasper County public administrator have been removed from the Carthage office, and it is unclear when they will be returned, Angie Casavecchia, the new administrator, said Monday.
Casavecchia said computer files on the wards have been erased from office computer systems, and that she has been told that paper files are in the office of John Podleski, attorney for Rita Hunter, the former public administrator.
Why the records were removed and erased was not available from officials Monday. So too was whether such action violated state law.
The Globe’s calls to Hunter and Podleski regarding the records were not returned Monday.
Casavecchia said she views the immediate lack of access to the records as posing potential harm to the wards of the county.
“I don’t have a stitch of paper on anyone,” she said. “All the filing cabinets are empty.”
She said Gretchen Long, new attorney for the public administrator’s office, has contacted Podleski to request the files.
“They are working out a way to get the information that John has back to me,” Casavecchia said.
She said an office computer has been taken to a technician in an attempt to restore the data that was erased.
Casavecchia, who defeated Hunter in last year’s Republican primary election, said Hunter came to her house on New Year’s morning, turned over an office pager and told her that paper files on county wards were at Podleski’s office.
She said she did not learn that no records were available — on computer files or otherwise — until Friday.
Casavecchia said it has put her in a position of not being able to take care of county wards because she has no way of knowing who they are, where they are or what their needs are.
“I got a call this morning from a facility in Salisbury about a ward who wants to refuse a chemotherapy treatment, and I don’t have any information, medical records or anything on that person,” she said.
She said she also is getting calls from wards and landlords of wards about rents that need to be paid and other expenses. She said wards’ government benefit checks for January have been received at the administrator’s office. She said Hunter told her that checks for December were at Podleski’s office.
Casavecchia said she believed that information she would need in order to respond to the needs of the wards would be in the office when she took over last week. She said the office has guardianship of nearly 300 wards.
“I don’t have information on the wards, where they are, their personal data or their medical information,” she said. “I’ll be expected to consent for medical treatment, and I don’t even know who has allergies.”
One worker in the office was calling nursing homes in the region to determine if wards of the office were patients there, she said, “and we got cards from some of the homes welcoming us and listing what people they had.”
David Mouton, the circuit judge who oversees probate cases involving most public administrator clients, would not comment on the situation.
Dean Dankelson, Jasper County prosecuting attorney, said he had not been contacted by Casavecchia concerning files taken from the office. He said it was his understanding that Podleski’s office “is still in transition,” in terms of handing the files over.
Podleski also is an assistant prosecutor in Dankelson’s office.
“It appears that everything that is supposed to be there will be there,” Dankelson said. “In the next couple of days, I’ll contact Angie and see if there are other issues that need to be addressed.”
Casavecchia said all desks in the office were cleared of supplies and materials, and that the office’s Internet service had been disconnected.
She said she did find three tubs of unopened mail addressed to wards of the office, and that workers still were going about opening it.
Hunter and Podleski are among the defendants in several lawsuits stemming from activities of the public administrator’s office under Hunter. Some involve allegations that one person was improperly made a ward of the administrator’s office, and others surround allegations that the office overcharged for services.
Hunter’s work as administrator was challenged last year after the daughter of a now former ward was charged with kidnapping, and arrested and jailed for nearly three weeks after taking her elderly mother home with her to California. The kidnapping charge ultimately was dismissed.
Hunter now is the defendant in lawsuits filed by the mother and daughter.
Last week, some former wards of Hunter’s filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the alleged taking of money from their estates to pay attorneys for the county office.
The lawsuit also contends that by billing and accepting money from the wards for work on the estates, the attorneys are believed to have entered into joint representation of Hunter and the wards. It contends that they owed a duty to exercise care to represent the wards, and to object to charges by the office and other issues, but they failed to do so.
Hunter, in another lawsuit, is being sued for allegedly overcharging county wards’ estates.
Allegations denied
Lawyers representing Rita Hunter, John Podleski and others have denied allegations of wrongdoing, and have filed motions asking that the lawsuits be dismissed. Motions hearings are set for Jan. 13.
