Sun, Nov 22 2009
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Public administrator records missing from Carthage office 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. 
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