How to find a lawyer in two hours

You might be wondering how I found a lawyer so fast that I was in and out of court within a few hours of initiating my search. Well, the morning of January 16, my law student daughter called her friend Amelia who was already a full-fledged lawyer, specializing in guess what -- guardianships, trusts, and estates. Although Amelia practiced in another state, she started making phone calls to Little Rock and within an hour of contacting her, we had a recommendation -- George. Concurrent with that, my brother-in-law made some contacts too. The first lawyer he referred me to said I had no chance of winning in court, so I scratched him off the list. The second lawyer he spoke with, Susan from a fancy Little Rock law firm, thought there was a slim chance, but while they talked, I set up an appointment in Little Rock with George at noon that day. You know the rest. We later got a $250 bill from the fancy Little Rock law firm for that 20 minute conversation with Susan.

Thank goodness for Amelia. I was still in denial about the extent of my sweet, elderly mother's vulnerability to swindlers, scams, and obsessive spending. Amelia said firmly, "get the credit cards"! I did as told, and just in the nick of time too. It was to be a year before I succeeded in cancelling all of them and year and a half before I could pay off the debt.

John Mason

Let’s pick back up on the evening of January 16, 2004. My sister and I return to Benton and try to call Mother to be sure she’s ok. Her phone was busy for 45 minutes.

The next morning, I head back to Little Rock, determined to persuade Mother to return to Fayetteville with me for a few days before the next court hearing on January 21. I also had some work to do.

First, I requested her checkbooks. She handed them over, one by one, as long as I promised to copy the registers and give them back. A notable exception was the checkbook for the Bank of America checking account that was overdrawn and frozen. Failure to obtain that one would turn out to be a catastrophic error.

The next thing on my agenda was to find out who she spoke with for 45 minutes the night before. At first she said, “it was a wrong number”. I pressed on. “Well, it was a telemarketer, but I told him I couldn’t talk to him.” Me: “you talked to someone for 45 minutes.” Her: “Oh well, Mary Ann called, and then Malcolm called too.” Me: “their numbers weren’t on your caller-id.”

Changing my approach, I began to question her about the ATM withdrawals in Toronto. Relieved that I had changed my line of questioning, she responded haltingly and reluctantly: “ It’s for an investment: I’m an investor in a $120 million dollar fund that generates income for widows and orphans.” She had sent an ATM card to the fund’s “manager” so he could make withdrawals to invest on her behalf! I won’t bore you with all the details of the bizarre conversation that ensued, but it was this person she had spoken with for 45 minutes the night before. She had told him about the court order and asked him to mail her ATM card back to her. He had cautioned her that it was very, very important that she not reveal his name or details about his investment opportunities to anyone. I persevered, and she finally revealed his name, “John Mason.”

The phone works better than a gun

Though the vultures attacked on many fronts, the telephone was the weapon of choice for my mother's victimization. I usually checked her caller-id when I visited; lists of numbers with unfamiliar area codes predominated. I would ask, "Who is calling you?" Her reply -- "..just a bunch of telemarketers." Me: "You don't talk to them do you?" Her: "Oh, no. I just tell them to leave me alone." Uneasy though it made me, I accepted her answer, still in denial about the extent to which my mother would lie to me. Too bad I didn't look up those odd area codes -- they were in Canada.

What did they know and when did they know it?

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably deduced that lots of people knew about my mother’s penchant for sending large sums of money to Canada and Costa Rica. To name a few:

The FBI. The FBI intercepted a $2000 check to a scam artist in Canada in October of 2002. The agent went to my mother’s house and informed her that the $40,000 or so that she had paid for Canadian Lottery fees had gone to scams. He believed her when she said she understood and would not be tricked again. Foolish man. He described her as such a sweet lady. Those of us who know her are painfully aware that she will smile and nod in agreement and then just do whatever she wants.

Bank of the Ozarks – Along with bounced checks and frequent large cash withdrawals, Stacy told me about a $13,000 transmission to an alleged granddaughter who was a student in Canada in 2003. My daughter was living in Virginia at the time and has never been to Canada.

Simmons Bank – Two tellers there told me of frequent transmissions of large sums of money. Unable to convince my mother to hang on to her money, they even sent a bank officer to her house to offer help and advice. She said she was perfectly capable of handling her finances herself. She stills maintains that position to this day.

Bank of America – You’ve already read about that. Those accounts were opened in July of 2003 and drained by January of 2004.

Western Union. In September 2003, Western Union banned my mother from making wire transfers. She recruited Bill, an elderly gentlemen friend of 40 years, to make the transfers for her. When she ran out of money, he started sending his own money.

My uncle – Around 1995 or 1996, my mother sent $5000 to a lottery scam in Troy, Michigan. When she told my uncle about her winnings, he made a couple of phone calls and determined that it was a scam. Seemingly embarrassed and contrite, she begged him not to tell anyone. Fooled by her demeanor just like the rest of us, he agreed to keep it a secret.

It hardly seems possible that all these people and institutions knew so much for so long, yet Jeannie and I didn't know any of it. Neither of us lives in Little Rock so the likelihood of either of us ever setting foot in any of her banks was very slim. I visited Mother pretty often, but she always had plenty of cash or used a credit card (just wait until I tell you about the credit cards). In retrospect, I think she deliberately avoided ever letting me accompany her to a bank. I had been very suspicious of her financial activity for quite a while, so I sneaked a peak at her checkbook register occasionally when she would leave it on the kitchen counter and never found any irregularities. If I had only known about the four checkbooks hidden in the bedroom.

Ok. My name was on three of my mother's bank accounts. Jeannie's was on two of them. Why weren't we notified? Why did the FBI wait 18 months to contact us? Guess what! Privacy laws! The FBI agent who had worked on her case for eighteen months finally got permission to contact us from government lawyers after Western Union reported Bill's January 14 wire transfer to Costa Rica. He acted quickly.

The process server

Exhausted and frazzled though we were, our day wasn't over yet. Picking up some Corky's barbecue, we raced to the house to eat and break the news to Mother before the process server arrived. I was terrified. I choked down a few bites, and began, gently, oh so gently, to explain the surreptitious activities that Jeannie and I had been sneaking around performing all day. She seemed to grasp the fact that she wouldn't be able to write checks any more which was one of her favorite pastimes, second only to talking on the phone to telemarketers. She interrupted me a couple of times to talk about a $1000 Publisher's Clearing House prize that she was due to receive in a couple of days.

The process server came and did his job; she took the papers inside with little visible emotion. I hugged her and told her not to talk to any telemarketers after we left. As always, she was agreeable and said she wouldn't, but, of course, she did. I scared Jeannie half to death going back to Benton with my erratic and distracted driving.