The answer is as easy as having your own lawyer set up a Power of Attorney for your elderly mother naming you as the holder. Wait, what?
Yes, I know. A bit of a conflict of interest, for the same attorney that handles Brian's affairs to advise a woman of greatly advanced years and diminished capacity to sign over all her financial powers to...the wealthy client of the attorney.
But maybe he just wanted to keep her safe. Brian was his mother's executor, the one in charge of honoring her wishes upon her death, so maybe that was all innocent and it just looked a bit hinky.
Wrong.
No sooner was this POA granted then Brian Callahan caused the property, making up the vast bulk of the "estate", transferred over into his and his brother Kevin's name.
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| "What, me scam? Heck, I'm a doctor! Well, kind of sort of a doctor!" |
Kevin was included in this because if it had been gave out right to Brian alone, that would be a bit obvious, better to rope his alcoholic and idiotic weakling of a brother in on it. (Yes, Kevin, that's you again, a stooge. And for all your life.)
The property signed over to those two, this left Kathleen - their sister - out in the cold. And violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the will, which as executor Brian was charged with executing faithfully.
Come the passing of their mother, he could then say, with a straight face, that while Kathleen was promised 1/3rd of the estate in the will, there was...well....no estate.
Property, land, house? Already signed over by a woman who had gave her POA to Brian on the advice of her attorney - which was his attorney.
Furnishings, mementos, keepsakes? Sister-in-laws and any and all other vultures got to have all that.
Bank account? Well, there was still about $2,000 in there, but Brian told Kathleen he'd have to get back to her later because "expenses" of executing the will might well drain that.
He never did get back to her. And it must have been quite expensive to divvy up the spoils and pay off any debts that he had run up in her name. As she never got a thing. No letter, no call, no accounting.
Ponder that for a moment. Pause and ponder that. The grand total of Kathleen Callahan's share as far as father and mother had said repeatedly and wrote in their wills was 1/3rd. That's what they wished.
The grand total that she got from her brother Brian, the Executor of the Estate, was ZERO. No money, no land, no personals, no nothing.
Ahh, but you reading this, who are you to know who is right or wrong? Sure, Kathleen might say one thing, but maybe Brian and Kevin got their own side. Who's to say, eh?
Well, I'm sure that thinking like that is of comfort to you. Saves you choosing one over another or making any moral judgments.
But consider this. Ever see the grave of Brian, Kevin and Kathleen's mom? Did you? Notice how it had a nice inscription added to it, to reflect that Helen was actually there? You know, an engraving on the grave to show she was there, as everyone who isn't an utter piece of crap has done for their mom?
It's called marking a grave, as opposed to burying your mom like a dog in an unmarked grave. Brian and Kevin are the pieces of crap who had - after defrauding their mom Helen and robbing their sister Kathleen - left Helen to rot in an unmarked grave.
You know, because to have marked the headstone to reflect her being there would have cost money. And when you've just gotten away with a quarter of a million dollars worth of unsplit property, who wants to write a check for $150 or so?
Not big shot Brian. And not his side kick Kevin.
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| Guess who has the receipt for having this done long afterward? Not Brian and his idiot brother Kevin. |
In spite of Brian being in charge of the funeral and in charge of seeing to all those things, and having a fiduciary responsibility to use Helen's estate to - in part - see to that very thing.
But no, it was Kathleen, the robbed daughter who when visiting that grave - A YEAR LATER - and seeing that it was unmarked who had to take care of that. After she cried at the unmarked grave. I looked up who to call when we got back home to Illinois and then we did what Brian and Kevin would not.
Marked her grave. Had it cleaned. Got it so that it looked like a mother who was loved was buried there, instead of a piece of trash tossed aside after having been bled dry. They way Brian and Kevin had left her.
That was a few years back, why am I writing of this now?
Because of Kathleen's relatives who want to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. The ones who want to have Kathleen on your facebook friend's list, but want to tell her that Brian and Kevin are not so bad.
The ones who don't want to take a side or a stand, but expect to have Kathleen as a friend.
The ones who when Kevin gives you some pictures or mementos from Helen's old house, tells this to Kathleen but doesn't seem to think she has any right to those. But that maybe - maybe - you may let her have a few, some indeterminate time later, after you see what you want.
That's not very nice of you. But I thought, heck, maybe they really don't know what happened. I've now just told you what happened. And I've the copy of the will, Brian's attorney's letter, and the receipt for marking the grave to prove it.
This is why the woman who I've watched forgive anyone unfriended some of you. She took care of her mother for years and got screwed over and robbed by brothers who have been horrible to her all her life.
And it hurt that some couldn't figure out who was who.
This is why the woman I love cried so hard over finally unfriending you. She had cried plenty of times before, over being treated as if she did not exist by brothers she had never harmed, and now she was being treated by you all as if her pain were meaningless.
And you can't figure out whether she should have some pictures that Kevin doles out to anyone but her.
What is it that you tell yourselves? That she was bad? Bad how? That she went to Florida or Illinois? So? That she declared bankruptcy once? Or got less than an A in a class back in her college days?
Tell me, what do you tell yourselves is the reason for her deserving to be entirely shut out? What possible explanation do two supposedly good brothers have?
Did she receive money from her mom and dad before? Did Brian and Kevin? And as the answer is "yes" in all three cases, does that matter?
Tell me, what do you tell yourselves to make the mother's wishes being dashed be okay?
Tell me, what do you tell yourselves to make an adopted daughter being treated like she never existed be okay?
Better yet, don't tell me. Because nothing you or Brian or Kevin can say could ever justify it. Even were she a felon - and she has no record at all - could this be justified. Even if she owed a million dollars - and she owed nothing - could this be justified.
The only thing you could possibly say - you relatives, not Brian and Kevin - would be "sorry". "Sorry" for in anyway acting like there is some kind of equivalency between the robbed and the robbers, the harmed and the harmers, the defrauded and those who commit fraud.
You have aided her in being robbed twice. The first time was by her brothers. The second was when you robbed her of the sympathy she was owed. When you took her dignity by acting as if nothing had happened. When you beat up her spirit by forcing her to try to figure out why you'd all do this to her.
Because any who did not complain loudly and at once over what was done, were as guilty in spirit as those two brothers who made off with Kathleen's inheritance.
This is not over money. This is about the obvious. Like Kathleen or not, love her or not. But never kid yourselves that this was fair. And if it happened to you, you'd know all about how true that was, wouldn't you?
