Ruminations

The Penalties for Defrauding and Victimizing an Elderly Woman?

"[The lawyer's actions] were a direct infringement of Mrs. Piela's fundamental rights."
"She was deprived of her freedom, forced to leave her home and taken by force into a private seniors' residence."
Quebec Bar Association, disciplinary committee

"[The subsequent medical report found] that she was totally capable of taking care of herself, she had an excellent memory, [and] she didn't have Alzheimer's."
"The police officers came to the house, they entered by the back door, so she started to scream and so the police officers called an ambulance and covered her mouth."
Igor Dogaru,lawyer for Veronika Piela, 94

Veronika Piela, 92, in December 2016. She says people took control of her life with a forged mandate and had her placed into a residence with no access to a phone or visitors. Phil Carpenter / Montreal Gazette

Imagine you've reached beyond 90 years of life, are a capable individual with a home of your own and manage all your own affairs. Age has done nothing to impair your memory, your facility with looking after yourself. You value your independence, and treasure your lifestyle, including your enjoyment in continuing to live in your home. You have a healthy bank account and decide to advertise for someone to come in from time to time to help manage some of the aspects of living independently, so you hire a woman and trust her and then everything goes wrong.

Veronika Piela who had immigrated to Canada after the Second World War, was most comfortable speaking Polish or Ukrainian. While she was still physically active, her knees were becoming a problem getting around, and she needed some help. She knew someone from the church she attended, and it was that person's daughter, in her 50s, whom she hired for general help in 2013. She paid Anita Obodzinski to help in her apartment, a bit of cleaning, shopping for groceries, feeding the cats. With no relatives close by much less children of her own, she relied on this woman to aid in her independence.

Anita Obodzinski prepared a mandate that gave her control of Veronika Piela’s personal protection and belongings if Piela were ever to become incapacitated. She later claimed she was Piela’s niece.

One day when she discovered money was missing, Veronika confronted Anita and dismissed her, informing the younger woman her services were no longer required. Six months passed, when suddenly Anita appeared at her apartment, accompanied by her husband ArthurTrzciakowski, demanding that she sign some papers, and she refused. The two rough-handled the elderly woman, who sustained cuts to her arms, insisting she sign the documents, until she relented: "I said 'Please, take everything. Please, leave me alone. Leave me alive. I need that'."

As soon as the two left, Veronika called the only two people she knew well in Montreal; her pastor and a notary, who referred her to lawyer Igor Dogaru who responded by sending a formal notice for Obodzinski to refrain from contacting her former employer at any future time. Unknown to both was that Obodzinski had prepared a mandate to give her control of Piela's personal protection and belongings should Piela ever become incapacitated, claiming she was Piela's niece, in a later affidavit.

She then proceeded to hire a social worker, Alissa Kerner, who just happens to be lawyer Gelber's wife. and advised her to prepare a psychosocial report, to state that Piela was incapable of looking to her affairs, impaired by ill health, both physical and psychological, which would accompany a medical report by Dr. Lindsay Goldsmith stating that Piela suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Obodzinski's plan was to have Piela declared mentally unfit to result in Obodzinski being placed in charge of Piela's affairs.

The report claimed Piela not only had irreversible Alzheimer's and dementia such that she was unable to take personal care of herself, was living in squalid conditions with cats, and that alcohol abuse made it additionally risky for her to continue to live on her own. "Mrs. Piela is unable to express herself within reason as her memory, insight and judgment are all severely impaired", wrote private social worker Alissa Kerner in her psychosocial report. Gelber, holding Piela's savings in trust, transferred $100,000 from Piela's account to Obodzinski.

The disciplinary committee of the Quebec Bar Association found that lawyer Charles Gelber, in acting for Obodzinski hadn't bothered to inform Piela or her lawyer that a court judgement had declared her legally incompetent. It found as well that he had failed to advise Igor Dogaru, lawyer for Piela that a request had been made to remove Piela from her home and into a residence for seniors. As well, Gelber's action in transferring substantial sums of Piela's savings to Obodzinski was clearly a criminal act, since reimbursed.

Obodzinski and her husband Arthur Trzciakowski both pleaded guilty in their roles plotting a scheme to defraud her former employer, with Obodzinski sentenced to two years house arrest and her husband, a conditional discharge. After pleading guilty to mischief and being unlawfully in Piela's home, Gelber's wife, social worker Alissa Kerner, received a conditional discharge, but was suspended by Quebec's order of social workers.

And the lawyer who used his legal know-how to underhandedly scheme with Piela's former employee to defraud the elderly woman who only managed to get a hearing in a court of law establishing her complete mental competence and outlining the manner in which all five people schemed to criminally defraud her -- has been suspended from practice, citing his role in forcing an elderly woman from her home by having her declared mentally unfit -- will serve an 18-month suspension after pleading guilty to seven disciplinary infractions.

A virtual slap on the wrist for all who were involved in his mendacious scheme to deprive an elderly woman of all she held dear, and take possession of her life savings in the process. A slap on the wrist for terrorizing an old woman, forcing her to live in a freezing basement where she was denied access to a telephone or any way in which she might contact the outside world. In the dead of a Montreal winter, she escaped, was found by police on a street without a coat and taken into custody. She asked for someone who could speak Polish and to that police officer described all that had occurred. The wheels of justice, as bitterly inadequate in this case as they proved to be, turned into action:

"A judge had ordered the curator to take charge of her file while the suit worked its way through the court system. It had been a long two years, but the personal documents that had been taken from her — her will, marriage papers, family photos, and more — were to be returned. A physical manifestation, of sorts, that she’s fully capable of taking care of herself."
"She’s also gotten most of her money back: Nearly $300,000 that had been transferred to the public curator from the in-trust account has been returned. Cheques for another $100,000 were sent to her last week. Another roughly $46,000 is gone, spent, and Piela’s lawyer says he is still trying to get it back. Ordered by a judge to account for the money spent from the in-trust account, Gelber wrote that $20,000 went to Obodzinski for items and services for Piela. Kerner was paid about $5,000 for her social work. Gelber was paid roughly $12,000 in legal fees. The rest went to Piela’s rent and a company to clean her apartment."
Montreal Gazette