Subject: Stay as far away from Corrupticut as possible- This is a VERY
very dangerous place.
Date: Apr 19, 2008 5:38 AM

If you are elderly or ill, be sure you are not anywhere near even
Corrupticut's
borders, because if you can easily be transferred to within
Corrupticut State lines,
that's how you can be falsely incarcerated and your property stolen.

Even if you are a citizen of a foreign nation.
Apparently even Germany is not far enough away.

Please make sure you forward this email to everyone you know, with the
people above
copied in, so that in the end, we can hold these people to whom we
complain repeatedly
(especially the USDOJ), criminally liable.

KMDickson
http://www.***.com/

http://www.***.com/ ,0...
Courant.com
Probate Abuses Yet Again

Rick Green

April 18, 2008

According to friends, Margot Claus, a German citizen, is a fiercely
independent
New Yorker who wanted to spend her last years in her native land.

The 79-year-old, despondent and now hospitalized for dehydration, had
been living
in an assisted-living facility in Woodbridge, her estate in the hands
of a distant
relative and her life overseen by Connecticut's probate court.

Alarmed German authorities are asking for an investigation into how
Claus was taken
from New York and moved to Connecticut. A probate court judge in
February named
a North Haven woman, Linda Eger, conservator of Claus' sizable estate.

The odyssey of Margot Claus appears to be yet another misadventure
within Connecticut's
byzantine and sprawling probate system, where life-altering decisions
are made in
obscure mom-and-pop courts with little outside scrutiny.

"Friends and family are very alarmed and have contacted German
authorities
in both Germany and the United States," wrote Katja Hoffman, vice
consul in
Boston, in a recent letter to Probate Judge Michael Brandt. "The
conservator,
Linda Eger, has changed Ms. Claus' residence repeatedly without court
approval
and has removed Ms. Claus' personal property without court approval."

Judge Brandt said Thursday that a hearing has been scheduled for the
week of April
28. "There's an issue that's been raised and we will get to the bottom
of that," he said.

After weeks of inquiries by Claus' friends, the German government and
me, a
lawyer for Eger Norman Hurwitz of New Haven told Claus' supporters
on Thursday
that Eger might be willing to step aside.

Until the probate court acts, however, Eger retains full control over
Claus'
life, including an estate valued at $700,000.

That's good news, but we have to ask once again how is it that we keep
hearing
about these probate court outrages. Legislators have made some
reforms, but they
have resisted consolidating courts into a system that would resemble
our Superior
courts.

Claus' court-appointed lawyer, Vanessa Fuller of Guilford, said that
she had
nothing to say about Germany's worries about its citizen.

When I called Eger, a distant cousin of Margot Claus, she told me "we
are in
the middle of a lot of different things. So far, so good."

In just a few short months, Eger emptied Claus' Manhattan apartment,
disposed
of her possessions and found a buyer for the condo. She itemized
Claus' estate
and placed her in an apartment that friends say is without a
telephone. In February,
she wrote a form letter to Claus' friends around the world saying that
"she
does not feel like communicating."

Brandt a well-regarded probate judge approved Eger as conservator
of Claus'
estate at a hearing on Feb. 26 that Claus did not attend.

A closer look at the case reveals troubling questions.

In court papers, Eger lists "dementia" as a reason for the
conservatorship.
According to the letter from the German consul's office, Claus "is
not
in a dementia or Alzheimer's unit." Further, the facility would not
have
allowed her to live there "were she suffering from dementia."

"The financial information in file suggests that the conservator had
already
converted significant assets into joint assets before the
[conservatorship] decree
was issued, raising additional questions why she was conducting large
business transactions
with an individual she claimed was suffering from dementia."

Meanwhile, how a North Haven court can justify granting a local woman
control over
a German woman whose legal residence is in New York raises troubling
questions about
how probate continues to operate. Connecticut probate courts are
notorious for trying
to extend jurisdiction beyond state boundaries.

Her German friends and family members worry that Claus will end up
penniless in
Connecticut when, as the consul office notes, she would be eligible
for Germany's
"excellent healthcare system."

That's got to be better than a life controlled by Connecticut's
probate
courts.

Rick Green's column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached

Copyright ? 2008, The Hartford Courant