Thick as thieves . . .

Laura Morris of Warner Norcross + Judd

Laura Morris was retained by All Saints Episcopal Church, a small church in Saugatuck, Michigan, to protect its interests under the William H. Johnson Jr. Living Trust (WHJJLT) and the Ralph A. Siddell Living Trust (RASLT).

Before Ms. Morris was able to practice law in Michigan, she was obligated to swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and Michigan Constitution that includes clauses to ensure due process and equal protection of laws. Pursuant to Chapter 9.100 of the Michigan Rules of Court, as a Michigan lawyer, Laura Morris was, and still is, under an ethical and legal duty to be truthful and candid with the probate court, the Michigan Court of Appeal, and others -- whether or not occurring in the course of an attorney/client relationship, and under a duty to not engage in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, conduct that exposes the legal profession to obloquy, contempt, censure, or reproach, or conduct that is contrary to justice, ethics, honesty, or good morals. In short, she is under a duty to ensure the fair administration of justice by being truthful and candid.

The 2012 trust amendments to the WHJJLT and the RASLT provided identical reciprocal ascertainable standards limiting the trustee's discretion distribute assets for the survivor if the survivor’s income and property was insufficient for their health, support and maintenance. The 2012 Amendments provided that Edward Jones registered investment advisor George A. Stoutin, and employee David R. Heilman (Stoutin's domestic partner and husband since 2015) could select property from household or outdoor items if in pairs. Otherwise, the assets were to remain untouched for distribution primarily to Linda K. Smith and All Saints Episcopal Church with modest distributions of $1,000 to Wings of Hope Hospice, Hospice of Holland, Animal Placement Bureau and Harbor Human Society. Any residuary assets were to be distributed 50/50 to Linda Smith and All Saints Episcopal Church. Aside from a modest distribution of $35,000 to Ralph's son, Kirk A. Siddell under the RASLT, Bill and Ralph's estate documents were virtually identical.

The 2012 Amendments reciprocally named Bill and Ralph as successor trustees, then David Heilman and then Linda Smith. David Heilman claimed in his April 15, 2020, response to a civil complaint served by U.S. Mail: "BILL AND RALPH ASKED DAVID HEILMAN TO BECOME THEIR SUCCESSOR TRUSTEE SO THAT THEY COULD HAVE A TRUSTED PERSON WHO UNDERSTOOD THEIR RELATIONSHIP AND WOULD VALUE, RESPECT AND EXECUTE THEIR [2012] WISHES." [Brackets added]

Edward Jones and George Stoutin were under a legal duty to report these conflicts of interest on the annual Form ADV. However, they neglected to do so.

Fast forward to 2015, Bill and Ralph were 85 and their health was failing. Bill was providing personal care for Ralph that he could not continue due to his own declining health, so he applied for long-term care benefits with Genworth Financial for Ralph. The premiums for long-term care policy was paid through Bill's Edward Jones accounts. Before Genworth Financial activated the policy, it performed physical evaluations and cognitive testing upon Ralph to determine what benefits Ralph was entitled to receive. Genworth determined that Ralph suffering from chronic illness defined under MCL 500.603(b) and required personal care. In 2015, Genworth Financial activated the long-term care policy for Ralph, and after the waiting period had expired, in January of 2016, Ralph began receiving daily nursing care from licensed practical nurse Denise J. Teunis that included assistance with bathing, grooming, diapering, eating, ambulating, transporting and cognitive supervision.

On November 24, 2016, Bill and Ralph celebrated Thanksgiving with Bill's sister Linda Smith and her husband Wayne as they had done for years. Unfortunately, after dinner, Bill fell getting into the car, was later taken to the emergency department for evaluation and then released. On Sunday, November 27, 2016, Bill was taken by ambulance to Holland Hospital for continuing pain. Bill was also suffering from internal bleeding and kidney disease. On December 2, 2016, Bill was transported by ambulance to Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids since Holland did not have sufficient resources to care for Bill.

On December 14, 2016, Bill Johnson was in a coma. Jeffrey Helder, who was Stoutin and Heilman's lawyer, sent an email to Stoutin and Heilman, but not to Ralph, that attached estate planning documents that Helder had prepared for Bill to sign at the request of Stoutin and Heilman with instruction on how the documents are to be signed, despite the fact that Helder never spoke to Bill Johnson.

Bill passed away on December 16, 2016.

On Monday, December 19, 2016, Heilman contacted Helder's office concerned because Bill did not sign the estate planning documents before he died. Additionally, on the 19th, in the middle of winter, Heilman drove Ralph (who was grieving and seriously ill) to Macatawa Bank to empty the safety-deposit box leased by Bill, Ralph and Linda Smith, that Ralph had not opened in years.

Stoutin, Heilman and Helder knew the terms and purposes of the WHJJLT, knew that Ralph was successor trustee of the WHJJLT, but significantly knew that Ralph was an "incapacitated individual" who required daily personal care and cognitively supervision.

At David Heilman’s deposition on December 18, 2020, Neil Jansen of Mika Myers asked:

Question: “Can you describe your impression of Bill and Ralph's relationship?

Answer: “They meet. They fall in love. They build a life together for 20 years. They build collections. They renovate homes. They have a business. They work hard to create a life together. They're very philanthropic. They're on boards of charities and donate money. They have lots of parties. They are known in the community. They then retire and spend the next 30 years tied at the hip doing everything together, whether it was showing off their collections and all of their stuff, being proud, having dinner parties. Basically, everything they did together every waking moment. And then they grow old. One gets frailer than the other. The other is frail. The one becomes –"

“So they both get old, get frail. One's frailer than the other. One becomes the caregiver [Bill], taking care of the other one [Ralph], and then the caregiver [Bill] up and dies suddenly. And so the one that's left [Ralph] can only sit in a chair, wait for his diaper to be changed and cries and mourns every day, praying that he'll die so that they can be back together again.”

Neil Jansen later asked Heilman: What hobbies did Ralph have?

Heilman answered: “He [Ralph] was confined to a chair. He could not do many things with his fingers anymore, so basically he could not walk very far. He had to wait for somebody to change his -- you know, his diapers. And he had basically two things he could do; stare at the TV or look out the window.”

Ralph Siddell was indisputably a vulnerable adult who was dependent
on others for care and protection.

Edward Jones, Stoutin, Heilman and Helder knew that for the period ending December 31, 2016, Ralph held the following accounts at Edward Jones: Acct. No. 839-25621 valued at $119,368.35, an IRA Acct. No. 839-82058 valued at $80,809.95, and a Macatawa Bank with a balance of approximately $18,000.00. They knew Ralph owned unencumbered property that included real property with a value of approximately $700,000.00, a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica valued at $30,000, and 50% of the personal property insured for over $500,000, that Ralph was obligated to use for his maintenance before the trustee had discretion to make distributions for Ralph's maintenance. Ralph's income of $4,000 was more than sufficient to meet his monthly expenses, and, the trustee never possessed a power of withdrawal as defined under MCL 700.7103(f) that permitted distributions from the WHJJLT.

Despite the trustee's limitation to distribute assets from the WHJJLT, Heilman alleged that Helder advised Ralph to use the WHJJLT assets. No evidence exists proving that Helder gave Ralph this advice.

In my opinion, this was a scheme to exhaust the assets of the WHJJLT to indirectly profit Stoutin, Heilman and Helder since they were in the process of creating a trust amendment for Ralph to sign to disinherit Linda Smith to benefit Edward Jones employees George Stoutin and David Heilman.

Ralph A. Siddell Living Trust

On February 24, 2017, Jeffrey Helder sent an email of a proposed "redlined" draft of the RASLT to Ralph's email account that was deceptively redlined. Emails show Heilman was the only person to explain the redlined "changes" to Ralph. Ralph never had independent legal advice to review the draft that failed to "redline" or disclose the full extent of distributions to Stoutin and Heilman at page . In fact, the draft included a paragraph that was deceptive to appear as though Heilman and Stoutin were receiving distributions similar to the distributions under the 2012 Amendment.

Check back . . . further edits coming to complete the story.

All Saints Episcopal Church was entitled to 50% of the assets remaining in the trust after Ralph's Siddell's death

That said, my understanding is that Laura Morris was under a legal duty -- on behalf of her client All Saints Episcopal Church a trust beneficiary of the WHJJLT and the RASLT entitled to substantial amounts of money -- to disclose to the probate court and the court of appeals that the court lacked the ability to enter binding orders pursuant to MCL 700.1403(b)(ii)(D) due to David R. Heilman's indisputable conflicts of interest between his personal interests and his fiduciary duties owed to the Church, and other beneficiaries, in order to ensure full trustee transparency to protect the Church's interests.

For example, in case No. 20-62168-CZ, 21-62791-TV, 21-62888, Ms. Morris never raised with the probate court or court of appeals that David Heilman had undeniable conflicts of interest attributable to the personal interests he obtained in the RASLT on March 8, 2017, signed Ralph 82 days after the death of his spouse, when Ralph was 86 years old and "elder" under 42 USC 1397j(5), vulnerable to financial exploitation under MCL 400.11(f), and a vulnerable adult under MCL 750.145m(u)(i) and (iii) and MCL 750.174a(15)(c) since he required and received personal care that included bathing, grooming, diapering, obtaining food, ambulating, transporting and cognitive supervision.

2017 Trust Amendment, the Church would not receive on distribution

Ms. Morris never raised with the court that Heilman failed to comply with MCL 700.7814, et seq. (duty to disclose), or that the notice sent to the Church on September 25, 2019, by U.S. Mail -- purportedly in compliance with MCL 700.7604(1)(b) -- was in fact constitutionally and statutorily defective due to the undeniable omission of statutory definitions MCL 700.1107(k), MCL 700.1107(n) and MCL 700.7103(n).

The court record demonstrates Ms. Morris never raised with the court that Heilman was statutorily disqualified as trustee [MCL 700.7303(d)] for his conflicts of interest, or that the court lacked authority to enter orders binding the Church [MCL 700.1403(b)(ii)(D)]. I believe her failure constituted obstruction of justice that supported the unethical, dishonest and fraudulent conduct of colleagues and a dishonest trustee instead of protecting the interests of All Saints Episcopal Church.

In my opinion, if Ms. Morris were protecting the financial interests of this small Saugatuck Episcopal Church, who stood to receive a sizeable amount of money from the WHJJLT and the RASLT, I believe she should have sought Heilman's removal as trustee under MCL 700.7704(1)(d) attributable to his statutory disqualification under MCL 700.7303(d) for his inescapable conflicts of interest between his personal interests and his fiduciary duties, and his breach of trust under MCL 700.7901, fraud under MCL 700.1205(3) by circumventing the provisions of the Estates and Protected Individuals Code -- that includes, but is not limited to, MCL 700.1102, MCL 700.1212, MCL 700.1214, MCL 700.7604(1)(b) [by recklessly omitting the statutory definitions of MCL 700.1107(k), (n) and MCL 700.7103(n) to MCL 700.7604(1)(b) mandated by MCL 700.1102], and his failure to disclose all material information necessary for the Church to protect its interests as mandated by MCL 700.7814, et seq., or the trustee's failure to comply with the provisions of MCL 700.7820a before decanting assets to transfer them to another trust created July 1, 2017, that enabled Edward Jones to create two accounts (839-26574 and 839-26576) to deposit assets belonging to the WHJJLT.

I can't believe that Ms. Morris never demanded the production of a July 1, 2017, Trust Agreement that was created to deposit assets belonging to the WHJJLT and the Edward Jones statements that the trustee continues to conceal, that could reveal other accounts where funds may have been diverted. Honestly, I don't believe Ms. Morris examined one Edward Jones statement produced by attorney Jeffrey Helder - since they contain transactions and withdrawals that the Church is entitled to receive since they violate the terms of the WHJJLT and RASLT and includes statements and transactions that are highly suspicious. Many transactions do not provide transparency to show where withdrawals were diverted.

William H. Johnson Jr. paid premiums to Genworth Financial for the long-term care benefits provided to Ralph A. Siddell. The WHJJLT was entitled to any reimbursements for Genworth reimbursements. However, those amounts were diverted to the RASLT. Ms. Morris failed to seek a 50% interest in $78,244.88 that the Church was entitled to receive due to embezzlement by the trustee of Genworth Financial reimbursements. These amounts would have been doubled under MCL 700.1205(3) and MCL 700.7813(4) due to the trustee's conversion and embezzlement.

I believe Laura Morris is an unethical lawyer whose alliance was not to the Church, but for support colleges Robert Brower and Angela Caulley.

I would never consider employing Laura Morris for fear she would not wholeheartedly protect my legal interests.

Are there any honest and skilled Michigan lawyers?