The-Ave.US

The latest wrinkle in Quick’s harassment of me and my family is via FACEBOOK. This episode started when I posted my reaction to the sad story of the murder of Ezra Schwartz by Palestinians. I compared that sadness to the horrors of our family feud and said I was glad that one good thing from all this was my getting to know the good people in Ezra’s community in Sharon Mass. Ezra belonged to a Shul I have visited in Sharon, Mass. Ezra was a member of the same shul (synagogue) where my attorney is a member.

Bill Quick seems to have an endless need to harass me.

“The fundamental question, which you are steadfastly weaseling instead of answering, is whether you indeed paid $150K+ to defend yourself and Havi from a replevin action. I personally think that is untrue; you refuse to provide documentation — even the name & docket number — of whatever source document you are referencing although previously you were proposing posting it. That’s a weasel. Or a skunk. Or a jackass. Take your pick.”

OK .. here is the simple story with some context.

My brother and sister hated my step mother and her daughter. This hate was bizarre because Betty, my step mom (now 97), had been married to my Dad for two decades, During much of that time Max, Betty’s daughter had acted as nurse, chauffeur and care giver for both my Dead and for Betty.

Despite all this, after Dad’s death, my sibs set out on a vendetta to see that Betty inherited as little as possible from my Dad. They were mainly concerned with minimizing Max’ inheritance and referred to her as a “bitch” and “thief.” Truth be told, until then I had little to do with Max or Betty. I had no opinion on them until, Hugh, now an executor of my Dad’s estate, became more and more determined to demonize Betty and Max. He even hired a super expensive litigation law firm with no expertise in probate to pursue Max and Betty. Worse, his wife Jane :Lynn, was then a partner at the same firm! I don’t know why we didn’t just hire one of those probate litigation attorney in Denver area or somthing similar, they would have definitely got everything they wanted in that case, and it was just too much drama being in such close proximity to his wife!

My efforts to assure that my Dad’s love for Betty guided my own actions, led to my becoming a demon as well.

The core of Hugh’s mania was the “Life Estate” my Dad had left to Betty. In brief this gave Betty the right to live in the house, our family house, with all of its possessions, until Betty died or chose to move. Max was then (and still is) Betty’s caretaker. Betty, by the way is 97 now and doing well. Max still lives with her mom in an eldercare facility.

Hugh refused to negotiate with Max, making many over the top accusations ..e.g. claiming the Max had stolen a car .. the car was a Caddy, a gift to Betty that was too big to be practical. Max had traded the Caddy for a smaller, more useful car and continued to use that, until my Dad died, to ferry Betty and my Dad and run their errands. Of course she did this with Betty’s agreement since the car was Betty’s.

All this seemed to mean the estate would never close. My own legal involvement arose because I hired a legal adviser, . not to act as an attorney but to be sure I understood what Betty (and my own) rights were, When Hugh learned of this he refused to talk with me ever again, claiming I was represented by an attorney (which I was not at that time and, even if I were, my attorney informed Hugh that she agreed to my talking with him. )

From then till now matters got worse and I had to pay an attorney even for simple communications.

This continued with bizarre charges. For example, as a family doc, my Dad had a wall full of medical records in the house. These were stored casually, in the open where any visitor might have had access to the records. Under HIPAA law medical records belong to patients and should have either been destroyed in a safe manner after his death or transferred to the managing physician. The approved procedures for destruction cost as little as $500 or, preferably, digitized and transferred to the appropriate care givers ta a cost of about $5000.

I reported the HIPAA issue to Hugh but he refused to do anything saying that keeping the records in the house put Betty and Max at legal risk, so they would be forced to leave. Hugh then claimed he needed to take legal action because the federal government or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has filed actions against him. This was a simple lie but the attorney records show he spent 100s of thousands of dollars to “defend” the esate rather than disposing of the records as required.

This HIPAA issue reflect on Bill. He is a physician and must know HIPAA law. As a physician Bill presumably should understand the HIPAA issues. On that point, there were additional HIPAA records found later, Hugh has never been willing to say what he did with these.

In the meantime I got to know Max and Betty better and became friends. This infuriated Hugh further. I listed to (or read in my email) words and charges ,, theft, abuse, and so on. Nothing good. There was even an effort to get Massachusetts’ social services to remove Max from her mother, claiming Max was abusing her Mom.

In sum, the estate funds were being wasted by Hugh and Steph’s vendetta and I was spending money on an attorney. My daughter tried to intervene. She and my son in law bravely negotiated with Hugh, but to no avail. The estate was not going to close until Betty died. Hugh began working hard to convince my children that I was psychotic while threatening my daughter with law suits over theft. (To assure my own kids, I even took a forensic psychiatric exam .. I am now one ot the few certifiably sane folks!) . Finally, my daughter, again to help me, hired a very aggressive attorney to get the estate closed.

Where did this go? Counter suits were filed. Hugh charged Max, and, in affidavits, my daughter and I, with theft. Though false, legal costs escalated. Of course while we were paying our costs he was using estate funds and (against Massachusetts law) paying himself a salary for managing the estate.

There is more. Hugh (along with Bill) sent me and my attorneys hundreds of harassing emails. Two efforts at mediation ensued. During mediation there were bizarre scenes where security had to be called because of outbursts on Hugh’s part. On another occasion, Hugh and Max’s boyfriend had a yelling match in the middle of the street. Hugh, Bill and their wives launched a covert effort to destroy this website, falsely charging that it misrepresented itself as part of the University of Washington and hosted racist and pornographic material . , etc. After the house transferred to the three sibs, Hugh even refused to pay the estate attorney for her work mediating the distribution of the contents of the house , presumably because he would have had to pay her fees out of his pocket. (My wife and I paid our share of those fees.)

Now, as related elsewhere here onb THE Ave, what is left of the estate is the Buchenwald pictures and he is trying to destroy those.