In her court-required reports, Dinah Turrentine-Sims listed more than $29,000 in checks and payments to “CWB” for extensive renovations to one of her wards' houses near 75th and Burt Streets.
All those payments to CWB, as it turns out, were phony.
Says who?
CWB himself.
Carl W. Brown, a South Omaha resident who ran CWB Handyman for about eight years before a heart attack sidelined him last year, said he never set foot in Marie Meader's house.
“I wouldn't even know what it looks like,” he said.
Instead, Brown said, Turrentine-Sims hired him to do most of his work on the building near 24th and Fort Streets that she renovated to house her nonprofit organization Chris Services.
All told, Brown said, he did $5,000 in work for Turrentine-Sims nowhere near the $29,000 she claimed.
Had a judge asked, Brown said he would have told the judge so. But the Douglas County judges who were supposed to be overseeing Turrentine-Sims' care of her wards didn't check her accountings. And no one asked Brown.
“I'd have been right down to the courthouse,” Brown, 55, said as he worked on his fishing boat outside his South Omaha home. “I'd have told them, ‘Let's get this (expletive) straight.'
“I didn't get anywhere near that kind of money. If I had, I could have a big oceanliner right now, instead of this 1984 boat.”
Brown's revelation comes as members of Meader's family and court officials are sorting out how Turrentine-Sims could have neglected Meader's final wish: to be buried in her favorite cemetery.
Under Turrentine-Sims' care, Meader's $150,000-plus estate ended up empty. And Meader ended up being cremated.
Authorities say she was just one of several wards neglected by Turrentine-Sims.
Prosecutors have charged Turrentine-Sims, 59, with two counts of theft and two counts of abuse of a vulnerable adult in connection with more than $250,000 in missing funds from two wards. Authorities expect to file more charges against Turrentine-Sims prosecutors allege that she took more than $400,000 from as many as eight wards. Omaha police say she spent chunks of her wards' money at a Council Bluffs casino.
Turrentine-Sims has declined interview requests.
The case has sparked widespread concern and has prompted Nebraska Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Heavican to appoint a committee to explore ways to shore up the state's guardian and conservator system.
In such cases, judges appoint a guardian-conservator to look after the health and wealth of people who are no longer able to care for themselves.
Brown said Turrentine-Sims first contacted him to install a toilet at Turrentine-Sims' home. She also had him build a front porch and remodel a bathroom at her home near 62nd and Curtis Avenue.
She then had him do work at her office near 24th and Fort Streets. Brown said he installed subflooring and wood laminate, painted the walls and replaced the ceiling tiles.
Under state law, court-appointed conservators are allowed to bill the courts a “reasonable” fee for their work. The rest of their expenditures are to benefit the wards under their care. Nowhere does state law allow conservators to pay for renovations of their own buildings.
In fall 2007, Brown said, Turrentine-Sims hired him to help clean up the Papillion house of Jerome and Sophie Kresl wards from whom Turrentine-Sims is accused of stealing $240,000.
Brown said she had him sort the couple's belongings and take several paintings of Sophie Kresl's to a storage unit on L Street work that took a day and a half.
She told Brown she was getting the house ready for sale.
Here's what she didn't tell him: In court documents, she was listing hundreds of dollars of payments to him for painting the house and other maintenance work.
The problem? Brown said he never did any painting or maintenance work at the Kresls' home.
Looking back now, Brown said, some of Turrentine-Sims' behavior struck him as odd. Turrentine-Sims often paid him in $100 bills and often talked about having hit big at the casino $1,000 or $2,500 at a time, he said. Brown said she once paid him $300 to provide her with a handful of receipts. She said it was to help replace receipts she had lost, he said.
“It didn't occur to me it wasn't 'git (legitimate),” Brown said. “Come to find out, she was just using a person like me, a guy trying to make a living.”
At one point, Turrentine-Sims asked Brown whether he wanted to become a conservator and look after wards. Brown said he told Turrentine-Sims he wasn't qualified. Contrary to previous reports, he said, he never looked after any of her wards.
“If I knew that Dinah was spending other people's money like that, I wouldn't have even put the commode in her own home,” said Brown, a Vietnam War veteran. “You're talking about people who served our country before I did. I would have turned her in to authorities myself.”
One of Meader's nieces, Karen Robinson, said she appreciated Brown speaking out. She said his disclosure only heightens her dismay over the courts' failure to monitor Turrentine-Sims. A handful of judges oversaw the estates Turrentine-Sims is accused of emptying.
Judge Hendrix and Judge Stephen Swartz oversaw the two cases in which Turrentine-Sims claimed payments to Brown. Neither judge scrutinized her accountings. The judges also didn't ensure that Turrentine-Sims posted a bond insurance that could have protected the wards' estates.
Robinson, a professor at Louisville University in Kentucky, said the family's spirits have been buoyed by the support they've received since Meader's story appeared in The World-Herald April 25. One reader offered to donate a lot at Evergreen Memorial Park Cemetery where Meader had hoped to be buried. The Omaha chapter of the Salvation Army offered a lot at another cemetery.
Robinson said her family doesn't want to burden anyone. They plan to navigate their way through Veterans Affairs to get the death benefits Meader is entitled to.
“It's wonderful to know that people are out there and willing to help,” she said. “Aunt Marie was a special woman. I was amazed, and I can tell you that our entire family is overwhelmed, by everyone's generosity.”
Contact the writer:
444-1275, todd.cooper@owh.com
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