The Bay Ridge law firm of Raia and Rondos was charged with stealing from mentally ill and elderly clients the court entrusted to its oversight. Photos by Aleksandra Klassen.

By ALEKSANDRA KLASSEN

It looks like any other brownstone on the Bay Ridge Parkway row of residences and businesses in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge section. But beneath the gold plaque inscribed “Raia & Rondos,” there are many take-out menus and advertisements accumulated by the front door, and the steps that lead to the basement are plastered with them; papers and leaves that have withstood their share of rainy days have dried into the concrete.

A bag of snow salt is crumbled behind the pot of fake flowers— it’s spring, and the tree-lined street has seen more sandals in the past two days than even a distant memory of snow.

No, this is not another foreclosure.

Raia & Rondos, the law firm of Steven T. Rondos and wife and partner, Camille Raia, has slid into disrepair following an indictment that charged the firm and Steven T. Rondos with stealing more than $4 million from 23 guardianships.

According to court records, Rondos was accused of making “unauthorized withdrawals” from the bank accounts of people he was to assigned by the courts to protect. Instead of wisely managing their funds – the crucial role of guardians - Rondos allegedly transferred the stolen money into his law firm’s bank account and used the money freely.

His alleged victims included mentally and physically impaired elderly people as well as children suffering from cerebral palsy due to medical malpractice at birth, according to Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, who announced the indictment on Jan. 28.

Rondos and Raia & Rondos are being sued for over $4.7 million, which includes the value of the law firm. They are charged with grand larceny, money laundering, and a scheme to defraud. Rondos, 44, is also accused of offering a false instrument for filing.

Rondos has pleaded not guilty.

All over the country, similar stories have been surfacing for years. Shocking tales of “guardians for profit” have incited a flow of investigatory reports, creation of advocacy groups and even the publishing of warning materials, such as “Ten Dirty Tricks of Guardians.”

The Rondos indictment is just the latest guardianship abuse case in New York, following a series of others, leading to concerns that oversight is indolent, if not absent.

To Jean Callahan, director of The Guardianship Project, a nonprofit organization, the problems go beyond deficient oversight and are deeply rooted in the initial procedures of guardianship law in New York State.

She called the system “arcane,” because “it is not user friendly for lay people.”

For someone to be appointed guardian, or even be considered, an attorney needs to be hired, which many people cannot afford, Callahan said. So, even in situations in which relatives are willing and able to act as guardians over their loved ones, a lack of money prevents them from doing so, resulting in a court-appointed, private guardian.

Under Article 81 of the state Mental Hygiene Law, a guardianship is established to safeguard people with “functional limitations,” or those unable to care for themselves, either financially or medically. This could include people with any number of conditions such as psychiatric disorders, traumatic brain injury, stroke or simply old age. Those protected should receive “the least restrictive form of intervention which assists them in meeting their needs,” while at the same time allowing them as much independence as possible.

Despite such righteous text, corruption still exists, and according to Help Abolish Legal Tyranny, or HALT, a nonprofit public interest group that says it is the nation’s largest legal reform organization, New York is not one of the states actively pioneering for change.

In HALT’s Judicial Accountability Report Card of 2008 [in .pdf], New York received a grade of C- and ranked No. 23 in the country. Rules for financial disclosure to determine if there are any economic conflicts of interest in a case, restrictions of gifts and the availability of “meaningful sanctions” and public records of a judge’s disciplinary history were some of the grading factors. Such factors can weigh heavily on the guardianship system because judges appoint guardians.

There have been many cases in the past in which judges resigned, were fired, or censured. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Diane Lebedeff was censured in 2003 by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct “for creating an appearance of impropriety by failing to pay her accountant for tax preparation services over the same period that she was appointing the accountant as a fiduciary and approving the accountant’s compensation.” In 2004, the panel censured her in another case she handled involving a civil suit filed by an attorney she knew.

According to the charges against him, Rondos was paying for the mortgage on his home in Ridgewood, N.J., and for landscaping, kitchen renovations, and even a home theater for years with the millions he was stealing from his clients. No one was checking; the court examiners didn’t demand the paperwork on time and did not notify the judges of missing financial reports. Manhattan attorney and court examiner to two of Rondos’s cases, Albert E. Spencer, told the New York Law Journal that Rondos had not provided required reports for three years.

Rondos, meanwhile, was said to have played an important role in his field. A press release from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which announced Rondos’s indictment, stated that Rondos served as the vice chairman of the Guardianship Committee of the Elder Law Section of the New York State Bar Association in 2003.

But Nick Parrella, manager of media services for the New York State Bar Association, said that Rondos was never a vice chairman. He served as “co-chair of the communications committee of the elder law section,” which released e-news letters to their members, and he was also just “a member of the guardianship committee from 2003 to 2008,” said Parrella.

Although only lawyers can serve in those particular positions, lay people can become members of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, a group that reviews ethical complaints against judges.

Only two of 11 members are required to be lay persons in New York State, which is why it received an F for public participation in HALT’s report. The state of Washington, on the other hand, received an A because its lay members outnumber their legal counterparts, six to five.

HALT program director Terry Rudi and her staff are working on a new report that examines some restructuring trends for establishing a healthier legal system. The as of yet unreleased “Guardianship Reform Best Practices” looks “at states that are trying to reform systemic problems,” said Rudi.

Mandatory certification and licensing requirements to ensure a guardian’s qualifications as well as informing wards of their rights to end a guardianship are just some of the programs being implemented in other states right now – but not in New York.

The only guardianship training requirement in New York is a six- to seven-hour course approved by the state Office of Court Administration.

“Anybody can be appointed guardian; they don’t necessarily have to meet any requirements,” said Rudi.

Some states are recognizing that power attained so easily could be destructive and for that reason are taking steps to guarantee more regulation. California is requiring applicants for guardianships not only to finish 30 hours of coursework but to complete 15 hours every year. They have to also pass a licensing exam and undergo a background check.

In addition to reforming the rules, some believe guardianships should also be approached from a slightly different angle— a warmer, more humane one.

“People who need guardians need more than lawyers,” Callahan said. “Their needs go beyond legal and accounting ones.”

Unlike Article 81’s guidelines, which require guardians to visit their clients a minimum of four times a year, a plan by The Guardianship Project offers a strong social support network. Guardians must visit clients at least once a month, and more in cases that require it.

Affiliated with the Vera Institute of Justice, The Guardianship Project is one of the only New York-based nonprofit organizations that provide an alternative to the appointment of private guardians for elderly and disabled people. Lawyers, social workers and bookkeepers work together to ensure the best personalized care for all of their clients.

According to the group’s Web site, these services currently save the state more than $1 million annually in Medicaid costs, because 24-hour home care is approximately 50 percent cheaper than a nursing home.

The Guardianship Project was fortunate enough to make it into this year’s state budget, reassuring its survival for some time. But given the poor economy, the small nonprofit is in jeopardy of losing funding, (from government resources and private donors) and shutting down, leaving their vulnerable clients even more defenseless.

In the worst-case scenario, “The courts will have a hard time finding replacement guardians, and most will probably end up in nursing homes,” Callahan said.

This is because the majority of the elderly and disabled people who receive services are considered “no pay cases,” meaning that they don’t have a lot of money, and it is more beneficial for guardians to take on cases with reasonable assets attached.

Although the outlook sounds pretty grim, New York State is making some strides at improving the guardianship law.

According to HALT’s upcoming “Guardianship Reform Best Practices,” New York is ahead of other states in some respects: “New York goes beyond responding to complaints by third parties by performing their own audits of guardians.”

Because of the Rondos case, the Office of Court Administration has had to take a lot of heat.

“We relied on the examiners to do these annual reports,” said David Bookstaver, spokesman for the Office of Court Administration.

To battle such human inefficiency, the Office of Court Administration has devised an improved technological system, one which is “automated and centralized,” he said.
“If the accountings aren’t done and if the rules aren’t complied with, it triggers judicial intervention,” Bookstaver said.

Now, all late reports will have to be looked over by a judge.

Callahan agrees that there has been an increase in regulation. “I think the courts are making efforts to improve oversight,” she said. “There’s been a push lately to get court examiners to review reports in a timely manner.”

Out of all of the crimes that Rondos has been charged with, the most shocking is how he allegedly was still cashing in on the estate of a client who had died. Now, subdivision 81.44, “Proceedings upon the death of an incapacitated person,” has been added to Article 81, which provides a set of steps and times for the guardian to comply with in the case that a client dies. One of the edicts states that the guardian must provide a “statement of death” to the court examiner in no more than 20 days after the death of the person.

“The court system has been more focused on access to justice; making it more accessible, more understandable,” said Bookstaver. “There is an ongoing effort to un-complicate the New York State Court System, but to that end—it is still a legal proceeding.”