O.C. Sheriff Probing Bequest to Care-Givers

In the last years of her life, Hazel Harrison Cavitt, widowed and alone, turned to professional care-givers to help her with her daily routine.

For three years, Frederick Hassan Nazarian and his wife, Zina, assisted Cavitt as her health deteriorated. In 1989, she died at the age of 83.

In her will, Cavitt bequeathed her house, furniture, jewelry and a 39% interest in a West Virginia oil lease, among other valuables, to Fred Nazarian and his 20-year-old daughter, Mogeh Tiffany Nazarian. The bequest has been valued at almost $500,000, according to court records.

While experts say it is not unusual for the elderly to bequeath valuables to their care-givers, Cavitt’s relatives have questioned whether the Nazarians used undue influence to gain control of Cavitt’s estate. The Nazarians have not been charged with any crimes, but the Sheriff’s Department has confirmed that it is conducting a “criminal investigation into the circumstances” surrounding the woman’s estate.

Through their Riverside attorney, Randall Driggs, the Nazarians released a statement saying they were not guilty of any “inappropriate conduct.” They declined to comment further on the case or their inheritances from the Cavitt estate.

Driggs did confirm that Frederick Nazarian earns a living by driving elderly Leisure World residents to the pharmacy, banks and on other errands. He said Zina Nazarian is paid by the hour to assist the frail elderly in their daily living.

The Cavitt case has raised questions among distant family members, court officials and sheriff’s investigators about why an elderly and frail woman would bequeath much of her estate to her care-givers and not to blood relatives.

Yet some experts say that what happened with Cavitt is not that unusual. The frail and elderly, nearing the end of their lives, often remember those who have been closest to them in their final years in their wills--and often to the dismay of relatives.

“This happens especially when [the elderly person] has no relatives or when their relatives have not paid much attention to them,” said Sallie Reynolds, a Laguna Hills attorney who has drawn up hundreds of wills and trusts for Leisure World residents since 1974.

“Some of them have grown attached to their care-givers who have nursed them through long illnesses and who are nice to them by working longer hours and showing them love,” she said.

Still, the case has caught the attention of the Sheriff’s department.

Cliff Deller, a sheriff’s investigator who is heading the department’s investigation, said he has contacted the Nazarians “only inasmuch as they were the care-givers and the beneficiaries” of two estates--Cavitt’s and another bequeathed to the Nazarians by another Leisure World widow.

Deller said that during his investigation, Zina Nazarian told him that “if someone wants to leave her a house or money, she would be glad to take it because she knows she did a good job and deserves it.”

“She said if someone wanted to leave her something for the loving care she had given them, then it’s not my business.”

Contacted at the family’s new home near Nellie Gail Ranch in Laguna Hills, Zina Nazarian declined comment.

The Sheriff’s Department said its “criminal investigation” involves not only the Cavitt estate, but also the estate of the late Helen M. Simpson--another client of the Nazarians.

Court records filed in 1990 show that the Nazarians received a sizable bequest from the estate of Simpson, an 81-year-old Leisure World widow whose charred body was found in her burned out condominium on Nov. 28, 1986. An autopsy revealed that she died of heart failure before a fire broke out in her condominium. No foul play was suspected in the fire.

In her will, Simpson bequeathed $81,253.66 in cash and seven pounds of dimes to Fred Nazarian. His daughter, Mogeh Nazarian, received $94,592.36 in cash, an additional $23,566.28 in bonds, and interests in limited partnerships from the same estate that could not be immediately quantified. She, too, received seven pounds of dimes.

Records show that Nazarian and his daughter also shared Simpson’s furniture, jewelry, furs, china, silver, crystal, carvings and other items.

The Nazarians were not the only beneficiaries of Simpson’s will. Simpson’s attorney, James W. Burton of Costa Mesa, was bequeathed her Leisure World condominium. Simpson also left $50,000 to the Kansas State School for the Deaf in Olathe, Kan., where the parents of her late husband, James C. Simpson, once taught. James Simpson died in July, 1983.

The Simpson will was never contested in court. However, Paul Tade, a 76-year-old Encino resident and James Simpson’s cousin, said late last month that the Simpsons were a childless couple and that he and eight other surviving cousins heard about Simpson’s will only a few weeks ago when sheriff’s investigators showed up at their home.

Tade said relatives were surprised that Simpson’s care-givers had inherited much of her estate, adding that they were “definitely not pleased, but there’s precious little we can do about it now.”

The Cavitts also were a childless couple.

David Arnold, a cousin of Cavitt’s late husband, James R. Cavitt, said he and other relatives always kept in close contact with the couple.

But Arnold, a Warrenton, Va., resident and an air traffic control supervisor at Dulles International in Washington, said the relatives’ contacts with Hazel Cavitt were hindered after the Nazarians became Cavitt’s care-givers in 1986.

Arnold said Cavitt stopped acknowledging letters, cards and their gifts shortly after the Nazarians were hired by Hazel Cavitt.

Cavitt’s relatives assumed that her lack of response was due to Cavitt’s failing health--she had suffered a heart attack in 1988--but they grew suspicious when a “care person” at Cavitt’s Leisure World residence would tell inquiring relatives over the telephone that Cavitt was either “resting, sleeping or could not take a call,” Arnold said.

Eventually, one of Hazel Cavitt’s nephews, George Harrison of Salt Lake City, filed a request in Orange County probate court in November, 1989, to become her conservator. In court documents, Harrison alleged that his aunt had been victimized by the Nazarians.

Harrison was granted a temporary conservatorship, and the allegations against the Nazarians prompted an inquiry by court probate investigator Clarence Dalen. Hazel died the next month, in December.

According to Arnold, the family learned that Hazel Cavitt had changed her will at least three times in the last three years of her life. In the last will, her house, jewelry and oil lease went to the Nazarians. Arnold said relatives had expected the estate to be divided among relatives and several charitable organizations.

Before her death, Dalen interviewed Hazel Cavitt at a Lake Forest nursing home where she was suffering from organic brain syndrome, severe dementia, senility and heart disease.

“[Cavitt] has a difficult time expressing herself,” Dalen said in his report, filed in probate court in November, 1989. “When she tries to talk, what comes out was the sound of a whine, and very few words were clear.”

Dalen said, however, that from his interview with Hazel Cavitt, it appeared that the widow liked the Nazarians.

The probate investigator said in court documents that county social workers reported hearing allegations that “the Nazarians have been preying on elderly people in the Leisure World area [and] . . . that [Cavitt] may have signed over her manor to the Nazarians.”

Concerned by Dalen’s report and Cavitt’s will, then probate court Judge James A. Jackman asked an Orange attorney, Michael Pursell, to investigate the allegations and file a report.

“If [Dalen’s] alarmed, I’m alarmed,” Jackman said, explaining why he appointed Pursell to pursue the case. “As a judge, it’s my duty to ask questions. Mrs. Cavitt didn’t have any close relatives, so it’s easy to be taken advantage of. She needed to have people representing her interests.

“I always see an obvious conflict when a stranger comes in and as a result ends up with a participatory share of an estate. It’s not always wrong, but through the last years of an 83-year-old woman’s life, then I think there is a real probability of undue influence.”

In addition to appointing Pursell, Jackman also ordered probate investigators to determine whether the Nazarians had received inheritances from any other Leisure World residents. The investigators then found the Simpson file.

Pursell interviewed several Leisure World residents, security officers at the retirement community and social workers. In a confidential report to Jackman, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, Pursell said the Nazarians “ingratiate themselves into the personal and financial lives of elderly female residents and force a wedge between the elderly person and any outside influence.”

“They are dangerous predators,” Pursell concluded.

Meanwhile, the Arnolds said they have virtually abandoned their legal efforts to challenge the Nazarians’ bequests.

Arnold said attorneys he consulted about the case had asked for advances of $25,000.

“We are ordinary working people; we don’t have that kind of money,” Arnold said. “Our last hope is that the sheriff’s people will turn up something. We’re at the mercy of the legal system.”