Conservator pleads guilty to forgery, lying

A retired nurse entrusted by judges and federal officials to manage the affairs of disabled veterans pleaded guilty Monday to forging documents and lying to the court in order to steal from one of her clients, a veteran suffering from psychosis and seizures.

As part of the deal prosecutors struck Monday with Anne Chavis, 73, charges involving seven other clients will be dismissed, but Chavis will have to reimburse all victims named in the 15-count complaint. The sum, which is still being negotiated, will not surpass $100,000.

Chavis, who in past interviews with The Times repeatedly denied stealing from any of her clients, declined to comment Monday. “Talk to my attorney,” she said. Deputy Public Defender John Powers did not return calls seeking comment.

Her plea agreement calls for up to two years in state prison or one year in county jail, depending on the recommendation of the California Department of Corrections, which will imprison her for a three-month diagnostic period beginning in July.

Monday’s two-minute hearing resolved an embarrassing case for the Los Angeles probate court, which for years failed to notice that Chavis was not filing mandatory financial reports detailing how she was spending the assets of the vulnerable adults in her care.

Chavis was a for-profit conservator, one of hundreds in California who receive court appointments to run the lives of adults who because of age or illness have lost the ability to live independently.

The case against her was filed last May in the wake of a Times four-part series that exposed critical problems with the state’s conservatorship system and detailed how Chavis exploited and neglected the men and women put in her care by judges and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Times found that Chavis bought the home of one of her elderly clients at a discount, telling the court in sworn documents that the purchaser was someone else.

The newspaper also reported that she helped a business associate, Verlene Cameron, write a will for a senile, nearly blind World War II veteran, Louis Williams, leaving his estate to Cameron.

The Los Angeles probate court awarded his full estate, more than $60,000, to Cameron, who served as Williams’ caretaker. After The Times asked questions about the case, the court vacated the order.

“I hope she never gets out,” Idell Alexander, Williams’ cousin and heir, said Monday.

Among the charges filed against Chavis were allegations that she wrote four checks totaling $11,000 from Williams’ account to herself and her lawyer, but did not report the checks to the court and misstated his bank balance to cover it up.

Authorities said they charged her in connection with only a portion of the money they suspect she stole because the crimes were hard to prove. Last year, Chavis’ former attorney, C. Brian Smith, was convicted of perjury, grand theft and conspiracy in connection with thefts from Chavis’ clients and his own.

“These people needed conservators for a reason: they were not good with their own accountings,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Christian Gullon said. “It’s hard to prove what monies they did not receive because they needed help with their finances.”

Chavis, who for years boarded veterans in her home, began her conservatorship business in 1992 almost exclusively with cases referred to her by the federal Department of Veterans Affairs.

Had the agency conducted a background check, it would have learned that she had filed for bankruptcy and that her nursing license was suspended under allegations that she falsified records to cover up sleeping on the job when she was supposed to be administering liquid feedings and life-saving medication to nursing home patients.

Ultimately, the VA and San Bernardino and Los Angeles county judges trusted her to manage the affairs of more than 30 adults, nearly all veterans suffering from mental illnesses. Within a few years, veterans and lawyers began to complain that Chavis was not paying her clients’ bills or returning telephone calls and would not tell them how she was spending their money.

But the agency kept sending her new cases and the court continued to formally appoint her.

Even after she failed to account for veterans’ money, the VA waited months to blacklist her.

Los Angeles court officials never noticed that she was failing to file mandatory financial reports in many cases until the federal government approached them in the wake of inquiries by The Times.

When Chavis was finally called into court, more than $1 million was missing from her clients’ assets.

Chavis was removed from her cases and was ordered to repay the money. She later submitted reports attempting to account for some of the money. Bonding companies, which insured some clients’ assets, paid for some of their loses.

In previous interviews, Chavis said her troubles in court were the product of inexperience and disorganization, not theft.

evelyn.larrubia@latimes.com