Clients of attorney convicted for elder abuse, fraud spread caution

When she decided to seek damages against the hotel, Hilliard was connected to Boasberg by another attorney, and initially appreciated that he corresponded with her through phone calls and letters since she’s not accustomed to using email. She was also pleased he filed the required paperwork before a quickly-approaching deadline, and said she was willing to go to trial when she found the hotel’s initial offer disappointing.

But months later, Hilliard said Boasberg urged her to accept a $30,000 settlement with the hotel and wasn’t heard from again after he called her Aug. 22 to tell her he received the check from the insurance company, despite the messages she left with him. And when the same attorney who recommended Boasberg to her called her in September to inform her he pleaded no contest to criminal elder abuse and insurance fraud for embezzling nearly $500,000 from a 92-year-old San Mateo County woman and her disabled and dependent son, the trust Hilliard initially placed in the attorney began to evaporate.

“I’m really sickened over it, that’s the bottom line,” she said.

Over the course of four years, Boasberg is said to have taken nearly $500,000 from the elderly woman, who is living with dementia at the Marymount Greenhills Retirement Center in Millbrae, as well as her son, who is in his 60s and living at the Burlingame Long Term Care Center, while acting as their financial and medical power of attorney.

The thefts were discovered when both facilities reported his failure to make monthly payments for their care to the County Health’s Adult Protective Services, which resulted in his removal as their power of attorney in 2015 and a yearslong investigation ending with felony charges being filed against him in May. Boasberg faces three years in state prison when he returns to court Jan. 11 for sentencing, and his defense attorney Adam Gasner said when his client took the July 10 plea deal that Boasberg took responsibility for the biggest mistake and lapse of judgment in his life and will sell the few assets he has and to try to borrow from family members to make restitution payments. Gasner could not be reached for comment for this story.

Child support, discrimination lawsuit

When 48-year-old San Francisco resident Elina Belotserkovskaya retained Boasberg for the first time in 2000, she was seeking legal counsel for an eviction case and was connected to him through a legal insurance policy she was offered through her employer at the time.

Since he helped her with the eviction, Belotserkovskaya asked him to help her with a child support case in 2003 and again when she filed a discrimination lawsuit against her employer after she was laid off from her job as an events designer in 2008. Unfamiliar with the legal system, Belotserkovskaya said she trusted Boasberg when he advised her to take a $5,000 settlement with her former employer, an agreement she said didn’t compensate her for the severance pay she was seeking.

It wasn’t until Belotserkovskaya retained him to help her with child support again in 2010 that she began to suspect he wasn’t working in her best interests. Eight months pregnant and a single mother at the time, she said Boasberg filed a petition in April of 2010 with the expectation he could bring the case against the child’s father, who she said is a high wage-earner, to a close in the next few months. But she didn’t hear from him until October of 2010 and in the meantime was forced to go on welfare when she ran out of her savings.

“It was not moving in all that time,” she said. “I was really stressed with a newborn and he was just taking time.”

Belotserkovskaya said she chose to retain another lawyer but is still working on her child support case currently, which she attributes in part to Boasberg’s failure to submit discovery in her case when it first began. Having just graduated from San Francisco State University’s Paralegal Studies Program, Belotserkovskaya said she was motivated to understand the law better and become a paralegal because of her life experiences.

“It’s bad that he took advantage of the less-protected population,” she said. “That’s the most upsetting thing.”

Estate work

Though she didn’t retain Boasberg herself, Mill Valley resident Leigh Bakhtiari and her sister were dismayed to find out he was representing their late father’s wife in a disagreement over his estate after he had served as their father’s lifelong attorney more than 15 years ago. A Marin County social worker married Bakhtiari’s father James Stewart in 2001, and Bakhtiari believes she changed his will shortly before his death in 2003 to remove his natural daughters from his will and make her and her daughter the beneficiaries of his estate instead.

Bakhtiari said she was being sued by another Marin County family for elder abuse at the time her lawsuit was filed, and said she and her sister went into mediation with Boasberg and her to come to an agreement whereby Bakhtiari’s children are to receive a portion of her father’s estate. But the legal struggle at a time when they were processing their father’s death added greatly to their stress, as did their surprise at Boasberg’s representing her in a case concerning her father’s estate.

“My father trusted him,” she said. “He had been my father’s attorney for my entire life so we knew nothing.”

Advice to others

Bakhtiari said the experience has made her much more aware of the need to know what one’s parents’ intentions are early on before they can be influenced by others or face serious health conditions. Belotserkovskaya said researching attorneys by looking up their license history with the California Bar Association, reading online reviews of their work and asking others for referrals would be among the steps she would take next time she needs legal advice.

For Hilliard, looking out for other family members as they age and ensuring they are working with trusted legal professionals topped her list of priorities after her experience with Boasberg. Though she noted being out of state while he was supposed to be working on her case proved to be one challenge in her situation, she said the experience made her think more critically about how she would establish trust with an attorney next time.

“When you give someone power of attorney, you really want to trust them,” she said. “I’m just going to do my homework. I hope I never have to.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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