A Tacoma man is on the run after state prosecutors stated he ran a five-year scheme to take management of greater than 200 lifeless strangers’ estates and revenue off thousands and thousands of {dollars} that ought to have gone to heirs throughout Washington.
A Kitsap County Superior Court docket decide issued a bench warrant for John Elliott’s arrest Jan. 13, ordering him to serve 30 days in jail for stonewalling the state’s inquiry into his alleged “probate for revenue” scheme. Elliott allegedly had targeted his efforts in Kitsap County, the place he or his co-conspirators allegedly opened 179 probates in lower than 5 years.
However as of this week, the failed insurance coverage and actual property dealer was nonetheless at giant, Washington Legal professional Common’s Workplace spokesperson Mike Faulk stated Thursday.
Elliott was allegedly the ringleader of a seven-member posse that, “like foxes left to protect the henhouse,” quietly took management of not less than 213 estates between March 2019 and January 2024, in response to a criticism in a lawsuit filed by the Legal professional Common’s Workplace on Feb. 12 in King County Superior Court docket.
Prosecutors stated Elliott and his co-defendants, together with six different individuals and 5 firms owned between them, knowingly exploited part of state legislation that permits courts to nominate somebody as a consultant of an property after an individual dies with out a will.
Members of Elliott’s group allegedly helped in his scheme to dump — or typically preserve for himself — properties, vehicles, weapons, jewellery and different property, and drain financial institution accounts related to the estates, many occasions with out adequately notifying heirs, in response to the criticism.
State prosecutors accused Elliott of absconding with almost $1.8 million owed to heirs by transferring cash from dozens of estates into his personal enterprise and private financial institution accounts. Tens of millions extra are nonetheless unaccounted for, and Elliott and his co-defendants received’t say the place the cash is, in response to the Legal professional Common’s Workplace.
The day after state prosecutors filed the lawsuit, King County Superior Court docket Decide Suzanne R. Parisien froze 86 financial institution accounts related to estates that Elliott or his co-defendants nonetheless had management over, saying the alleged schemers posed a severe threat of “rapid and irreparable harm to the heirs.”
At their subsequent listening to April 4, state prosecutors will request that the accounts, which had been nonetheless frozen Tuesday, stay so till the courtroom points a remaining judgment within the case, Faulk stated.
The defendants and their attorneys didn’t reply to inquiries.
In response to state prosecutors, Elliott dreamed up his “probates for revenue” scheme in 2018, after the Washington Division of Licensing revoked his actual property license as a result of “repeated misconduct,” together with failing to “deal actually and in good religion” in his transactions. The state Insurance coverage Commissioner’s Workplace additionally revoked Elliott’s insurance coverage dealer license in 2014 for failing to keep up data and supply them for inspection, the criticism states.
After shedding his licenses, Elliott’s alleged technique was to search out properties the place the homeowners had died with out a will, and petition the state to have him be appointed the property’s private consultant. He would then “flip” or dump the properties, typically depositing the lifeless particular person’s private property on the dump whereas taking any valuables to maintain or promote to his pals.
A few of his co-conspirators would additionally petition to be appointed as estates’ “straw” private representatives underneath Elliott’s supervision, the criticism states.
Management of a lifeless particular person’s property sometimes goes first to a surviving partner, then kids, then dad and mom or different relations. But when nobody is appointed after 40 days, courts can appoint “any appropriate particular person” to settle the property, caring for duties together with paying collectors and distributing belongings or cash to heirs.
Private representatives are prohibited from “self-dealing,” or cashing in on an property on the expense of any heirs or beneficiaries. However the defendants typically didn’t adequately notify heirs — as required by state legislation — who had been sometimes unaware or “barely conscious” that Elliott and his co-conspirators had taken over their relations’ estates.
The alleged schemers additionally didn’t stock any private property belonging to the estates, reminiscent of images, cremated stays, jewellery, vehicles, furnishings or electronics, in response to the criticism.
Collectively, the group bought not less than 90 properties that had been collectively value greater than $28 million, in response to the Legal professional Common’s Workplace.
The group’s efforts went undetected for thus lengthy as a result of the state’s probate system depends closely on individuals’s “honesty and integrity,” in response to the criticism.
However the Kitsap County Superior Court docket appeared to note one thing amiss in June, when it launched an inquiry into Elliott’s greater than 100 pending probate instances out of issues that he was “self-dealing.” The continuing inquiry has “confirmed fruitless” as a result of Elliott has not given the courtroom any requested data, in response to the criticism.
State prosecutors alleged Elliott and his six co-defendants — Shanelle Sunde and Julie Ellis, of Tacoma; Grace Kinney, of Bremerton; Douglas Owens, of Anacortes; Robert Brouillard, of Shoreline; and Brady Howard, of Navarre, Fla. — had been by no means “appropriate” private representatives of estates they managed as a result of they knowingly sought to revenue from the estates. And their alleged scheme violated the state’s Client Safety Act, together with state probate, property and escrow legal guidelines, the criticism states.
“A (private consultant) should all the time put the property’s pursuits forward of their very own. That didn’t occur right here,” state prosecutors stated within the criticism. State probate legislation “was by no means supposed to permit complete strangers with no connection to an property to provoke a courtroom continuing and acquire entry to strangers’ property assets for their very own monetary acquire.”
State prosecutors are in search of the courtroom to restrain Elliott and his co-defendants from persevering with the alleged scheme and high-quality them restitution and as much as $7,500 per violation of the state legislation, the criticism states.
