Sorry if it's a bit long but it's complicated. It concerns my wife's mom who when she passed away had no will.Its all takes place in Brooklyn NY, In Kings county. In 2007 my wife's Mom passed without any will leaving 3 children. My wife's one sister,and my wife's one brother (the brother is also a lawyer ) At that time the brother said because I am a lawyer it's better if I take care of the estate. So both sisters agreed and he became the administrator. From what I knew my wife's parents never had much money and there was not much concern about the estate. After about a year went by the subject came up and I asked my wife ,whatever happened to the matters with the estate. She told me “ Oh my brothers been so busy with work - nothing yet “So I let it go .Then it was going on two years and I asked again Pretty much getting the same reply. But this time I pressed the issue a bit and said “surely by now at the very least you should know what was in the estate?” And my wife said nope he never said anything yet. So after that I gave up and forgot about the whole thing for over a year. But than my wife lost her job and money became a big issue. So again I told my wife hey look whatever money was in the Estate your entitled to your third. And now we could really use whatever is there. So now its about 3 or more years since the Mom passed away and we still were never even told by the brother any amounts in the estate.
At that point my wife finally started pressing the brother to settle things. And all we got from him were more excuses one after another. So my wife pressed on and instead of getting things done with the estate. HE would send my wife some checks. They were his own personal checks and he would write loan on them. About a year goes by again so were about 4 years into this. And things got a little better with our finances. So she stopped asking him for help. By that time I figured he had given my wife about $25k which I thought was about as much as the estate was worth anyway. SO again I figured OK that's done …and forgot about it .
Shortly after that my wife came down with stage 4 breast cancer, which also turned out to be 911 related. And our entire financial situation took a turn for the very worst. My wife got on disability and I was missing tons of work having to take Family Leave year after year to take care of her. I completely drained my 401k as well. Just for us to get by. As my wife's cancer started to get the best of her around 2017. She begged the brother that if there's any more money to which she’s entitled please give it too her now. So she can pay for whatever help she needs. And he sent a few hundred dollars here and there with nothing but more excuses. We than find out thru her sister who went down to the Kings County Surrogate court herself and found out that the estate was valued at about
$390k back when the mom passed in 2007.After all this begging by myself and my wife the brother never came thru. And my wife passed away in April of 2019. I think it was obvious at that point he used all the money or most of it. Finally I got him into Surrogate court last March 12 for a full Accounting (13 years later and way too late to ever pay my wife back). The judge set another date which was supposed to be April 29th but now everything got delayed because of the Pandemic. And so as much as myself and my daughter could use whatever money is ours and maybe still left. I want to see true justice done with him. Hoping he goes to jail and loses he Law License ,,,I am just sitting here now waiting for courts to get back opened and I wonder what will happen in the end. It turns my stomach everyday thinking about this. Will he be charged with a crime. Will he lose his law license? And in the end if there is money left how much longer should this take for the judge to order him to pay out the estate? And also if it was valued at $380k back in 2007 what’s that mean now. Is it worth more? How about interest? Or will this SOB somehow get away with this, which bothers me to think of every single day?