Chapter 5 - LENORA HAD SIGNED PAPERS SHE COULDN’T REMEMBER
Lenora’s attorney was named Daniel Cho.
She had not spoken to him in almost two years.
That surprised him.
“I sent you letters.”
“I never saw them.”
He looked at her over his glasses.
“What address?”
“The house.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
His records showed that for eighteen months, Sterling had increasingly communicated on Lenora’s behalf.
At first that was ordinary.
Married couples did it every day.
Then came a durable power of attorney.
Lenora had signed one fourteen months earlier giving Sterling broad authority over financial matters if she needed assistance.
She remembered signing something.
Not the scope.
“Was I competent?” she asked.
Daniel answered carefully.
“You appeared tired. Sterling said you were recovering from a medication reaction. I asked whether you wanted to reschedule. You declined.”
Lenora looked ashamed.
That wasn’t evidence she lacked capacity.
It was evidence she had signed while not feeling like herself.
Daniel produced later documents.
Sterling had used the power of attorney to consolidate several investment accounts.
He also voted shares Lenora owned in Whitmore Development Group, the family commercial-real-estate company.
Those shares mattered.
Lenora inherited them from her father.
They were separate property.
Sterling ran the company.
Thatcher was executive vice president.
For years, Lenora’s shares provided the swing vote whenever Sterling and his younger brother disagreed.
Recently, Sterling had exercised her vote himself.
“What was the vote?” I asked.
Daniel turned a page.
A refinancing authorization.
Then another.
A related-party loan.
Then another.
A guarantee supporting a development project in Jersey City.
Lenora’s face tightened.
“I said no to Jersey City.”
“When?”
“At Christmas. Sterling wanted me to sign. I said the numbers were too risky.”
Daniel checked the date.
The guarantee had been approved three weeks later through her proxy.
Lenora stared at it.
“I don’t remember this.”
That did not prove she was drugged to obtain it.
It proved Sterling used authority she had given him to override a financial position she remembered taking.
The emotional cost hit her hard.
“I trusted him.”
Daniel said nothing.
Sometimes lawyers understand when the paperwork has already said enough.
Then he found another document.
A physician letter attached to the company’s governance file.
It described Lenora as experiencing “progressive cognitive impairment” requiring increased family assistance.
The doctor’s name was familiar.
Dr. Frederick Ames.
The same concierge physician who prescribed the clonazepam.
Lenora’s hands tightened around the paper.
“I have never met him.”
Daniel looked at me.
Then at Dr. Shah, who was participating by video with Lenora’s permission.
Dr. Shah spoke slowly.
“I evaluated Lenora six weeks after the date on that letter.”
“And?”
“Her testing did not support progressive cognitive impairment.”
Lenora began crying.
Not loudly.
She looked at the paper and asked one question.
“If I wasn’t losing my mind, why did my husband need everyone to think I was?”
Daniel turned to the company documents.
“The answer may be inside whichever decision he couldn’t make while you were fully participating.”
Then Lenora pointed at Thatcher’s name beneath the Jersey City financing proposal.
May you like
He had prepared it.
My husband’s fingerprints were suddenly all over the problem.
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