Court Report:

“I Feel Like A Judge Who’s I Don’t See Any Warm - Judge Anthony A. Scarpino’s Comment Westchester Surrogate’s Court, White Plains Judge Anthony A. Scarpino, Presiding

Wednesday afternoon of last week, Pamela Carvel, niece of the late Tom and
Agnes Carvel, and executrix of Agnes’ estate, who presently resides in England,
appeared in Westchester County Surrogate’s Court, White
Plains, for the latest installment in a long struggle with the
directors of the Carvel Charitable Trust and the Hudson Valley
Bank. She had brought an Order To Show Cause, a motion
calling for the disquali cation of Judge Scarpino for reasons
which she details below:


Crimes Pay Big in Surrogates Court


“Tom and Agnes Carvel wished only to bring happiness
and enjoyment into the lives of others. ‘Carvel’ ice cream did
just that when it became a part of the fondest memories of kids
and grownups alike – cakes, Flying Saucers, Brown Bonnets
and the ever simple, but always exquisite, cone. Why were the
Carvels targeted for death and destruction of their dreams?


The answer is GREED!


Greed for political power in Westchester County. Greed for the millions intended
for charity. Greed for the Carvels’ good name to hide behind while carrying
out destruction of the Carvels’ good intentions. The estates of omas and Agnes
Carvel are a microcosm of the political corruption that festers in Westchester
Surrogate’s Court. Don’t think that just because you don’t have
millions you are safe. It is a pay-to-play game between politicians,
lawyers, and banks that always leaves widows the losers.


Most outrageous among the sins are those of the alleged
foundation managers who usurped control of the Carvels’ restricted
charitable donations as soon as Tom was dead. The
usurpers abused the Carvels’ charities by using Agnes’ donation
to harm Agnes personally and to obstruct any income she
needed to live or defend her rights. The foundation fraudsters
spent over $1 million a year to prevent Agnes from receiving
any benefit at all from Tom’s estate or trusts. If the fraudsters
could not silence Agnes by kicking Agnes off her own foundation,
they would starve and harass Agnes to death. After all,
how long could an 82-year-old survive such oppression? The
answer is it took eight years to drive Agnes to her death from stress imposed directly
by Westchester Surrogate Albert Emanuelli.


Agnes Carvel was kicked off the board of the foundation she founded and
funded when she uncovered that alleged grants to charity, made by the so-called
foundation managers after Tom’s death, were full of kickbacks, self-dealing, missing
funds, publicity for politicians, and just plain fraud traced back to the so called
managers.


Agnes Carvel is not alone in being treated by Westchester Surrogate’s Court
like “Indians” in the Old West, or “Coloreds” in the Old South. In the Surrogate’s
eyes, Agnes (like other widows) became chattel; property of Tom’s estate without
independent rights, without an audible voice, and without control of her rights to
life, liberty and happiness.

Tom and Agnes always planned that EVERYTHING was jointly owned with
rights of survivorship and NOTHING would pass through the sticky hands of
probate judges. Lawyers who never met or spoke to Agnes or Tom foisted a socalled
“estate plan” on them that stole everything away from Agnes. The Wills
were signed in less than 15 minutes in the midst of a cocktail party. Agnes trusted
Tom. Tom mistakenly believed that the lawyer-concocted scheme would save on
taxes without harming Agnes’ rights as survivor. The Carvels were duped.
Attorney Eve Markewich, who recently ran for Manhattan Surrogate, itemized
in a New York Law Journal article how many different violations of professional
ethics and disciplinary rules the attorneys in the Westchester Carvel proceedings
inflicted on Agnes Carvel.

Markewich, who now seeks over
$3 million in legal fees from Agnes’
estate, never once asserted Agnes’
right to damages from these violations
by attorneys because payment
of Markewich’s fees depends on “approval”
from Agnes’ adversaries, and
not on approval from Agnes’ executor
(Pamela Carvel) or any named
beneficiaries of Agnes’ estate, none
of whom receive notice of the Westchester
proceedings.

At every opportunity, Tom
Carvel always publicly acknowledged
his debt to Agnes as his partner for
over 50 years in life and business,
and for her loan of money that got
the whole business started. Although
Tom and Agnes declared in their
1988 Wills that they were residents
of Palm Beach County, Florida, hidden in the back pages, and small print of the
17-page documents, the New York lawyers placed a clause that the Wills must
be probated in New York, thereby guaranteeing the lawyers endless future profit
from the Carvels’ estates. Under Florida probate law only Agnes, Pamela and one
lawyer who was licensed in Florida, would have qualified to be “personal representatives”
of under Tom’s Will. The fraudsters, who planned the scheme, would
have been cut out of their complete control of everything, so they manipulated the
estate into the hands of their political cronies in Westchester.
Westchester Surrogate’s Court under Albert Emanuelli denied Agnes all income
for as long as she lived despite Tom’s Will requiring income be paid to Agnes
at least quarter annually. This was no surprise since Agnes’ prime adversaries
had Malcolm Wilson and his firm as their lawyers. Wilson was “campaign chairman”
and fund raiser for the unopposed “election” of Emanuelli as Surrogate in
1990. When Agnes’ lawyer brought up the obvious appearance of impropriety and
conflict for Emanuelli and Wilson, Emanuelli threatened from the bench that he
would never hear another case from Agnes’ lawyer as long as Emanuelli was Surrogate
if Agnes’ lawyer demanded that Emanuelli step away from the Carvel case.

Agnes’ lawyer quit that same day stating he couldn’t withstand the threats and
intimidation tactics that would put him out of business.

Westchester Surrogate’s Court under Anthony Scarpino continued to deny
Agnes the Carvels’ personal property including Tom’s famous videotapes, family
business and legal documents, and other Carvel memorabilia that Agnes and
Pamela wanted to preserve. Scarpino denied Agnes jointly-owned real estate and
corporations by turning Agnes’ property over to her adversaries without first paying
as little as Agnes’ funeral expenses.

Although Scarpino determined that Agnes’ adversaries withheld income from
Tom’s estate by “improper accounting practices,” nonetheless, Scarpino continues
to withhold all Agnes’ income from Agnes’ estate so that Pamela, as Agnes’ executor,
cannot pay lawyers or investigators to defend the estate’s rights and Agnes’
intentions. While Agnes’ adversaries use Agnes’ money to pay their legal expenses
without limit, without court approval, without scrutiny by anyone, Pamela Carvel
as executor (like Agnes before her) is denied equal treatment to that shown Agnes’
adversaries, and denied equal access to estate assets to pay professional attorneys
to defend Agnes’ rights.

This routine abuse of widows and named beneficiaries is not news to “officers
of the court”, that is, the judges and lawyers who feed like vultures on the material
remains of the dead. Only recently, the Brooklyn Surrogate was indicted for his
crimes against the beneficiaries, but that was just the tip of the iceberg, freezing
beneficiaries out of their entitlement in estates and trusts.

Westchester Surrogates Emanuelli and Scarpino turned a blind eye to criminal
activities by Agnes’ adversaries. Agnes and Pamela Carvel blew the whistle
on financial frauds harming Tom’s estate and Agnes’ money. Not only were the
Carvels’ complaints ignored, Surrogate’s Court’s harassment and intimidation of
Agnes, Pamela and their lawyers increased daily while the fraudsters continued to
operate without restriction to divert millions of Agnes’ money.

Agnes and Pamela Carvel were
ignored by the Westchester Surrogates
and ignored by Westchester
District Attorney Pirro. The FBI and
New York Attorney General Spitzer’s
Securities Division took the Carvels’
information seriously. The Attorney
General’s prosecutions resulted in
three felony convictions of financial
fraudsters, and the forced ouster of
two fraudsters who usurped control
of Carvel charities, but not before the duo had installed their cronies in control
against Agnes. To prevent further investigations into charity frauds, Agnes Carvel
was kicked off the board of the charity she founded and funded.

New York law prohibits felons from acting as executors or trustees. Surrogate’s
Court ignores this laws. Bankers Trust Company (now owned by Deutsche Bank
AG) was convicted of three felony counts and fined in federal court. Surrogate
Scarpino had worked for Bankers Trust Company, but failed to voluntarily make
this known to beneficiaries appearing before him. Bankers Trust is the bank for
Thomas Carvel’s estate. In another Westchester Surrogate’s Court estate older than
Carvel’s, that of Edmund McCormick (November 1988), although “Bankers Trust
Company” was nominated in the Will to serve as executor with Edmund’s wife
Suzanne, it was “Bankers Trust Company of New York” to whom “Letters Testamentary”
were issued as executor in January 1989. “Bankers Trust Company
of New York” did not exist until ten years later according to the New York State
Banking Department Records.

Despite the significant difference in the facts, Bankers Trust Company of New
York seized dominion and control and continues to fraudulently act as executor.
As with Agnes Carvel, the testamentary trust for Suzanne’s benefit was never
funded. Mandatory income was not paid to either widow, and they are not alone.
The usual ploy is to take the marital and QTIP tax deductions, but then to never
create the testamentary trust called for in the Will so
as to withhold all taxable income from the widow.
The income soon disappears by numerous, devious
accounting practices.

Bankers Trust draws on estate and trust money
without application to the court and without approval
of the beneficiaries. Executor-widow Suzanne McCormick
(like Agnes Carvel) is denied income from her
husband’s estate and also denied equal payment of her
legal fees as executor to oppose Bankers Trust Company’s
oppressive actions, although Bankers Trust as
a convicted felon is disqualified by law from acting as
an executor or trustee. Surrogate Scarpino refused to
recuse himself despite this appearance of potential conflict until Suzanne picketed
the Bank and newspapers exposed Scarpino’s conflicted relationship.

A similar story is repeated for Bank of New York that was recently put on
probation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for admitted money laundering and fi-
nancial frauds. Nonetheless, Bank of New York continues to act in Westchester
Surrogate’s Court as executor and trustee, drawing fees without limit or scrutiny
for years, before payment is ever made to the named beneficiaries. In the Carvel
estate, millions disappeared from accounts in the name of Thomas and Agnes
Carvel allegedly opened at Bank of New York although the Bank could not produce
any documents signed by Tom or Agnes opening such accounts. Even more
millions disappeared from Agnes’ estate accounts despite a Sheriff ’s levy restraining
the money by Pamela Carvel as Agnes’ executor in London, England.

Despite New York law, bank felons on probation continue to operate estates
and trusts to the exclusion of the named beneficiaries, yet in the Margaret McKeown
Estate, her son Kevin could get his mother’s Will probated for almost two
years although it was not contested.

Kevin also could not get
confirmed as the named executor
although he has no criminal
record. In another ploy routinely
used by Surrogate’s Courts,
Margaret McKeown’s property
(like Agnes Carvel’s) was turned
over to the Westchester Public
Administrator, not to the family.

Was it a coincidence that at-torney Frank Streng, who opposed Kevin McKeown, worked for Scarpino on
his “transition” committee from Supreme Court to Surrogate’s Court? Was it too
much to ask that the Surrogate voluntarily disclose such potential personal con-
flict? Scarpino and Streng kept this same conflict secret in the Carvel estates.
When Pamela Carvel asked Streng to oppose Agnes’ adversaries and the fees demanded
by Markewich, Streng refused. Scarpino allowed Streng to withdraw, as
Agnes’ executor’s attorney, without accountability for over $1.5 million of Streng’s
fees and payments duplicated from several sources, and leaving Pamela without
professional legal representation and without reimbursement of the funds need
to pay new professionals.

Surrogate Scarpino received “loans” from Hudson Valley Bank for $200,000
in 2001 just when the Carvel estate trials were beginning, and an additional
$100,000 in 2004 when the Surrogate denied Pamela Carvel’s demands for access
to Agnes’ funds needed to pay estate administrative expenses to defend the Estate’s
rights in Delaware, Florida, New York and England. Hudson Valley Bank’s
major stockholders are Agnes’ prime adversaries for 17 years. These are the same
adversaries who used Agnes’ charitable donations (restricted only to charitable
purposes) to pay for litigation to abuse, harass and intimidate Agnes for as long
as she lived. The same charity usurpers abuse the charity’s funds to
obstruct all defenses against these bullies by Agnes’ estate. Surrogate
Scarpino again failed to disclose this potential conflict with and appearance
of impropriety and even bribery. How can any individual
citizen know if such “loans” are ever repaid, or if the loans are just
“written off” by the Bank as a “cost of doing business”?

There appears to exist in Surrogate’s Court an organized intent
to deny named beneficiaries and
beneficiary-executors their Constitutional
rights. These violations of
U.S. law are no longer an acceptable
“standard operating procedure.” The
Old West and the Old South mentalities
must disappear forever. The
end to this abuse of Constitutional
rights by court corruption will only
happen if each and every citizen who has been victimized by the courts steps out
of the shadows of despair with stories, facts and complaints to the media, the
Governor and the U.S. Attorneys.”

Analysis:

Pamela Carvel’s struggle for more than 17 years in Westchester Surrogate’s
Court goes to the very heart of the often incestuous relationships between the Judiciary,
powerful financial institutions, influential law firms and politically connected
operatives, most often motivated by greed and self-interest, who, acting in
concert, defeat the intentions of those whose estates they parasitically feed off of.
Prior to attending last Wednesday’s court session, presided over by Judge
Scarpino, The Guardian drove up to inspect the hilltop Carvel property of some
15 or more acres, high above the Thruway in Ardsley. We were told by a local
contractor near the site that a subdivision of 12 to 15 multi-million dollar miniestate-
type houses, similar to many in the area, was planned and would be under
construction soon on the Carvel property.

A local realtor estimated that each of the 12 or more parcels in the subdivision
will be worth more than $500,000. William Griffin, who is chairman of the board
of the holding company that owns the Hudson Valley Bank, is also President of the
Thomas and Agnes Carvel Foundation, and authorized the sale of the property for
a mere $2 million to Chauncey Partners, LLC, a recently formed corporation under
the control of Daniel Amicucci; an obvious “sweetheart deal”.

Something is definitely not ‘kosher’ here. The Guardian intends to follow developments
very closely.