The following narrative was written by Kyle Shayna Hamilton (born Mary Frances Ham, legal name change in 1976) in September, 2004 as a “nutshell version” of the events in Rensselaer, Indiana pertaining to her mother Martha (Brusnahan) Ham, her death, and the appropriation of her funds. Kyle has extensive documentation, and can make them available at your request.
My mother, Martha Elizabeth Brusnahan, was born and raised in Rensselaer, Indiana. She moved to Chicago, Illinois, and married Donald Ham in 1946. Their first child died in 1949; I was born in 1954 in Chicago, and was raised as an only child. We moved to Dolton, Illinois (a Chicago suburb) in 1957; this remained the family home until April, 1997.
I moved to Minnesota in 1972 to attend college. In 1982 I moved to the Los Angeles area, where I still live with my husband, Jerry. I am a respected community activist, and a licensed foster parent.
My father died September 28, 1996, in his own home (after ten years as an invalid with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). A few weeks later, my mother was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, an incurable form of cancer. I was told she had only a few weeks to a few months at best to live. My mother was admitted to Saint Anthony’s Nursing Home in Crown Point, Indiana, in December, 1996.
In spring 1997, my mother ’s sister, Mary "Jiggs" Kobek used her power of attorney to remove my mother from Saint Anthony’s. Jiggs was handling all of my mother ’s financial affairs at that time. The family home in Dolton was sold in April, 1997, and a condo was purchased in Rensselaer, Indiana, near Jiggs’ home, for my mother to live in. (Rensselaer is a small town in northwest Indiana with a population of approximately 5000. It is the largest town and also the county seat for Jasper County. I had spent a lot of time in Rensselaer during my childhood, since my mother ’s family was from there. I am, therefore, extremely familiar with the small town lifestyle, with its distrust of "out-of-towners" and active gossip mill.)
I was adamantly opposed to my mother’s move to Rensselaer; I was very satisfied with the care that she was being given at Saint Anthony’s, and did not feel that her health would permit her to live safely on her own. Jiggs, however, overruled me. (I later discovered a number of irregularities in Jiggs’ handling of my mother ’s finances at that time which resulted in the loss of a significant portion of my mother ’s assets. I believe that my discovery of these irregularities is one cause of Jiggs’ subsequent false accusations against me, which have resulted in the current legal nightmare.)
My mother lived in her condo, and I visited regularly. Hers health appeared to have stabilized. In June 2000, my mother wished to preplan and prepay her funeral arrangements. She also wished to set up a living trust and related estate planning documents. My husband and I were present when all of these arrangements were made. My mother wanted me to be her successor trustee, but I declined because Jiggs lived closer to her and already held her power of attorney. My mother ’s attorney, Ned Tonner, was to send copies of the completed documents to me for my records since I was, and always have been, my parents’ sole heir. (Ned Tonner is also Rensselaer’s city attorney; he is also the attorney for Jiggs and Joe Kobek. He has been deeply involved in subsequent events, even though he was removed from the case for conflict of interest.)
In August 2000, I had still not received copies of the estate planning documents from Tonner. I called Tonner to check on the status. Tonner told me that he had never drawn up the documents because Jiggs instructed him not to, using her power of attorney. This had been done without my or my mother ’s knowledge; a breach of Tonner’s fiduciary responsibility to my mother. Furthermore, Tonner informed me that Jiggs had instructed him to draw up a petition for Jiggs to become my mother ’s Guardian. Tonner had drawn up these papers but had not yet filed them. (Tonner would be representing Jiggs in this action, although he subsequently billed and was paid for this work out of my mother ’s funds.)
The next day, I heard from another family member that Jiggs had been ranting and raving that I was a liar and a thief. I was subsequently told that Jiggs even make these false allegations to her friend J. Phillip McGraw, one of the two local judges. (Judge McGraw appears to have gone on vendetta against me since that time, and has controlled the subsequent actions in his capacity as judge. I believe that Judge McGraw’s actions have, in many cases, violated both my mother’s and my civil rights and constitutional rights under color of authority; it appears that he has also sanctioned numerous violations of Indiana state law.)
None of these original allegations were ever investigated, even by other family members. It would have been easy to refute these allegations; as the furniture which Jiggs alleged that I had stolen was in clear view in my mother ’s home, except for one chair which was in the possession of our cousin, Janet. I had not even been in Indiana within the previous three months.
At this point, I flew to Indiana to inform my mother that her Trust had never been established, and that Jiggs was instituting guardianship proceedings against her. Tonner confirmed this to her. My mother instructed Tonner to cancel Jiggs’ power of attorney immediately. She also ordered Tonner to draw up the Trust and estate planning documents which he should have done three months earlier. She further ordered Tonner to draw up documents naming me as her new power of attorney, as well as successor trustee of her Trust. These documents were signed and executed on September 11, 2000, and recorded at the Jasper county courthouse.
I spent the next two weeks locating and transferring assets into the newly established Martha E. Ham Revocable Trust. Tonner never informed my mother or me that the Trust should have been set up with us as co-Trustees, since most of the assets which went into the Trust were owned by both of us as joint property. As a result, thousands of dollars of my assets were transferred solely to my mother without my (or my mother ’s) knowledge. (I believe this was malpractice on Tonner’s part. In addition, many of these investments had been located in states other than Indiana. Since they were now part of an Indiana trust, Judge McGraw eventually took jurisdiction over them; I believe that McGraw did this in violation of Federal and state law.)
In January, 2001, my mother drove her car up on the sidewalk and almost through the front of the local beauty shop during a bad snowstorm. She got out of the car but left it in gear, potentially injuring herself or others. The beauty shop employees called me and I called Ned Tonner, as well as the Rensselaer Police. It was immediately apparent that it was no longer safe for my mother to drive; I believe that she had been suffering transient ischemic attacks (TIAs or ‘mini-strokes’).
Tonner told me that he had conferred with my mother ’s doctor; he agreed that she could no longer safely live on her own. Tonner said that he believed that it was time for a guardianship to be established for my mother. Tonner told me that he would represent my mother, but would not oppose a guardianship petition. Tonner directed me to another local attorney, Richard O’Brien, to file the necessary paperwork on my behalf.
Tonner also told me that Judge McGraw would not allow me to move Martha out of Rensselaer (into my home in California), and arranged for another of Tonner’s clients, Tonjua Gray, to be my mother ’s caregiver. Gray’s rates (contract drawn up by Tonner) were several times the local rate for such services. Gray also gained illegal access to my mother ’s financial and other proprietary information by opening private mail and by posing as my mother ’s daughter-in-law (my mother had no daughter-in-law). When I reported these illegal acts to Detective Deric Beier of the Rensselaer Police in early 2002, he declined to investigate, citing the connection to City Attorney Tonner.
In early 2002, Tonner convinced my mother to sign legal documents, although she had been declared legally incompetent a year earlier. Judge McGraw then used those documents to strip me of my legal authority to care for my mother.
The bottom line is that the guardianship which was established over my mother on February 20, 2001, by Judge McGraw was legally unnecessary and contained numerous conditions which were diametrically opposed to my mother ’s wishes, and which violated both my mother ’s and my constitutional and civil rights. I (and numerous other legal experts who have seen the documentation) believe that Judge McGraw’s orders flagrantly exceeded his authority, and reflected his severe bias against me due to his friend Jiggs Kobek’s false accusations as well as his clearly stated prejudice against “outsiders”. As a result, my mother spent the last year of her life involuntarily confined to a private pay hospital room (a hospital with a very poor reputation; however, the Guardian-ad-litem appointed by Judge McGraw is its Chairman of the Board…what a coincidence.), and her assets were put in control of several Rensselaer attorneys who had numerous, acknowledged conflicts of interest. The Guardian/successor Trustee appointed by Judge McGraw, Richard Comingore, happens to be President of the Rensselaer City Council. These attorneys hired other local attorneys to represent them, until almost every attorney in the Rensselaer phone book was being paid out of my mother ’s funds (over $50,000.00, plus over $40,000.00 to Jasper County Hospital, plus approximately $40,000.00 to “caregiver” Gray)… on Judge McGraw’s orders. Aside from paying Jasper County Hospital, and the other local attorneys, Comingore paid less than $3000.00 to other vendors on my mother ’s behalf.
My mother died February 01, 2003, under suspicious circumstances which may have included a head injury from a fall (incurred during a physical fight with her Guardian, Richard Comingore, according to hospital staff).
When Comingore called to inform me of my mother’s death, he told me that I would be arrested if I tried to come to Rensselaer to attend my mother’s funeral. My mother was buried without an autopsy (on Judge’s orders), and without her only daughter’s presence. (Rensselaer lawyers billed her estate for attending her funeral. Ned Tonner even served as a pallbearer.) An arrest warrant (on outrageously false charges) was forwarded to California, and I spent ten days in the Los Angeles County Jail, again in a flagrant violation of my civil and constitutional rights. A Los Angeles County Judge finally ordered the Assistant District Attorney to investigate, and I was released from jail. The Jasper County Chief Deputy Prosecutor, Kathryn B. O’Neall, subsequently told my’s lawyer that Judge McGraw had told her to “find something to charge her (me) with”. O’Neall obliged, and has filed six Felony and six Misdemeanor counts against me. I am facing over 20 years in prison on these charges, as well as tens of thousands of dollars in fines. My legal fees so far have been in excess of $40,000.00, plus the cost of dozens of trips to Indiana over the past four years. The emotional cost has been incalculable.
Jasper County authorities have refused to drop the false charges against me. They are trying to force me to accept a plea bargain; if I plead “guilty” to even a misdemeanor charge, it will drastically compromise my ability to sue Jasper County and the local businesses/individuals involved in the multiple offenses against my mother and me.
I have learned that these same people have done the same thing to other families; apparently this has been a long-standing pattern.