Received demand letter from Grandma’s attorney. What should I do?

You will need an atty but what type I just don’t know, like depends whether it’s civil defense or criminal defense. I’d guess it will depend on what type of action taken against you and by whom. Personally I would not contact APS. If APS contacts you, then your attorney responds.

This is not a DIY, you need an attorney & if it means a 10k retainer, & you don’t have it, ask if they will take maybe half AND you do a personal bond for like 50-100k. Make sure you can be bondable. Bonds aren’t just for criminal stuff but also often needed for someone named Executor for probate or a partner in a bigger deal with a governmental agency (like your a vendor for city contracts). Look to make sure you “fit” being bondable before you mention this.

BUT whatever the case you imo
- must do a very detailed timeline on all the actions in your bank accounts & in conversations with her to share with your attorney. Id suggest you get on this ASAP, like buy a Intuit / Quickbooks type of product to input all this into. And the timeline goes back 6 years. Like you can show your bank accounts that get your salary, dividends, spending and then that 100k influx & the 10k withdrawals since then. If you show no big spends or assets acquired over that period of time; and you keep your job or usual income into your bank accounts, this should show that you got no benefit from the 100k if this was the case.

- if you did buy stuff, like new car or house or property, or big expensive vacay, you imo need to be able to show that these spends make sense for your income or the income of you & your spouse.
- I’d get last 6 years of taxes too. If you don’t have them, you request these from IRS & ASAP before tax season hits.
- Pull your credit reports from the big 3.
- go to your bank and get the paperwork on that 100k check. There needed to be paperwork on any $ move over $10k. There's federal requirements on this as part of terrorism & drug $ tracking. Bank will have it. You want this. It may have been done on the 10k withdrawals too, so get the paperwork on these as well.

- what did she do with the cash? If you kinda know how she spent it, do notes on that.
All these things you take to attorney you find. Most criminal defense guys have associates who deal with civil. You’ll likely have to do lots of calling around as most criminal guys do drug & murder & don’t do white collar (embezzlement, fraud, contracts). Yours are white collar issues.

The WalMart tort $, write up a note on what you remember on this. If there was a health care bill component to her lawsuit that was part of the settlement $ paid to her AND she was on MediCARE at the time, if this was after 2009/2010, the MediCARE Secondary Payor Act is in force. It’s a federal law. It requires that should you get a settlement and the health care costs paid in anyway by Medicare were included in the settlement that you are required to repay Medicare the $ you were paid for those care costs. I’d be like white on rice to find out this info as it will show she had a pattern of bad behavior before you ever came into the picture. Your attorney should be able to use this as leverage. It will get ugly.

You write “trustee of the Estate”, to me that does not make sense.
Either there’s an Estate which has Executor or Personal Representative & the actions were done in probate court for Estate of a deceased & which had grannie as a heir who got a 100k distribution from Estate assets,
OR
there is a Trustee of a Trust & these actions follow however the Trust was set up legally years before which the Trustee has authority to do.
Which is it? It imho will make HUGE difference as how to approach.

The attorney who contacted you, how are they representing Grannie? They should have said this in the letter to you. So What type of attorney are they & if it’s a firm, look at their website to see what kind they are.

As someone who has coded the transaction information searches for fed reporting requirements, I assure you the transfers have been reported because (1) the $100,000 deposit was reported;
(2) the actual minimum reporting per transaction threshold is less than $10,000 - lots of crooks thought $9,999 was a smart withdrawal since the publicly reported number was $10,000;
(3) the total of large non-scheduled withdraws over a 6-12 month period combined is evaluated (scheduled or monthly/quarterly repeated withdrawals like mortgage or tax payments are ignored); and
(4) Actually depositing and then withdrawing in large transactions the same amount within a 12 month period sets of the money laundering monitors.

Over 99% of reported transactions are ignored because the person involved doesn't have any criminal history or even a history of flagged transactions. Unfortunately because the withdrawals were cash and the feds cannot easily follow the cash and you are going to have multiple reports from this one bad idea, it's very likely someone is going to come knocking on your door someday - or maybe just a letter; when/if someone does, please remember you don't have to answer just because a question has been asked. Please have an attorney review any response you make - always remember some fed will be getting a promotion based on how many cases of money laundering and/or tax invasion they discover, don't allow yourself become one of their numbers.

OK. You committed fraud. You did so knowingly in accepting the check, depositing it, and doling out the money to your grandmother knowing she is not claiming it. Your Grandmother has committed fraud, as well. Taxpayers were funding a woman with 100,000.00 and you were assisting in this knowingly. As POA for my brother I have to keep meticulous records of expenditures. I keep a record book. I keep a diary. I keep file folders. I monthly send him an accounting and keep one in my own file.
You do have your bank statements for withdrawal, which you also carefully and knowingly did in amounts under 10,000 so that it would not be called into question. Were I a juror I would not be looking on any of this lightly at all.
You have been honest with us in what you did, and that you did it with knowledge a forethought, and knowingly.
I would now hire a lawyer and be as honest with that person as you were with us.

I would let them do the next move. You responded and provided documents showing a transfer of sorts.

This is what is meant by "what a wicked web we weave when we practice to deceive".

Hopefully you don't pay to high a price for helping her defraud public assistance. But education is expensive in a classroom or out.

You watching her do this for years makes you as guilty as her in my opinion, her keeping the 100k would have not been a problem for you had she not retained an attorney to get her money from you, again. This is the end result of fraud, someone pays.

My goodness gracious. Every day I become more and more appreciative of the family I have. As to your situation, I'm sorry I don't know what you should do now other than hire your own attorney. Obviously you never should have cashed that check.

Sofrustrated87, glad you forwarded the bank statements to show that you did, in fact, return the money to your Grandmother.

Now my question, I wonder if Grandmother is using said money for her own care, or is still "hiding" the money so she can still have the taxpayers pay for her care? Now, to me, THAT is fraud. Your Grandmother sounded like she fully understood she would lose her benefits if she reported the money which is complex, thus no dementia was being shown..

9.    In the demand letter the attorney concluded you are holding her money in "constructive trust."   My immediate thought: he/she's making a conclusion which may or may not be an inferred threat.   

The best definition I could find is this:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/constructive_trust ; 

I think if infers that you could be "unjustly enriched" by holding the funds if you failed to transfer them (back) to GM.   

10.    I'm uncertain about contacting APS.  You don't want to raise the issue of possible fraud, which would probably obligate them to contact the IRS.   OTOH, you want to be preemptive in protecting yourself.

I don't have good enough insights on this to make good suggestions.

11.   Many people here believe they have a POA or DPOA "over" someone.  That's an erroneous interpretation.   The powers that are granted are fiduciary ones, and the proxy (which you are) acts on behalf of the individual who created the document.

No one HAS any authority OVER anyone else through POAs or DPOAs.   Proxies have obligations, a different relationship.

And I would seriously consider resigning and advising your GM in writing, sent by certified mail (none of this texting stuff).   My hesitation though is an inferential guilt, so I would also discuss this with the attorney you find.

But I sure as heck wouldn't act or do anything else pursuant to the authority granted.    You need to get yourself completely out of that obligation.

If I've erred in any of my conclusions, please let me know.    I think you do have some options, but agree that you need a very specific practice area for representation.     And I'd be very proactive about finding someone.

Wait a minute.

The executor sent you a check made out to YOU?

I think you need to be in touch with the executor to clarify if those funds were yours to keep.

Perhaps gma exercised her right of refusal. In which case you owe her nothing.

Enough, already. Point taken, I’m sure.

I have to say that I find the continued flatulation of the OP disturbing. Wait... no... that isn’t right... that’s farting. Flagellation. That’s it. 

As bible verses are commonly used around AC - I’m going to use one of my favorites. John 8:7 “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”  

Speaking only for myself - I know that I’ve certainly made some bad choices in my life. And yes, some of them illegal.  I bought alcohol before I was 21. I bought pot years before it was legal. And, I suppose I even defrauded the government when I lied a little about the amount I used as a charitable deduction. 

So I purpose - aren’t there shades of grey in our “sinning”, our mistakes? Or is it all so black and white?

Dear Frustrated, I am writing to try to cheer you up and calm you down, with a story you can relate to. A few years before he died, my appalling father sent my older sister a lump of money. She was surprised and thanked him for the gift, then split it between herself, our younger sister and me. We also wrote and thanked him. The only reason we could think of for his first-ever generosity was another attempt to set us at loggerheads with each other, one of his nicer tricks. A couple of years later he asked for it back again. Younger sister has spent hers on irrigation pipe, not possible. Then I got a lawyer’s letter accusing my older sister and me of theft and breach of our professional trust obligations. Lots of head scratching, and it seemed possible that the money was hiding insurance fraud (it seemed likely he had nicked a ring from his then wife and claimed it as an insurance loss). I wrote back to him asking if it was related to the ring saga, sent a copy to the lawyer, and never heard from them again. Father then complained to my and my sister’s professional bodies of breach of trust. Both eventually said it was a domestic not a professional matter (subtext: a can of worms we don't want to know about). Just lovely!

Paying for a lawyer’s ‘frightener’ letter is a cheap, common and often effective strategy, and lawyers don’t investigate whether the allegations are true. I have dealt with my appalling father’s allegations against my mother, grandfather, me or my sisters for most of my life (since to my own primary school principal) so I have runs on the board in dealing with it, and you are not the only one with crooked family members. Stay away from Grandma and close to your coming baby. Lots of love, Margaret