Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
▶ VICTIMS
Sharona Dagani, who has cerebral palsy, lost half a million dollars of a medical malpractice settlement to Graham’s theft, court records show. Confined to a wheelchair, she received $2 million as compensation for mistakes during her birth that caused the disorder.
Dagani didn’t even receive the $50,000 from the bar association because the bar committee handing out the money determined Graham acted as her financial adviser and not just her attorney. A lawyer representing Dagani and bar officials concede there is no appeal process to get
[The district attorney’s office talks] a good game. It’s good for the TV cameras, but once that’s done, you’re kind of forgotten about. There’s still not one dime given to victims.’ Thane Parton, victim of attorney Robert Graham
Dagani money.
Her mother, Joan Albstein, said Dagani, who lives in Texas, relies on money Albstein provides. Dagani’s husband also helps care for her. “She’s a quadriplegic, and she can’t do anything for herself,” said Albstein, who lives in New York.
Albstein said prosecutors and parole officials haven’t even contacted the family about restitution. “They just washed their hands of it,” Albstein said. “The only thing we heard is we would know when he was up for parole and could do our part to keep him in jail.”
Parole release
Winkler, the disbarred attorney who opened a flower shop, said she did everything expected of her by prison and parole officials.
Winkler served less than a year in prison and then was released to inhome detention in September 2017. On Sept. 12, 2018, she incorporated Sagebrush Dreams Inc. to open the Tonopah flower shop. In July 2019, she was paroled and finished the supervision in February, Corrections Department records show. Her prison sentence was 30 to 84 months, records show.
Her attorney, C. Benjamin Scroggins, told the Review-Journal she paid about $460 a month in restitution while serving her sentence. At that rate it would take her 25.9 years to pay the $143,000 ordered. Winkler did not provide records of her payments, but for her parole and home incarceration period, $460 a month would amount to about $14,000.
“I paid the restitution amount that I was required to based upon my income each and every month that I was on house arrest and it is my understanding that it was prorated amongst my victims,” she wrote in an email to the Review-Journal after hanging up on the phone interview.
Scroggins contends Winkler has 2 percent equity ownership in the flower shop, which is owned by Winkler’s mother. She did not put any money into the business but works there for the equity, he wrote in email exchanges with the Review-Journal. “The business itself has not enjoyed a net income and as such, she has not received any distributions,” he wrote.
Incorporation records show Winkler’s mother, Karen J. Brown, is a director in the business, but the documents list Metzger — Winkler’s married name — as president, secretary, treasurer and a director.
And in an effort to gain release from confinement, Winkler told the parole board in February 2019 that it was her business. “I now own a business,” she said. “I’ve opened a flower shop in Tonopah that I have a manager running right now.”
Federal case
Winkler, in emails and at the parole hearing, said she is due restitution as a victim of former Family Court Judge Steven Jones, who pleaded guilty to fraud in a fake investment scheme.
The bar association received about $6,000 on Winkler’s behalf from the Jones case between 2015 and 2020, records show. Winkler also paid $28,000 to victims between 2008 and 2010 before the state court restitution order, but prosecutors in court filings contend those payments were to victims not involved in the Clark County criminal theft case.
In a separate federal criminal case against her, Winkler was ordered to pay $47,000 in restitution and sentenced to three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to federal fraud charges in a 2015 scheme to take over and defraud homeowners associations.
During her 2016 sentencing for stealing from clients, Clark County prosecutor Raman wrote that Winkler has a history of not paying restitution, noting at the time that she had only paid $1,358 of the $47,000 ordered in the federal HOA case.
“The Defendant will not pay any significant portion of the restitution as she has demonstrated a history of not paying,” Raman wrote in a sentencing memo. “Therefore, it is a fallacy or empty promise that the victims, or through subrogation the State Bar of Nevada, will be repaid.”
Winkler victim Thompson said she was never informed of her rights under Marsy’s Law or received any help from prosecutors or parole officers. “The law has no teeth so what purpose does it serve?” she said. “The whole thing makes me feel horrible. I feel taken advantage both by Winkler and the system.”