Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Chester County Angel Trust officials say they are stepping aside
The adoptive parents of a Chester County boy whose 3-year-old brother was beaten, tortured and eventually killed by their mother’s new boyfriend, abuse that shocked the world, have for the first time received a full accounting of the trust that was set up to benefit him as he grew older.
The disclosure of the financial overview of the Chester County Angel Trust, set up with funds from people horrified by what had happened to young Scott “Scotty” McMillan and his older brother nine years ago, and hoping to help the surviving child on his road to recovery, came as both of the cotrustees of the funds announced, without explanation, that they intend to end their relationship with the trust in the near future.
Knowing how much money the trust holds — a little over $62,000 — still leaves the parents wondering why the lead trustee, attorney Lawrence “Skip” Persick of King of Prussia, has to date refused to release any of the funds from the trust for any purpose, even those they feel would benefit the now14-year-old boy. Despite their requests over the years for money to pay for summer camp, counseling, martial arts training, or music lessons, the boy has received nothing from the trust, they said.
“It’s so strange,” said the boy’s adoptive father — whose name, like that of his adoptive mother, the boy’s paternal aunt, is being withheld to protect the privacy of the boy. “Everyone is baffled by it. It’s impossible to get anywhere with him, and even though everybody has an opinion on what the
money should be for, no one has ever told us what it is officially for.”
Persick has declined to answer any questions posed by the Media News Group about his handling of the trust, his refusal to pay for what otherwise might be considered legitimate expenses for the boy, and how long he intended to remain trustee. Information for this story came from e-mails and other correspondence sent to and from Persick and provided by the boy’s parents.
“It’s an orphan’s court matter involving a child,” said Persick, of the law firm of Weber Gallagher, in an email sent Thursday to a reporter after providing the boy’s parents with the financial document. “I can’t comment.”
On Friday, he sent an email to the boy’s parents saying that he planned to prepare a petition “asking the Chester County Orphan’s Court to replace me as trustee of the Angel Trust.” That news comes almost a month after a representative of the co-trustee, S&T Wealth Management of Indiana, Pa., signaled it, too, would step aside as trustee.
“I understand that this may take some time to be prepared and heard by the court,” Persick said in his e-mail to the couple. “Until that time I will continue to serve and search for a financial institution to serve as co-trustee with whomever the court chooses to replace me.”
An attorney who served as the boy’s legal guardian in the months after “Scotty’s” murder, Jeremiah Kane of West Chester, and who has served as an informal advisor to the parents, said he hoped the anticipated change in trustees would help them secure funds from the Angel Trust.
“The revelation that Mr. Persick is resigning as cotrustee after the news from earlier in the week that the bank is also resigning as co-trustee is a little bit mystifying but ultimately good news for the beneficiary of this trust,” Kane said Friday.
“It has been years of frustration for the family of the child to obtain funds and information from Mr. Persick,” Kane said. “They have attempted to obtain funds in an effort to help the child overcome the events of his childhood. Why it has been such a struggle has been a very frustrating process for the family.
“At this point the family looks forward to working with a more cooperative trustee and using the funds donated by generous people for the benefit of their child,” he said.
A new trustee would be appointed by a Common Pleas Court judge sometime in the future.
Persick has been at odds with the boy’s parents for some time, declining their requests for funds to assist with his life. The father said in an interview Thursday that the only purpose Persick ever allowed that the money would be permitted for was post-high school education costs or, failing that, a lump sum distributed to the boy when he turns 25.
But the parents have said they worry that whatever trauma the boy is experiencing now from the brutality he endured in 2014 may have detrimental effects on him as he grows through his teenage years. Acting to counterbalance those impacts now would pay dividends in the future, they say.
The youth, a “very smart” “very bright” child who attends public schools in the northern part of the county and is one of multiple children in the family, is already showing signs of addictive behavior, the father said. He is glued to computer games and has few friends outside the gaming community.
“He shows no drive, except to be absorbed in computer games,” the father said. “It’s alarming behavior.”
On Jan 29, a representative of S & T Wealth Management, the bank where the funds for the trust are now held, sent a letter to Persick informing him that it intended to relinquish its role as co-trustee, and asked Persick to inform her what bank would be used for the funds going forward within 60 days.
On Feb. 1, Deborah Robertson, the bank’s chief fiduciary officer, sent a second letter reiterating its intention to leave the trust. In addition, Robertson said that she had been contacted by the boy’s parents about the trust, and that she believed Persick should handle their requests for documents related to it.
“We strongly encourage you to respond to this request in an appropriate fashion as we do not view such a request as unreasonable” under the state law governing trusts, she wrote. That code permits the beneficiaries of trusts to get semi-regular updates on the value of the trust and its investment portfolio, if any, from the trustee — in this case either the bank or Persick.
The letter and the bank’s intention to withdraw came without explanation. The first notification from the bank was sent to Persick the day following publication of an article about the Chester County Angel Trust by the Media News Group reporting that the boy had not received “one penny” of the funds donated for his benefit.
On Thursday, after inquiries from the parents about the financial report, Persick sent them each a copy of the 14-page report. It covers the period from Oct. 1, 2022 to Dec. 31, 2022, and lists all of the investments made in stocks and bonds, their growth, and the current market value of the trust, detailed at $62,379. The only disbursements listed totaled $827.
According to both parents, it was the first time they had ever seen a formal, complete breakdown of the trust’s assets and expenses. In the past, Persick had sent them letters informing them of the amount in the trust — but those apparently came infrequently. In 2019, for instance, he reported that the trust had $43,000 in assets. In 2021, he said the amount had grown to around $65,000. The initial amount of money initially donated to the trust was around $38,000, he said.
The trust was formed in November 2014 with some fanfare by then-county District Attorney Tom Hogan, whose office would prosecute “Scotty’s” killer, Gary Fellenbaum; his wife, Amber Fellenbaum; and “Scotty” and his brother’s mother, Jillian Tait. All three are serving state prison sentences. Gary Fellenbaum a life sentence without parole. The older brother was also beaten and abused but survived.
The trust was established to handle those donations and help the boy “on his journey to healing,” according to one of those quoted in the press conference announcing its establishment. All the money that was sent from all over the world would be placed in care of the trust, so the funds would be protected and insure that “all donations are used for the direct benefit (of the surviving brother,)” Hogan’s press release stated.
A copy of the trust document, which was set up by Persick and an attorney with Persick’s thenlaw firm, Lamb McErlane of West Chester, was sent a year later to Tamara Wilson, an advocate for the older brother with CASA Youth Advocated of Delaware and Chester County. (She could not be reached for comment Friday.)
The document itself does not appear to include any specifics of how the funds would be dispersed to the boy or when or for what purposes, except to say that it is “for his benefit.” It left the authority for dispersals in the sole discretion of Persick.
In an interview, the boy’s
adoptive father said that he had grown frustrated over the years with Persick for his refusal to grant any requests for funds. “He typically responds and says no,” the man said, noting that there are occasions when Persick had not responded to him at all.
“It’s always ‘No,’ or ‘You have to do this or that and then maybe I’ll get back to you,” he said. “I don’t understand that.”
In January, Persick sent the two parents a letter essentially denying their requests for funds to send the boy to summer camp and to pay for karate or drum lessons, calling those “normal costs of raising a child.” If a professional psychologist did recommend those activities, Persick said, he would “consider” a distribution.
In that e-mail, Persick did not address whether he still maintained that the trust funds could be used only for college, as the father said he had been told years before. He said only that the funds “were donated by caring individuals from around the world to generally benefit (the boy.)”
In his interview, the adoptive father said he has concerns about what will happen when S & T relinquishes its trusteeship. Already, Persick has let the couple know that he has had difficulty finding a financial institution that is willing to handle the funds without cost, as S & T had done.
A change in the co-trustees by Orphan’s Court would be ordered by one of three judges now hearing such cases: President Judge John Hall, Judge Bret Binder, or Judge Nicole Forzato.