Ill-prepared guardians

Montgomery said lawyers generally do a fine job, but he wants to work with local socialservices agencies to recruit and train volunteer guardians.

Even when family members become guardians, it doesn’t guarantee a ward will fare well, as with the case of Tommy Croft.

Croft, 28, has a mild mental disability and attention-deficit disorder, but customers at the Home Depot near Powell mainly know him by his eternal smile and willingness to help. He earns about $10 an hour working full time at a job he has had for about seven years.

When a Probate Court investigator said Croft needed a guardian in 2007 because his mental disability would make him a “risk for exploitation,” the court’s investigator couldn’t know that Croft’s own mother would be the one exploiting him. She was appointed guardian of her son in April that year.

Two years later, Tommy Croft moved in with his grandparents after his unemployed mom lost her home. His grandmother discovered some oddities in his checking account — a withdrawal for a cellphone bill, but Tommy didn’t have a cellphone. Money had been taken to pay a baby-clothing store, but Tommy doesn’t have children.

The Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities investigated and found that at least $1,206 — equal to about three weeks’ pay — had been withdrawn from Tommy’s account without his permission.

His grandmother decided against pressing charges, but a magistrate with the Franklin County Probate Court removed Tommy’s mother as his guardian in December 2009.

“She kept taking Tommy’s money, and grandma wanted to make sure it never happened again,” said Aileen Burnside, Tommy’s developmental-disabilities-board caseworker. “It’s wrong for anyone, but it’s even worse to take advantage of someone you are supposed to be protecting from just that kind of behavior.”

His mother did not return phone messages seeking comment.

Court records show that wards are routinely mistreated by family members, even as they file reports saying all is well.

Their actions often are motivated by greed and easy access to cash.

The Dispatch reviewed cases in which a daughter was accused of a spending spree with her dad’s credit cards shortly after becoming his guardian, where siblings fought over the profits of a home sale before their mother was placed in a nursing home, and where family members challenged one another to be guardian of an estate worth more than $1 million.

One large factor is the lack of guardian training. Some family members weren’t aware that they couldn’t buy things such as a car with the ward’s money unless approved by the court.

Nearly 60 of the Ohio probate courts surveyed do not require training to be a guardian. In counties that do, training programs vary from 30 minutes to eight hours.

In Franklin County, the training is a 90-minute video.

Today, Tommy Croft can still be found smiling near the contractor loading dock at Home Depot. He continues living in a home with his grandparents, but now he has two lawyers who are co-guardians to help him handle his pay.

Tommy maintains a relationship with his mother but has no idea that she was removed as guardian or was spending his money without permission.

“I love my mom,” he said. “I’m lucky people help take care of me.”