An Alameda County Superior Court judge will be arraigned today on charges that he stole at least $1.6 million from a 97-year-old neighbor in the Berkeley hills over more than a decade.
Judge Paul Seeman, 57, was arrested Thursday in his courtroom at
the Wiley Manuel Courthouse. He is being held at the Glenn Dyer Jail, which is next door, in lieu of $525,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in court at 2 p.m. today.
Alameda County District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Teresa
Drenick said, "The alleged conduct of Judge Seeman is disturbing and disappointing."
Drenick said, "His alleged conduct is in no way a reflection of
the outstanding caliber of judicial officers serving Alameda County."
Seeman, who is a Democrat, was appointed by former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in March 2009.
He served as a court commissioner for Alameda County Superior
Court from 2004 to 2009 and served as a referee pro tem for the county's Juvenile Court from 1991 to 2004.
According to a probable cause declaration filed in court by
Berkeley police officers, who investigated the judge for more than two years, Seeman stole thousands of dollars from his neighbor, Anne Nutting, after her husband, Lee Nutting, died in 1999 at age 90.
The declaration says Seeman sold off Anne Nutting's art collection
and other possessions, tried to bar her from her own home and used her garage to store his 1958 Ford Thunderbird.
Seeman initially befriended Nutting in December 1998 after her
husband suffered a fall at the couple's home on Santa Barbara Road in Berkeley and police deemed the home to be uninhabitable due to hoarding, according to the declaration. The Nuttings then moved into the Radisson Hotel at the Berkeley Marina.
Seeman offered to help the Nuttings because they were all alone
and had no one to rely on because they had no family, no children and no friends, the statement says.
In January 1999, Seeman obtained a durable power of attorney for
the Nuttings after finding $1 million worth of stock certificates and
uncashed dividend checks in their house, according to the statement.
Lee Nutting died on Dec. 29, 1999, and between April and June
2000, Seeman arranged the sale of two properties the Nuttings owned in Santa Cruz, according to Berkeley police.
By August 2004, Seeman had taken over almost all of Anne Nutting's financial affairs, putting his name on her bank accounts as joint tenant and on her investment accounts as a transferee on death, the declaration states.
There was more than $2.2 million in the accounts at that time, according to the statement.
Nutting lived at the Radisson Hotel for nine years because Seeman
did not want her to return to her home and tried to get her to move into senior housing, Berkeley police said.
Nutting finally moved back to her home in 2007 and obtained the
help of an attorney who revoked Seeman's durable power of attorney and asked that Seeman remove his name from all of her bank accounts and stop handling her financial affairs, according to the statement.
However, Seeman didn't remove his name from any of Nutting's
accounts and continued to maintain control over her taxes and safe deposit boxes, according to the declaration.
In March 2010, Nutting's attorney went to Berkeley police and
reported that Nutting, who was 97 at the time, was a victim of financial elder abuse at the hands of Seeman, the statement said.
Nutting died the following month on April 17, 2010.
According to the probable cause statement, all Superior Court
judges must file statements of economic interests, signed under penalty of perjury, declaring all sources of income and personal loans but Seeman failed to disclose a $250,000 personal loan from Nutting.
The statement says Seeman also failed to report investments
totaling more than $1.4 million in 40 local properties between March 2003 and June 2009.
Seeman earned his law degree from the University of California at
Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law and his bachelor's degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Prior to working as a Juvenile Court referee and a court
commissioner, he worked as a deputy county counsel for the Alameda County Counsel's Office and for many years as a sole practitioner.
--Bay City News--
