In Court, My Stepmom Said I Lost My Mind — Until The Judge Removed His Glasses And… — Transcript

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1. 0:00I sat at the defense table
2. 0:01with my hands folded in my lap
3. 0:03and counted the ceiling tiles
4. 0:05while my stepmother told a federal magistrate
5. 0:07that I couldn't manage my own checkbook
6. 0:0942 tiles off white
7. 0:13one water stain shaped like the state of Oklahoma
8. 0:15near the back wall I know this
9. 0:18because I had been inside my own head for 11 months
10. 0:21learning to stay very very still
11. 0:23Patricia Voss was seated three feet away from me
12. 0:26at the opposing table
13. 0:27she was wearing the pearl earrings my father gave her
14. 0:30on their fifth wedding anniversary
15. 0:32she had dressed herself in widow's grief
16. 0:34the way other women dress for brunch
17. 0:36carefully with accessories chosen to complete the look
18. 0:40her attorney had just finished
19. 0:41telling Magistrate Judge Helen Carraway
20. 0:43that I exhibited quote
21. 0:45consistent signs of cognitive deterioration
22. 0:48and financial disorganization
23. 0:50consistent with early stage executive dysfunction
24. 0:53the clinical language had the intended effect
25. 0:56two of the jurors in the gallery shifted in their seats
26. 0:59my half brother Marcus who had not called me once
27. 1:02in the 14 months since our father's funeral
28. 1:05leaned forward
29. 1:05with an expression that looked almost like concern
30. 1:08let me ask you something have you ever been in a room
31. 1:12where the story about you was so polished
32. 1:14so well rehearsed
33. 1:15that you started to wonder for half a second
34. 1:18if it might be true my name is Renata Voss
35. 1:21I am 34 years old
36. 1:24I hold a master's degree in forensic accounting
37. 1:27and I spent six years as a senior investigator
38. 1:29for a firm that consulted with the SEC
39. 1:32I have helped dismantle shell company structures
40. 1:35on four continents
41. 1:36I have testified as an expert witness
42. 1:38in 11 federal proceedings
43. 1:41Patricia called me a girl who couldn't balance a budget
44. 1:44she had been in my father's life since I was 12
45. 1:47he met her at a charity auction
46. 1:49eight months after my mother's death
47. 1:51a quiet meticulous woman
48. 1:53who died of a blood disorder
49. 1:54that took 18 months to kill her
50. 1:56and never once complained
51. 1:58Patricia arrived with gallery credentials
52. 2:00a warm handshake
53. 2:02and a talent for making my father feel less alone
54. 2:05she was good at the early work
55. 2:07the grief management she cooked
56. 2:11she remembered birthdays
57. 2:13she made our house feel inhabited again
58. 2:16what she was doing with the other hand
59. 2:18I wouldn't understand until after the funeral
60. 2:21my father a civil engineer
61. 2:23who designed the drainage infrastructure
62. 2:25for half the suburbs north of the city
63. 2:27died of a cerebral hemorrhage 16 months ago
64. 2:30he was 61 he had been in declining health for two years
65. 2:35but the end was fast
66. 2:36three days from the first symptom to the ICU
67. 2:39to the quiet room
68. 2:40where I held his hand and told him I loved him
69. 2:42while a monitor beeped its way to silence
70. 2:45Patricia was in the hospital cafe
71. 2:47I know because she texted me a photo of her coffee
72. 2:51the estate attorney called me
73. 2:52four days after the burial
74. 2:55my father had revised his will 20 months before he died
75. 2:58the house went to Patricia
76. 3:01the investment partnership he had built over 30 years
77. 3:0411 commercial properties a managed equity portfolio
78. 3:07a municipal bond ladder
79. 3:09assets totaling just under $5 million
80. 3:12went to me as sole trustee
81. 3:14Patricia had known about this revision for four months
82. 3:18she found the amendment in his home office
83. 3:20during one of his cardiology appointments
84. 3:22I know the exact date she found it
85. 3:24because four months before my father died
86. 3:26she opened a business checking account in Nevada
87. 3:28under an LLC named Cornerstone Advisory Partners
88. 3:32and the first transfer into that account for $11,000
89. 3:35came from my father's partnership operating fund
90. 3:37the following Tuesday she moved money in careful
91. 3:41quiet increments
92. 3:43nothing that would trigger an automated threshold
93. 3:46over four months she redirected just under $340,000
94. 3:51through two Nevada LLCs
95. 3:52and one Wyoming holding company
96. 3:54all registered through Nominee Services
97. 3:57all flowing eventually
98. 3:58into a joint brokerage account
99. 4:00she shared with a man named Garrett Ploom
100. 4:02a commercial contractor
101. 4:04she had been seeing for two years
102. 4:06including the last eight months of my father's life
103. 4:09but I am getting ahead of myself
104. 4:11because the important thing is
105. 4:13what happened in the courtroom
106. 4:15Patricia's strategy was elegant in its simplicity
107. 4:18she had hired a psychiatrist
108. 4:20a doctor Leonard Fay who submitted a 12 page
109. 4:23clinical assessment of my mental competency
110. 4:26he based his conclusions on a two hour phone interview
111. 4:29with Patricia
112. 4:30a set of bank statements she had selectively printed
113. 4:33and a single voicemail I had left my father
114. 4:35three months before his death
115. 4:37in which I sounded according to his report
116. 4:40disoriented and emotionally disregulated
117. 4:43I had been Collie Ng to tell my father
118. 4:46his cardiologist's office
119. 4:47had left a message at my number by mistake
120. 4:50I was not disoriented I was annoyed about parking
121. 4:54she filed for emergency conservatorship
122. 4:56claiming I was mismanaging the partnership assets
123. 4:59and posed a risk
124. 5:00of irreversible financial harm to the estate
125. 5:03her attorney a compact man named Douglas Keel
126. 5:06who carried himself
127. 5:07like someone permanently late for another meeting
128. 5:10submitted a 12 page brief with charts
129. 5:13the charts showed $340,000
130. 5:15leaving the partnership account
131. 5:17over 11 months he was not wrong about the amount
132. 5:21he was spectacularly wrong about the direction of blame
133. 5:25Magistrate Carroway looked at me
134. 5:26over her reading glasses when keel finished
135. 5:29she had the face of a woman who had spent 20 years
136. 5:32being lied to by people
137. 5:33who thought they were the first person to try it
138. 5:36Miss Voss she said
139. 5:39these are substantial allegations
140. 5:41would you like to respond
141. 5:43the room held its breath
142. 5:45Patricia straightened in her seat
143. 5:47Marcus uncrossed his arms
144. 5:49Kiel clicked his pen I stood button my jacket
145. 5:53and looked at Patricia for exactly four seconds
146. 5:55before turning to the bench
147. 5:57I would your honor
148. 5:59I said and I'd like to submit a document into evidence
149. 6:03I placed a binder on the clerk's table
150. 6:05it was gray three inches thick tabbed in four colors
151. 6:10I had been building it for seven months
152. 6:13your honor counsel has correctly identified
153. 6:15that $342,000 left the partnership operating account
154. 6:20over 11 months
155. 6:21what he has not identified is the destination
156. 6:24I open to the first tab these are wire confirmations
157. 6:2941 individual transfers each under $10,000
158. 6:32routed to three LLCs Cornerstone Advisory Partners
159. 6:36Highfield Management Group
160. 6:37and Blue Meridian Holdings
161. 6:40all three incorporated within a six week window
162. 6:42following my father's estate attorney's call to me
163. 6:46all three controlled by the same beneficial owner
164. 6:49I paused Patricia Voss
165. 6:52my stepmother the petitioner
166. 6:55the sound Patricia made was not a word
167. 6:58it was a short involuntary exhale
168. 7:00the sound a person makes when a floor drops
169. 7:03keel objected
170. 7:04Caraway waved him quiet and told me to continue
171. 7:08I walked through it section by section
172. 7:11the IP logs every transfer
173. 7:13originating from a device
174. 7:14registered to Patricia's home network
175. 7:16the brokerage statements showing the money settling
176. 7:19sitting then moving again
177. 7:21to accounts held jointly with Garrett Ploom
178. 7:24the lease on a lakefront property in three states over
179. 7:27that plume and Patricia had signed together
180. 7:2914 months ago eight months before my father died
181. 7:32funded by the first round of transfers
182. 7:35then I reached the yellow tab
183. 7:37Patricia's petition includes a letter
184. 7:39I said Exhibit 7 in her original filing
185. 7:43it purports to be a memorandum from my father
186. 7:46granting Patricia
187. 7:47broad administrative authority over partnership assets
188. 7:51it is dated 13 months ago and bears his signature
189. 7:54I let that sit I had that document examined
190. 7:57by a certified forensic document analyst
191. 8:00the report is included here
192. 8:03the signature is a lifted image
193. 8:05digitally transposed
194. 8:06from a 2021 tax authorization form
195. 8:09the PDF metadata indicates the file was created
196. 8:12nine days after my father's death
197. 8:14on a workstation registered to Douglas Keil's firm
198. 8:17Keil stood up so fast
199. 8:18his chair rolled back and hit the bar partition
200. 8:21that is an absolute the metadata
201. 8:24I said does not lie
202. 8:26Magistrate Carewhey removed her glasses
203. 8:29she set them on the bench in front of her
204. 8:30and looked at Patricia for a long moment
205. 8:32without speaking when she spoke
206. 8:35her voice had the temperature of a January morning
207. 8:38Missus Voss did you prepare or cause to be prepared
208. 8:42the document marked Exhibit 7
209. 8:43Keel grabbed Patricia's arm
210. 8:46she shook him off I was protecting what I was owed
211. 8:49Patricia said her voice had gone flat
212. 8:52the performance stripped away 17 years
213. 8:56I managed that man's life
214. 8:59I was there when she wasn't
215. 9:01I was there every day
216. 9:02when she was busy with her career and her apartment
217. 9:05and I was the one who took him to his appointments
218. 9:07you kept his financial records
219. 9:09I said quietly you kept his passwords
220. 9:12you kept his signature
221. 9:14the gallery had gone entirely silent
222. 9:17Marcus was looking at his hands
223. 9:20Magistrate Careway ruled from the bench
224. 9:22petition denied the forged exhibit referred to the US
225. 9:27Attorney's office for the district
226. 9:29a separate referral to the State Bar regarding keel
227. 9:33she asked me before she stepped down
228. 9:36whether I had notified the FBI
229. 9:37about the interstate wire transfers
230. 9:40I told her they already knew
231. 9:42I did not go to Patricia's sentencing
232. 9:44eight months later I did not need to
233. 9:48the case had ended for me
234. 9:49the morning I opened that binder
235. 9:51and watched a woman
236. 9:52who had built her life on other people's trust
237. 9:54discover that one of those people
238. 9:55had been quietly watching her the entire time
239. 9:59what I did instead
240. 10:00was drive to the cemetery where my father is buried
241. 10:03sit in the grass next to his stone
242. 10:05and tell him I was sorry it took so long
243. 10:08I told him
244. 10:08I had been frightened every day for seven months
245. 10:11waking at four in the morning
246. 10:13certain I had missed something
247. 10:14certain she would find out
248. 10:16certain the family would look at me
249. 10:17the way Marcus had looked at me from that gallery seat
250. 10:20I was afraid constantly
251. 10:23I just didn't let the fear make my decisions
252. 10:26people mistake patience for passivity
253. 10:29they see someone sitting quietly at a table
254. 10:31and they assume she has nothing to say
255. 10:34they don't consider that she might be waiting
256. 10:36for the exact moment when saying
257. 10:37it will count
258. 10:39Patricia was loud and fast and certain of herself
259. 10:42I was none of those things
260. 10:44she played to the audience
261. 10:46I documented for the record
262. 10:49when the curtain came down
263. 10:50the audience understood
264. 10:51they had been watching the wrong person all along
265. 10:54I restructured the partnership
266. 10:56established a donor advised fund in my mother's memory
267. 10:59and adopted a rescue greyhound I named discovery
268. 11:02Marcus called twice I answered the second time
269. 11:07we are cautiously
270. 11:08in the process of being something like family again
271. 11:11some of you are reading this at a kitchen table
272. 11:13right now
273. 11:14with documents in front of you that don't make sense
274. 11:17wondering if the doubt you feel
275. 11:18is evidence of your own instability
276. 11:20or someone else's design I want you to know
277. 11:23the difference between those two things is traceable
278. 11:26it always leaves a record
279. 11:29so here is the question I keep returning to
280. 11:31when someone has spent years
281. 11:33making sure you doubt yourself
282. 11:35what is the first thing you have to do
283. 11:36before you can fight back