'You just don't steal from the dead'

DAYTON - Jason McLean, public administrator for Lyon County, has been charged with four counts of embezzlement involving the alleged theft of more than $16,000 from three estates.

An economist for the state, McLean was elected and took over the unpaid office in January 2006. Within six months of the election, heirs to some of the estates began noticing discrepancies in the records McLean was keeping, according to police.

He was arrested on four felony charges on Jan. 8 and the following day posted a $50,000 bail.

The Lyon County Board of Commissioners notified McLean on Jan. 18 that he would have 10 days to get an additional $100,000 bond on his office, or they would consider the seat vacant. McLean said on Jan. 28, "I have been denied," when asked why that additional bond was not secured.

In three separate phone calls, McLean declined further comment on the case.

On Feb. 7, commissioners appointed former Justice of the Peace Dennis Milligan to assume the duties of county administrator. McLean no longer holds the office and is awaiting a preliminary hearing on the charges in Dayton Justice Court.

The charges

Charges against Former Lyon County Public Administrator Jason McLean:

• Counts 1 and 2 - Embezzlement of money or goods or property, more than $250 but less than $2,500. Category C felonies.

• Count 3 and 4 - Embezzlement of money, goods or property, more than $2,500. Category B felonies.

What is a public administrator?

When a person dies in Lyon County, the public administrator, upon appointment by the court, secures the money and property of the deceased person and administers the deceased person's estate.

•••

Joseph Bernard Winfield

Joseph Winfield, known as Uncle Bernard to his three nephews, lived his final years quietly in Lyon County.

Retired from the U.S. Army in 1978 with 30 percent disability, the decorated Vietnam vet earned a wage as a taxi driver in Minneapolis and at some point he lived in Florida before coming to Nevada. In Sparks, he was a restaurant supervisor at Baldini's sometime before 1998.

In 1999, Winfield bought a three-bedroom, two-bath home for $116,000 on nearly an acre of land on Roughing-It Road in Mark Twain. There he lived until his death May 8, 2006, at age 67.

When Winfield died, his Wells Fargo bank account showed a balance of $11,473. In February 2007, nine months after his death, Winfield's home sold for $180,000. There are no public records that would indicate if he had taken out more than one mortgage. Court records filed by Lyon County Administrator Jason McLean indicate the sale of Winfield's property garnered his estate just under $43,000.

McLean lists an additional $247 came from an auction of Winfield's property. Winfield's military discharge paperwork indicates he had at least a $20,000 life insurance policy. It's not noted if that insurance was ever collected.

It also does not appear that Winfield's vehicle made it to auction. The vehicle, or proceeds from the possible sale of it are also not accounted for.

McLean states that he made the following payments with Winfield's money after his death:

- Maintenance fee (Sept. 20, 2006) $7.50

- Former Lyon County Administrator fee $20.00

- Fitzhenry's Funeral Home (Sept. 11, 2006) $1,427.68

- Sierra Pacific Power (Sept. 11, 2006) $814.84

- Southwest Gas (Sept. 12, 2006) $378.46

- Lyon County Utilities (Sept. 12 through Dec. 14, 2006) $187.35

- Sierra Pacific Power (Nov. 1, 2006) $6.63

- Southwest Gas (Dec. 12, 2006) $93.27

- Reno Gazette Journal (Dec. 26, 2006) $20.00

- Sierra Pacific Power (Dec. 20, 2006) $7.75

- Southwest Gas (March 19, 2007) $327.41

- Jason McLean (annotated as "advance fees") $2,947.73.

After attorneys and administrator fees were paid, the estate had $39,316.93.

In the end, Winfield's three nephews received equal shares of the balance from their uncle's estate.

"How do you go from more than $180,000, down to like $39,000 dollars. This is terrible," said nephew Derrick Jones of Cragsmoor, N.Y. "I knew this guy was up to no good," he said of the public administrator. "He would never call me. I'd get his mother all the time."

Jones said he hadn't seen his uncle in years, but the one thing he remembered of Uncle Bernard was when he would come to visit.

"When we were like 4 and 5 and he used to bring these cards called Death from Above. I remember those cards and would tell my sons about them. Low and behold, I got one box of Uncle Bernard's things and all it contained was papers, a few pictures of him and a couple of those cards. But what happened to all my uncle's jewelry and family pictures? They took everything from him. They said he had nothing - you're talking peanuts of a man's life."

Jones said he never had dealings with McLean, but spoke to McLean's mother, Kathie, who helped her son with the estates, at least half a dozen times. Sometime she said her son was not available, other times, he was on vacation, like the Azores, Jones remembered specifically.

Jones said Kathie McLean told him that Winfield owed money on his house and that his mortgage needed to be paid.

"That's where they say all that money went," said Jones.

But there's no record of a mortgage payment or payoff in the paperwork McLean filed with the court.

In a letter dated Jan. 31, 2007, and addressed to Jones, Kathie McLean wrote the following:

"Here is your package. Although Joseph had tons of paperwork, some I need to save to do his taxes. I shredded the stuff that had to do with his VA benefits and Social Security."

"Why would they shred that?" Jones asked. "My uncle served his country well. And they just robbed and raped this guy."

Kathie McLean did not return calls for comment.

But for all the speculation Winfield's family can muster, the evidence gathered in a six-month criminal investigation would support just one charge.

"Defendant took the amount of $2,947.73 from the estate of Joseph Winfield and its heirs Derrick Jones and Doug Jones, and converted said money to his own personal use," the criminal complaint alleges.

On May 10, 2007, McLean paid the estate back $2,607.28.

William James Tulley

William James Tulley, 64, was living alone in his home on Jenny's Lane in Fernley, when a neighbor called police because Tulley hadn't been seen in a few days.

On June 20, 2006, police found Tulley's body inside the home.

A heavy drinker for most of his life, the former butcher ultimately died from his vice, said daughter Terri Altman of Texas.

His drinking had come between the two and she hadn't talked to her father, whom she referred to as "Bill," in years, she said.

"Even though he was drinking, he was pretty much set in his ways. He was the biggest penny pincher on the planet earth. He would put money in an envelope and he would mark the envelope with what that money was for. He always had envelopes of money," she said.

Thirteen months after her father's death, private investigator Ty Atwater, hired by Lyon County, located Altman within 15 minutes of receiving the call on July 5, 2007.

Though she hadn't spoken to her father in years, Altman and her husband went to Fernley that week to collect his remains.

She said McLean took her to his parents home on Ring Road, and the address at which all correspondence for the county administrator office went to, so she could collect just two boxes of her father's belongings. Along with the boxes came a bill. At $2 a day for 189 days, McLean charged Tulley's estate $378 for the storage, according to court records.

"When I did get his personal belongings there were many envelopes with nothing in them," Altman said.

The paperwork that McLean filed on behalf of Tulley's estate listed a checking account balance of $41,802 - that included $10,518 garnered at an October auction of his household goods and 43 firearms, according to Arundel Auction paperwork. An additional $4,000 was reimbursed from credit on a card Tulley held. Check number 106 in the amount of $1,220 was written to Silver State Trailer Sales against the estate by McLean in March 2007. In July, McLean listed $1,220 as an amount he reimbursed the estate.

"Defendant took $1,220 from the estate of William Tulley and his heir Terri Altman and converted said money to his own personal use for buying a travel trailer that was titled in the names of the defendant's parents," the criminal complaint against McLean alleges.

A second charge in the criminal complaint also pertains to the Tulley account:

"Defendant received a check made by Ashley Furniture in favor of the estate of William Tulley and its heir Terri Altman, in the amount of $1,939.78 and converted said money to his own personal use."

"So much was spent out of the account. It came down to $15,000 by the time everything was paid," said Altman. Despite attempts by McLean to sell Tulley's home which he owned outright, Altman now has control of the property, she said.

On an invoice from McLean, he listed that he worked 26 hours and drove 250 miles in the administration of the Tulley estate. His fee: $1,757.21. The Lyon County Board of Commissioners set the administrator's fee at $50 an hour, according to Wayne Pederson, attorney for the administrator position.

"We didn't know about anything until we got there, and then when we were there things didn't add up. We realized pretty quickly what was going on. While we were there, we filed the embezzlement charges," said Altman.

Though her father had his faults, he didn't work a lifetime to have everything taken from him, Altman said.

"I think he would be livid. He didn't have a lot in this world, so for somebody to come and violate the last of the things that he had is wrong. The money isn't the issue. You just don't steal from the dead."

Diane Ashe

Julie Kristian of Dayton had been in a dispute with Jason McLean for months over custody of her mother's trust when a Lyon County judge ordered that the administrator relinquish any claims to it.

In August of 2005, Kristian's 62-year-old mother, Diane Ashe, died suddenly. In December 2005, Ashe's estate "accidentally" ended up in McLean's hands after a family friend, named as trustee by Ashe when she was alive, turned over her duties to an attorney. That attorney turned the estate over to the county, said Kristian.

She knew nothing of this development, she said, and it wasn't until weeks later that she learned McLean had control. Over the next six months, she said, she battled the newly elected county administrator over control of her mother's assets.

The more questions she asked, the more aggressive McLean became, Kristian said.

Initially, he said he understood that his control over the estate was in error, but said there was nothing he could do to change that.

Then Kristian realized that the electricity and gas were turned off on her mother's property a few doors away. Fearing that the pipes would freeze, Kristian had the utilities put into her own name and paid them herself.

She said she tried to stay on McLean's good side to get him to return the estate, but it didn't work.

One day, she recalled, as they were on the phone, Kristian said she mentioned that she had an attorney.

McLean began to yell at her.

"Forget it, all bets are off. We are not going to be able to work together. You said you have a lawyer," she remembered him shouting.

Kristian said she was stunned, but his reaction also made her angry. She called her attorney and asked him to file paperwork with the court to make her trustee of the estate.

"My attorney calls me a few day later and tells me that we've just been served. That Jason is suing me for trusteeship," she said.

The two battled in court for weeks until the judge finally ordered McLean to turn over a full accounting on the estate to Kristian.

She said her attorney found an interesting note in those records - McLean had withdrawn $9,900 of Ashe's money from her Wells Fargo account.

"Are you going to visit McLean when he's in jail," Kristian said her attorney asked as he pointed out the discrepancy in the books.

A criminal complaint filed in January alleges McLean stole $16,000 from three estates he was assigned to administer.

One of the charges pertains to the Ashe estate.

"Defendant took $9,900 from the estate of Diane Ashe Trust and its heir Julie Kristian and converted said money to his own personal use for a partial payment on a Harley Davidson motorcycle," the complaint states.

"I don't know how he walked into the bank and got his name on that account. They put his name on it. I can't get a dime out of this trust for my family, which is who it was meant for. But this guy can walk in without any court authority other than the county seat that he holds and take out 10 grand of my mother's money," Kristian said.

A judge ordered McLean to repay the money and appointed Kristian as trustee to the estate. Kristian filed embezzlement charges against McLean.

Most of the heirs involved in the McLean case live out of state. But Kristian lived just doors away from her mother. The two were very close, and for her mother's estate to end up in the county's hands was unbelievable, Kristian said. For the county administrator to allegedly threaten to sell her mother's house "out from underneath" her, was equally baffling.

"I'm the whole reason this thing busted open. It would not have come tumbling down otherwise," Kristian explained. But the thing that had Kristian the most stunned, was that McLean's access to her mother's estate was not even court appointed. He had no authority to do anything, she said.

"The statutes that cover the county administrator are fairly vague. They give guidelines, but they're not real specific and they leave a lot of authority to the county commission. But the thing the statutes do say is that the administrator has to be appointed the executor prior to liquidating things. And those estates where he's charged he had not gone through the process," said Lyon County Sheriff's Lt. Rob Hall.

With McLean's trial looming, Kristian is relieved that her nightmare is over.

"Now we pick up the pieces and do what my mother would have wanted," she said. "And my mother definitely would have wanted to see this man stopped before he hurt anyone else."

• Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.