Crying Anna Nicole Judge Accused of Abuse
TMZ Staff
March 27, 2009
TMZ.com
http://www.tmz.com/2009/03/27/crying-anna-nicole-judge-accused-of-abuse/
The judge who famously broke down and cried during the epic Anna Nicole Smith Florida hearing is now accused of abusing an elderly woman.

The niece and the caretaker of 83-year-old Barbara Kasler lodged a complaint on the Elderly Abuse Hotline in Florida, accusing Judge Larry Seidlin of doing several horrible things to his neighbor and family friend — including “failing to feed and medicate” Barbara, and “endangering her health with poor care.”

But Seidlin says it’s all B.S. — a ploy by several disgruntled people, including the old lady’s caretaker.

Last year, Seidlin was investigated by the State’s Attorney’s office for allegedly trying to milk Barbara out of hundreds of  thousands of dollars in gifts — he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Now, Barbara’s niece has teamed up with her caretaker to attack Seidlin again, telling The New Times that the judge “brainwashed” the 83-year-old into believing that he is her son. They also claim Seidlin convinced Kasler to will a huge portion of her multi-million dollar estate to Larry’s family.

The two also claim Larry ignored an infection, failed to feed her, change her or give her the required medication. The caretaker claims one time she came to Barbara’s place to find her “soaked and wet.”

But Seidlin’s family sees it differently — Larry’s wife, Belinda, tells us the caretaker is really a housekeeper — not a nurse.

Belinda says she and Larry don’t live with the old lady, have nothing to do with her care, but did recommend to the agency which supplies nurses for Barbara’s care that the caretaker wasn’t up to the job and that she return to housekeeping duties. And that allegedly royally pissed the woman off.

Judge Larry Under State Investigation After Elderly Abuse Complaint
Bob Norman
March 26, 2009
Broward-Palm Beach New Times
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/03/judge_larry_seidlin_anna_nicole_smith_barbara_kasler_elderly_abuse_investigation.php
In a disturbing development in the Larry Seidlin saga, the judge now faces a complaint of elderly abuse from the niece and caretaker of the elderly woman he has already been accused of financially exploiting.

Corine Kasler, who is in town visiting 83-year-old Barbara Kasler, says she filed a complaint against Seidlin on the state’s Elderly Abuse Hotline today, saying she is “shocked” by the treatment her aunt has been given by the former judge, whom she describes as “evil.” The new allegations include failing to feed and medicate Kasler for an extended period of time and endangering her health with poor care.

State investigators are already on the case and today are questioning witnesses at the Marine Towers on Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale, where both Kasler and Seidlin live.

Seidlin’s mother-in-law, Barbara Ray, is named in the allegations said she was outraged at the complaint.

“This is wrong, wrong, wrong,” she said. “I am so furious right now I could spit nails. Judge Seidlin is like a son to this woman and for this to happen isn’t right. This is so disgusting it makes me physically sick, in my stomach.”

Seidlin famously wept and rambled during the Anna Nicole Smith hearings and is in talks to get his own TV show. The judge was the subject of an elderly exploitation investigation last year by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office after this New Times article revealed the judge had convinced Kasler to give his family some hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts. Seidlin and Kasler were neighbors at the Marine Tower condos in Fort Lauderdale.

Assistant State Attorney Howard Rosen cleared Seidlin of wrongdoing, saying that Barbara Kasler willingly gave the gifts to Seidlin’s family members, including his young daughter, Dax, his wife, Belinda, and her parents, Barbara and Oren Ray, who also live in the same building.

Corine Kasler, however, says that her aunt has been systematically brainwashed by Seidlin and has been isolated from former friends and family members. She says Seidlin controlled her in every way, including very possibly her testimony. Barbara Kasler’s caretaker, Monica Iquierdo Vial, says Seidlin came to the condo every evening prior to investigators’ visits and spoke with her privately. She suspects he coached Kasler, but can’t be sure.

Corine Kasler, who lives in Pensacola and has only been able to sporadically visit her aunt, says she fears even talking to Barbara Kasler about Seidlin and all the issues that have been raised, because she is bed-ridden in very ill health and begins trembling at the subject.

Seidlin made Barbara Kasler almost entirely dependent on him, she says, providing all her meals and transportation and telling her repeatedly that he was her “son.” Corine Kasler says that when Kasler planned to move to Knox Village, the large retirement complex in Pompano Beach, where her old sister lives. Corine Kasler says she learned that Seidlin convinced her that she would die if she was taken there and personally arranged to cancel her deposit. “It’s all coming into focus right now,” she says. “His whole plan. I am in disbelief at what is happening.”

A school teacher, Corine Kasler says she recently learned that Seidlin had convinced her aunt to sign over the brunt of her multimillion dollar-estate to the judge’s family in her will.

“I think it would be great if her whole estate went as a donation to Auburn University in memory of her son,” says Corine Kasler, a neice through marriage. “I just don’t want [Seidlin] to get any of it. Not a dime. I just saw him recently on the Larry King Show and he was treated like a king. It was a disgrace. … He is an evil man.”

The most recent — and most troubling — allegations mainly come from Izquierdo, the caretaker. Izquierdo claims that Seidlin and his family members have failed to give her needed medication, fed her poorly or not at all at times, and engaged in suspicious activity regarding Kasler’s failing health. Both Izquierdo and Corine Kasler say they believe that Barbara Kasler is not safe with Seidlin or his family members.

Izquierdo, who has been in Kasler’s employ for four years, and routinely calls her “my lady,” broke her silence this week. Among her allegations:

• She says that when Barbara Kasler came down with a serious infection, the Seidlin family failed to feed her, change her, or give her the required antibiotics over a 12-hour period. She says she arrived in the morning to find Kasler in misery. “My lady was soaked and wet, and I was furious,” she said. “I went up to talk with the judge’s mother-in-law on the 17th floor and I said, ‘What’s the matter with you people?’ She didn’t have dinner, she didn’t have the medicine, and she wasn’t changed. This is very dangerous. She has an infection, a person can die right away without antibiotics.” Izquierdo says that the mother-in-law, Barbara Ray, told her that she didn’t feel well and couldn’t help. “I said, ‘And the judge didn’t feel well and his wife didn’t feel well either’” relates Izquierdo. “I can’t go along with the morals of these people.”

Ray told me today that it was a mistake that was caused by her belief that Kasler was getting “full service” that night and that she didn’t need to be cared for. “Other than that time, she always got service,” Ray said.

• Izquierdo says that Barbara Ray, a former registered nurse, told her that she didn’t need to be changed at night. “I told her she was crazy, that she had to be changed every four hours,” says Izquierdo. Ray denies this.

• Izquierdo says that one morning she came in to find a pair of little girl’s socks belonging to Dax on Barbara Kasler’s feet that were so tight that her legs were badly swollen the next morning and she couldn’t walk in therapy that day. She says Barbara Ray had put them on her the night before. Izquierdo put the socks in a bag and has kept them in her possession as evidence.

Ray concedes she put Dax’s socks on Kasler’s feet but says they were softball socks that were stretchy and soft and that she told the night nurse to take them off if they were too tight. The night nurse, who asked that her name not be used, denied Ray ever said that. Rather she says Ray told her that it would make Kasler happy to wear Dax’s socks and to keep them on.

• Every morning, Judge Seidlin would come to see Kasler and take off her oxygen mask, according to Izquierdo. She says Kasler is supposed to have the mask on at all times due to a serious lung condition. “He would take the oxygen off my lady’s nose all the time,” she says. “She has a chronic illness, she’s supposed to wear oxygen all the time, 24 hours a day.” Izquierdo says Seidlin didn’t stop taking off the mask until she complained to Barbara Ray.

Ray conceded that this was true, but insisted that the doctor had said at one time that he wanted to wean Kasler off the oxygen.

• Izquierdo says the food Seidlin has been giving her is terrible, mostly whatever is left over from his visits to restaurants.  The extended Seidlin family also insists on feeding Kasler Coca-Cola and coffee, she claims. Izquierdo claims it was so bad she started buying food for Kasler out of her own pocket, including fruit juice. “Belinda [Seidlin] called screaming and yelling, saying why I don’t give her Coke, why I don’t give her coffee,” says Vial. “She has a condition with her lungs, the Coca-Cola makes her cough and the coffee is no good for her. I told them I wasn’t willing to do that.”

Ray says it was a “childish argument” and that eventually “we finally said ‘okay’.” As for the complaint about poor food, she says she has cooked many times for Kasler. “That lady was fed very well,” she said.

There are other examples and Izquierdo says that when she complains about the treatment, Judge Seidlin routinely tells her that she worries too much. “He said that I worry too much and that I don’t need to worry about my job because after my lady dies he will hire me to take care of his mother-in-law,” she says.

More recently though, she says she has cut off all communication with Seidlin because of what she considers his suspicious actions. She says Seidlin has threatened to have her fired. She says she’s not concerned about her job anymore.

“The judge followed me around and said, ‘Please talk to me Monica,’” says the 57-year-old Izquierdo, who was born in Chile and recently completed training to become a home health aide. “I told him, ‘I wish I never met you judge. I wish I never met your wife or your mother-in-law because you three are evil people.’ I don’t care about the job, I care about the human being. And my lady doesn’t deserve to be treated like that.”

Izquierdo, whom Corine Kasler describes as a dedicated and loving caretaker, says she has documented all the mistreatment. The night nurse who is also employed by Kasler told the Pulp that she shares Izquerido’s concerns but didn’t want to speak publicly about it.

Barbara Ray says she feels betrayed. “We gave [Izquierdo] the job and this is the way she thanks us?” she told told me. “She is vindictive. There is a lot of jealousy here. Our Larry goes to visit Barbara and she just adores him. That is her son there.”

Ray said that both Seidlin’s wife, Belinda, and daughter, Dax, are named in Kasler’s will but that they will share the estate with a third person who isn’t in the Seidlin family.

Izquierdo says Seidlin has brainwashed Kasler and that he tells her constantly that he is her “son” and “baby boy.” Corine Kasler says she learned that the judge sometimes actually climbs into bed with Kasler. “He has his clothes in her closet and he showers here and leaves his underwear around,” she says. “What the heck? I’ve never seen anything like this. It grosses me out that somebody could be this evil and take advantage of a woman with a big heart.”

Corine Kasler says she has known Seidlin for several years and always suspected he was trying to profit from her aunt, but let it go because he seemed to be so nice to her. But there were tell-tale signs, she says. Once he took her out to lunch at an expensive restaurant, ordered lavishly from the menu, and encouraged her to do the same. Only after the meal did she notice that he used her aunt’s credit card to pay for the meal.

She also remembered that the judge’s family gave her lunch once while she was visiting that consisted of one bowl of soup, with nothing else, not even crackers. “I thought something was wrong,” she says. “I had a feeling from the first time I met him that he was a con man. I feel really guilty right now. I can’t believe this is happening. But I have to do something. If I could pack Aunt Barbara up right now and move her to Pensacola with me I would. Anything to get her away from that judge.”

Judge Larry Seidlin Slithers Away
Bob Norman
January 6, 2009
Broward-Palm Beach New Times
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/01/judge_larry_seidlin_slithers_a.php
Well, former Judge Larry Seidlin solicited gifts from an attorney in his courtroom and chiseled an elderly widow living in his condo building out of nearly half a million dollars — and it looks like he’s going to get away with it.

The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, while not exactly exonerating the judge who became famous as the rambling, blubbering judge in the Anna Nicole Smith case, decided not to charge him with any crimes. Instead prosecutors are referring the case — which they wrote “could appear to raise ethical issues” — to the Judicial Qualifications Commission and Florida Bar.

JAABlog has posted the 11-page close-out memo which you can read here (it makes small mention of your Pulp host).

I knew when I broke the story about Seidlin’s relationship with the widow — and the gifts he solicited from defense attorney (and former friend) Chris Roberts — that there was a good chance he would walk. But I thought the amount he’d gotten from 82-year-old Barbara Kasler, an aging widow in his building, was more like a quarter million. Not the $467,000 discovered by Assistant State Atorney Howard Rosen during his investigation.

The judge and his family, via their young daughter Dax, ingratiated themselves with Kasler — and soon she was writing giant checks to them, handing over land, and paying more than 50 grand for Dax’s education at Pine Crest School. Rosen wrote that Kasler was not unduly influenced to give the money, but it has all the markings of an expert fleecing.

I spoke with Kasler last year — and this is what I wrote in the original story on the matter:

Picture if you will the now-nationally recognizable bald and well-tanned Seidlin carrying a plate of breakfast down the elevator of the Marine Tower to the third floor and knocking on a door with his offering. Then imagine an 81-year-old woman opening the door with a smile and gratefully accepting the meal.

Now add lunch and dinner and throw in trips to the doctor and the hair salon and you might start to understand what Seidlin has been doing for years for Barbara Kasler, a wealthy neighbor with no living family but an older sister.

¨All of her sons passed away,¨ explains Seidlin´s mother-in-law, Barbara Ray. ¨So we took over and help her and do things with her. She takes all kinds of trips with Larry in Fort Lauderdale. She´s like a mother to him, she adores him, that´s like her little boy.

¨He even takes her to the hairdresser. He is adorable. That´s what people don´t know about him.¨

But Seidlin´s good deeds haven´t gone unrewarded. The judge and his family have garnered a small fortune from Kasler, who is in poor health and says she suffers memory lapses.

Kasler sold Seidlin´s in-laws a 17th-floor condo in the building for what was, based on comparable sales in the building, a bargain price of $300,000 (a similar unit sold later that year for $440,000). Then she deeded over a vacant lot in Palm Bay, in coastal Central Florida, to Seidlin´s wife, Belinda, for $100. It´s assessed at $45,000 today but is probably worth more. The elderly woman is also paying for Seidlin´s daughter´s education at the exclusive Pine Crest School. Six-year-old Dax has already spent two years at the school at an estimated cost of about $35,000.

On top of that, the judge has been enjoying privileges as Kasler´s guest at the Lauderdale Yacht Club.

I knew there were cash gifts — just not how much. Rosen found that Kasler gave six-year-old Dax $52,000 alone. Another $286,430 was handed to Seidlin’s wife, Belinda Seidlin. About $51,000 went to his in-laws, Oren and Barbara Ray. And that Pine Crest tab topped $54,000. Kasler handed out at least another $13,000 in cash.

Understand that while his family was accepting Kasler’s largesse, Seidlin was a judge in the probate division where estates are hashed out. He should have known better — and apparently he did.

Notice anything peculiar? Of all that money, none was paid directly to Larry Seidlin himself, even though his mother-in-law told me that he was like a son to her and drove her all over town and made sure she was delivered three meals a day.

Rosen determined, though, that Seidlin benefitted directly from the payments (Kasler paid off a $130,000 mortgage he held with his wife, for instance).

Why didn’t Seidlin accept the payments? Why, he’d have to report them on his financial disclosure forms. Seidlin of course never reported them — which kept his family’s getting rich off the widow a secret. He also failed to file a required public disclosure form after he retired, according to Rosen. All of this should be forwarded not to the JQC or Bar but the Florida Ethics Commission, which has jurisdiction over these matters.

Rosen also investigated Chris Roberts’ allegation that Seidlin directed him to buy a purse for his wife’s birthday and a shirt for him  while the judge was giving him assignments in his courtroom. Again, Rosen didn’t file criminal charges, though he’s referring those cases to the JQC and Bar as well.

Roberts, who was once one of Seidlin’s close friends, has always said that it was Seidlin’s exploitation of the widow that prompted him to (very reluctantly) come forward. And the state’s decision not to charge him on that score was what he found most disagreeable.

“He ingratiated himself to the widow and got everything he could from her,” says Roberts. “He should have known better. This is a judge now. They’re forwarding the case to the JQC and the Bar, but they’ll do nothing. Not only is he going to get his $150,000 a year for life in pension but he’s got a half million from the old lady. Good racket, huh?”

Speaking of rackets, “Lightning Larry” was famous for his flying through his rocket dockets in the mornings to play tennis every single day at the Jimmy Evert Tennis Center in Holiday Park. Channel 7’s Carmen Cafero followed him in May 2007 and found that he took three-hour lunch breaks, rarely worked more than an hour in the afternoons, and, yes, got his racket going every afternoon on the courts.

That’s not even getting into his nepotism, his making a mockery of Broward County during the absurd Anna Nicole Smith hearings, and other antics. (By the way, another local lawyer told me Seidlin solicited gifts from him, too, but swears he’ll never come forward about it).

It all adds up to a huge joke — and business as usual in our corrupt county.

“That’s life, that’s life in Broward County,” says Roberts. “And you know what? If the guy ran for reelection, he’d be reelected.”

Not funny, but true.

In the Bag
Judge Seidlin heads off to la-la land with collateral damage to his image
Bob Norman
June 28, 2007
Broward-Palm Beach New Times
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2007-06-28/news/in-the-bag/
So Judge Larry Seidlin, of Anna Nicole Smith fame, has quit the Broward County Courthouse to go off to Hollywood to develop a TV show.

South Florida should rejoice.

It´s not so much that the 57-year-old Seidlin was a bad judge; it was that he wasn´t much of a judge at all. He is, in fact, a shining example of the dim era ruled by outgoing Chief Judge Dale Ross, who pretty much let judges do as they pleased so long as they bowed at his feet.

So, other than drag the country though a needless and absurd Anna Nicole hearing/screen test, what did Seidlin do?

Well, as almost everyone at the courthouse can tell you, flying through dockets in the morning and playing tennis in the afternoon was his M.O. But what few know is that he also allegedly had time to wrangle gifts out of at least one lawyer working in his division and a small fortune from an elderly woman living in his ocean-view condo building on Las Olas Boulevard.

We´ll start with the woman.

Picture if you will the now-nationally recognizable bald and well-tanned Seidlin carrying a plate of breakfast down the elevator of the Marine Tower to the third floor and knocking on a door with his offering. Then imagine an 81-year-old woman opening the door with a smile and gratefully accepting the meal.

Now add lunch and dinner and throw in trips to the doctor and the hair salon and you might start to understand what Seidlin has been doing for years for Barbara Kasler, a wealthy neighbor with no living family but an older sister.

¨All of her sons passed away,¨ explains Seidlin´s mother-in-law, Barbara Ray. ¨So we took over and help her and do things with her. She takes all kinds of trips with Larry in Fort Lauderdale. She´s like a mother to him, she adores him, that´s like her little boy.

¨He even takes her to the hairdresser. He is adorable. That´s what people don´t know about him.¨

But Seidlin´s good deeds haven´t gone unrewarded. The judge and his family have garnered a small fortune from Kasler, who is in poor health and says she suffers memory lapses.

Kasler sold Seidlin´s in-laws a 17th-floor condo in the building for what was, based on comparable sales in the building, a bargain price of $300,000 (a similar unit sold later that year for $440,000). Then she deeded over a vacant lot in Palm Bay, in coastal Central Florida, to Seidlin´s wife, Belinda, for $100. It´s assessed at $45,000 today but is probably worth more. The elderly woman is also paying for Seidlin´s daughter´s education at the exclusive Pine Crest School. Six-year-old Dax has already spent two years at the school at an estimated cost of about $35,000.

On top of that, the judge has been enjoying privileges as Kasler´s guest at the Lauderdale Yacht Club.

I wanted to ask Seidlin about the windfall from the widow, but he had his lawyer, prominent defense attorney David Bogenschutz, contact me.

¨This is an elderly woman who is apparently lonely and has no family and has been reverse-adopted by the Seidlin family,¨ Bogenschutz told me. ¨That may be a lot of money, but I look at this as: What business is it of anybody else´s if it has nothing to do with his public persona?¨

Well, Seidlin happened to run the probate and family divisions at the courthouse before his resignation, so he should know better than to chisel money out of an old woman.

But is he really exploiting Kasler, or is he just being rewarded for good deeds?

That would depend on the content of his character, and, believe me, Seidlin is one hell of a character. I´ve spoken with numerous lawyers at the courthouse, and the picture that emerges of Seidlin is of a man who doesn´t like to work, has spent almost as much time on the tennis court as in a courtroom during his 29 years as a judge, doesn´t like to pay for anything, and usually finds an angle to benefit himself. In other words, he´s a guy who might just find a way to get some serious dough out of an elderly woman.

Some of the stories I´ve heard are humorous, some serious. The one about the Louis Vuitton purse is a bit of both.

It begins with veteran attorney Lawrence ¨Chris¨ Roberts walking through courthouse corridors about four years ago. Seidlin at the time was regularly appointing Roberts as a special public defender in the juvenile court, which paid the lawyer $350 a case.

It was actually lucrative work, especially in the courtroom of ¨Lightning Larry,¨ who was known to speed through cases in the morning so he wouldn´t have to work in the afternoon.

When Roberts saw Seidlin on this day, the judge slapped him on the hand, transferring a small piece of paper. Roberts looked in his hand, he says, and found a tag for a Louis Vuitton purse at Neiman Marcus that cost in excess of $1,000.

The judge then said that his wife would love to have the purse for her birthday. ¨The implication was that if I didn´t do this,¨ Roberts said, ¨the appointments would dry up.¨

The lawyer had his then-secretary, Nikki Jarema, go to the Galleria Mall in Fort Lauderdale to pick up the purse.

I contacted Jarema, who is now a real-estate agent, and she told me she remembered buying the purse, which she said was for Seidlin´s wife for her birthday. Later, Roberts met Seidlin in a parking lot at the intersection of Federal Highway and State Road 84 to deliver the purse, which Seidlin took with him directly to the airport. The judge and his wife were traveling out of town for her birthday, and Seidlin presented the purse to her on the flight as a gift, Roberts says.

Roberts says it wasn´t the only time Seidlin had instructed him to buy him gifts. There was another expensive purse purchase, and the judge also instructed him to buy a specific polo shirt for him, he says.

Well, it doesn´t take a lawyer to know that if Roberts´ stories are true, some of this might be just a little bit illegal — and not only because the judge didn´t report the gifts on his financial disclosure forms.

Trying to reach Seidlin, I spoke with his wife, Belinda, and told her the story. ¨There is no way Larry would do anything like that,¨ she said. ¨He is so careful, and he´s not stupid. He would never do anything that´s not appropriate or not right.¨

Bogenschutz, however, told me that Seidlin had admitted that he received the purse — but said he later returned it to Roberts.

Roberts laughed when I told him that.

¨He came into my office later,¨ Roberts said, ¨with an old beat-up Publix bag that had some old leather junky purse in it. He said, You bought my wife a purse; now I bought your wife a purse.´ It literally stank. I threw it in the trash can.¨

Bogenschutz told me he would get back to Seidlin on the matter and didn´t comment further. But the issue isn´t an easy one for him.

¨They both are friends of mine,¨ Bogenschutz told me. ¨I don´t know where the truth is. I think it´s somewhere in the middle.¨

But the gifts pale in comparison to what he´s gotten from Broward taxpayers. Seidlin went through his morning dockets in a flash, courthouse sources say. Broward County Chief Public Defender Howard Finkelstein says the judge was known to run a ¨rocket docket¨ and was so easy on defendants that lawyers relished working in his courtroom.

In May, WSVN-TV (Channel 7) investigative reporter Carmel Cafeiro followed him for four days and found that he took three-hour lunch breaks and rarely worked more than an hour in the afternoon before heading off to the tennis courts. For this, he was making $145,000 a year off taxpayers — and will make that much for the rest of his life from his pension.

Seidlin´s family members have also made out at the public trough. His wife, Belinda, worked as an investigator for Al Schreiber, the former chief public defender, who was the best man at the couple´s 1999 Las Vegas wedding.

When Finkelstein replaced Schreiber, his chief investigator, Al Smith, looked into Belinda´s work.

¨There was three or four months´ of work on her desk that she had never even touched,¨ Smith recalls. ¨And there were a lot of complaints about the work she was assigned, because it was incomplete.¨

Finkelstein quickly fired Belinda, who now works as a real-estate agent.

Seidlin´s father-in-law, Oren Ray, also works at the courthouse. Several years ago he got a job as a courtroom deputy for the Broward Sheriff´s Office. Seidlin´s sister-in-law, attorney Wendy Seidlin, made the Miami Herald in 2000 for being among the top recipients of special public defender appointments at the courthouse.

And half the tight-knit clan seems to be involved with Barbara Kasler, the elderly woman who has lavished the family with the financial windfall. Kasler, though, says she doesn´t believe she´s being exploited in the least.

¨I´m waiting for him to bring me my lunch right now,¨ she said of the judge. ¨And I´m hungry. I´m taking advantage of him.¨

I asked Kasler, who is originally from Indian-apolis and acknowledges that she has a net worth in the millions of dollars, about the transfer of the Palm Bay land to Belinda Ray Seidlin.

¨I didn´t want to bother with it anymore, so I gave it to Dax,¨ says Kasler, referring to Seidlin´s daughter. ¨I thought she might want to build a house on it someday.¨

When I told her it was assessed for $45,000, she was incredulous, saying she didn´t think it was worth nearly that much. She acknowledged that she has given Seidlin cash gifts but wouldn´t say how much she´s given him. ¨I don´t remember,¨ she said.

When asked about her paying for Dax´s education at Pine Crest, she replied, ¨That´s between me and Dax.¨

Belinda Seidlin´s response to the same question mirrored Kasler´s: ¨That´s between her and Dax,¨ the mother said.

Bogenschutz, the attorney, said that this is a case of a kind family — and a kind man named Larry Seidlin — being rewarded.

¨If you ask him for something, he would drive to the next county to get it for you,¨ Bogenschutz says of Seidlin. ¨That´s the way he is.¨

Probably true — as long as there´s something in it for Judge Larry.