A Michigan attorney has filed a complaint against a Wayne County probate judge and two court-appointed lawyers, claiming that they conspired to empty the estate of iconic civil rights activist Rosa Parks caught in a long-running legal dispute.
According to court documents filed by lawyer Stephen G. Cohen, Judge Freddie Burton Jr enabled attorneys John Chase Jr and Melvin Jefferson Jr to rack up more than $507,000 in mostly unnecessary legal fees that drained Parks’ estate, leaving it $88,000 in debt.
On her death in 2005 at the age of 92, Parks left nearly her entire considerable estate to the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute, which Cohen represents.
however, Parks’ 13 nieces and nephews challenged her 1998 will, unleashing a legal dispute.
Cohen said the judge used the dispute to strip the co-founder of the institute Elaine Steele and the organization itself of their share of Parks’ property, said to be worth up to $8 million, according to USA Today.
