Guardianship Nightmare Turned Criminal

Dunn/Henley Trial Continued for 10th Time

By Edward Snook
Investigative Reporter

Jack Dunn and Rose Henley

Clackamas County, OR – On August 17, 2021, Jack Dunn and Rose Henley, husband and wife, appeared in Clackamas County Circuit Court on criminal charges stemming from their November 21, 2017, arrest. Henley and Dunn are being falsely accused of theft and criminal mistreatment of their longtime family friend and neighbor Wayne Faulk.

Henley and Dunn appeared in court anticipating a dismissal, based on emails that were sent to Henley from her current attorney Brian Schmonsees.

In an August 5, 2021, email Schmonsees states, “Deputy District Attorney Brooks said she is considering dismissal because she does not think she can prove the case at this point, either the mistreatment or the alleged theft.” Schmonsees continues, “Brooks said she isn’t calling Yela or Faulk because she thinks they were dirty.” Clackamas County Assistant District Attorney (DDA) Kara Brooks is referring to Ann Yela and Linda Faulk.

Ann Yela

The US~Observer has received very credible evidence that Yela made false allegations against Henley and Dunn to aid in the cover-up of the illegal activity that her employer Linda Faulk allegedly committed against Wayne Faulk.

Instead of a dismissal, their trial date was continued to January 11, 2022, making this the 10th time their trial has been postponed.

On August 8, 2021, Henley was told by Schmonsees, “I am OBJECTING to any continuance of the trial date”. Yet in court Schmonesses did not raise any objection to the continuance. When questioned by Henley, Schmonsees stated that DDA Kara Brooks had requested an ex parte hearing, so the defense would not be present to object to a continuance, leading Henley to believe there was some sort of back room dealing to keep the case going.

DDA Kara Brooks

Over the last four years since their arrest, Henley and Dunn have been through eight attorneys, both private and public defenders. All but one, have provided ineffective assistance of counsel. The couple have spent $50,000 of their own money, getting them no closer to a resolution. They are now flat broke!

This laundry list of attorneys shows just how the just-us system operates in Clackamas County.

Henley had retained John E. Storkel while Dunn was appointed public defender Linda G. Beloof.

Beloof resigned in disgrace after having failed to inform her client of a status hearing that he needed to attend. Dunn first met Beloof the day before the hearing. Beloof never told Dunn that they had to attend a status hearing the next morning. The following day Beloof calls Dunn and told him to turn himself in, because he has a warrant for failing to appear, yet Beloof hadn’t appeared either. As a result, Dunn was rearrested and had to post another $6,000.00 bond on top the $10,000.00 he and Henley already paid in order to be released from custody pending trial. Beloof resigned and was replaced with public defender Bruce Tarbox.

Months passed by with no progress, Dunn was asked to check in weekly with Tarbox, but beyond that Dunn had no idea what was being done to prepare for trial. By late 2018, Dunn had only briefly met with Tarbox once, he had not reviewed discovery, discussed witnesses or done any of the required preparation to be ready for trial. Alarmed by this Dunn borrowed money to hire William Bruce Shepley. Dunn hoped the change to a private attorney meant that work would be done on his case. Shepley started off well confirming to Dunn that the state did not have a case against him and that they would either easily win, or obtain a dismissal. Shepley stated to Dunn that the discovery was a mess, the worst he’d seen in over 30 years. Shepley filed several motions attempting to get crucial evidence confirmed as having been seized by the Clackamas County Sherriff’s Office while executing a search warrant at Dunn’s home, without success.

During this time, Henley was having the same issues with lack of progress on her case. With charges racking up, Henley was forced to go with a public defender and was subsequently appointed Ruben Medina.

Medina only met with Henley once and had done little to nothing to prepare for their upcoming trial. When questioned by Henley on the lack of work on her case, Medina tried to pawn off his lack of effort on Dunn’s Attorney Bruce Shepley. Medina told Henley she should consider him Shepley’s assistant, putting the burden on Shepley to do the trial preparation for both defendants.

Henley promptly alerted the court that Medina was not preparing for trial and that they were nowhere near ready to go in front of a jury. This led to Medina’s dismissal. Henley again had to ask the court for assistance.

Medina’s replacement was Leonard Kovak Jr. Shepley was not happy about having to work with Kovak and Henley soon found out why. According to Henley, “Kovak proved to be worthless and a liar”. Henley had been told for weeks that crucial evidence for the case had been subpoenaed and Henley found out it hadn’t. Henley fired Kovak immediately for having lied and for not preparing for trial. Henley drafted a detailed letter about the lies, alerting the court about what had happened and the fact that they were still not even close to being ready for a jury trial that was days away.

Dunn states, to make matters worse Shepley began behaving oddly and started interviewing witnesses, which should be the job of our private investigator and Shepley also did not alert the court of the state’s failure to produce crucial discovery needed to prepare for trial.”

Then suddenly without alerting Dunn, Shepley withdraws from the case days before trial keeping the bulk of Dunn’s retainer. Shepley did not perform as agreed and blindsided Dunn. While in court Shepley stated he did not want to put on the record why he withdrew.

Shepley’s sudden departure and Kovacs firing caused the trial to be postponed. Henley was then appointed Brian Schmonsees and Dunn hired Attorney James Luenberger (recently passed away). The couple states Leuenberger was the first attorney on the case to put it to the DDA, that her case was horrible, and that she would not be able to prove intent on any of the charges. Leuenberger told DDA Brooks she should consider dropping the case and start looking into the crooks that did commit crimes against Wayne, who were the same people that made up the allegations against Dunn and Henley in the first place.

Henley and Dunn did not fair any better with their accounting experts. In 2018, Dunn was provided a CPA by the state named Lisa Douglass to defend against the state’s allegations. In July of 2020, Douglass was reportedly fired by Leuenberger for not having produced anything for the defense to use at trial even though Douglass billed the state thousands of dollars for over 100 hours of work. Douglass’s excuse was reportedly in part related to the state not turning over discovery. Douglass stated, “Rose & Jack – Best of luck to you in your cases. After waiting 2 years to start really receiving any substantial records to assist in your case, I am disappointed that I was unable to establish a professional relationship with Mr. Leuenberger and continue to work on your behalf to resolve this matter”.

Schmonsees next hired fraud investigator Jeff Cone of Morones Analytics to review the report that led to the couple’s arrest, which had been created by Wayne Faulks former guardian Ann Yela. According to Brian Schmonsees statements to the Oregon Public Defense Services (OPDS), requesting more hours for Morones Analytics expert services, he verifies the experts have been working on several reports, completed at least two, with yet another report to be ready in advance of trial.

On May 21, 2020, Schmonsees reports to OPDS, “the state did not use an accountant and the accounting that was done was done by a legal guardian who was not qualified. Mr. Cone will detail the errors the guardian made.” Then on October 5, 2020, Schmonees told OPDS services, “Mr. Cone has done extensive work on this sloppily investigated case which includes recreating the states civilian witnesses forensic accounting as well as creating our own simplest explanation document that indicates our clients are innocent. Mr. Cone now needs an authorization to create a new report.” And on November 5, 2020, Schmonsees states to the OPDS that Mr. Cone “has completed the simplest explanation and special procedure report and he is finalizing his findings, and finally on June 5, 2021, Schmonsees reports to OPDS, “Mr. Cone is reviewing documents from “the alleged victims guardian to determine any claims of fraud” and “he is completing a report on expenditures for the named victim in advance of trial and examining the guardians account work.” Schmonsees provided these updates to get the funding for the defense expert.

As of August 17, 2021, Jeff Cone of Morones Analytics has reportedly only produced one “preliminary” report of the several that was claimed to have been done. According to information received, Morones Analytics was paid $53,000 by the state for 242 hours of work. Morones Analytics had Jeff Cone, Kevin Marold and Brent Boutwell with a combined 56 years of experience working on these reports. According to a US~Observer source, the one and only preliminary report produced by Morones Analytics has so many errors that it was “worthless to the defense,” with no mention of the other reports that they had 18 months to complete and that they were paid handsomely for. “Not a single final report was correctly finalized in advance of Henley and Dunn’s recent trial date, leaving them defenseless and the public footing the bill.”

Now Get This!

Brian Schmonsees

On August 19, 2021, one day after the Henley and Dunn trial had been reset for the 10th time Dunn received a Motion and Affidavit filed by ADA Kara Brooks on August 12, 2021. Brook’s Affidavit states in part: “Just last Monday, August 2, 2021, Brian Schmonsees, who represents co-defendant Rosemarie Henley, provided the State with a forensic accounting of the evidence and records in this case. On Thursday August 5, 2021, Mr. Schmonsees provided substantial additional documentation, either in the form of spreadsheets and further analysis conducted by his forensic accountant on witness attestations and records. The newly provided evidence is quite voluminous and will require additional analysis by the State.”

Now compare Brooks’ statements above with an email sent from Attorney Brian Schmonsees to Rose Henley on August 12, 2021, which is written on the very same day Brook’s filed her Motion and Affidavit. Keep in mind that Schmonsees had already sent the accounting that he tells Henley to edit 10 days prior.

From: Brian Schmonsees
<oregondefender@gmail.com>
To: rose_____@aol.com
Sent: Thu, Aug 12, 2021 2:05 pm
Subject: Update

OK, so the DA is asking the Court for more time to allow a financial crimes expert to review the case. She pitched a dismissal to her boss but he wants their expert to take a look at this. I am OBJECTING to any continuance of the trial date.

In the event the case is not continued, it will be dismissed (for now). The statute of limitations on this type of case is 6 years, but we should still preserve our speedy trial objections to hopefully get this dismissed without a trial. Bottom line: no trial next week.

It is still possible the case gets dismissed without trial or risk of incarceration, probation and restitution.

I invite you to send me, A. your proposed narrative for trial testimony; B. your proposed edits to Cone’s work by exhibit. As I said before, I found your earlier emails confusing on touching on multiple topics. You’ve said in essence his work is bad, his conclusions are wrong and they need to be fixed. You can show me how he is wrong by pointing to the exhibits and I’ll propose edits based on that.

Thanks
Brian
Brian Schmonsees
Attorney At Law

Attorney Schmonsees doesn’t say one word in his email about already having provided the accounting to ADA Brooks. He does, however, inform Henley she can “edit Cone’s work.” This is unbelievable deception at its best and it is certainly no surprise that Henley and Dunn have been 100% unable to find an Attorney to represent them in Clackamas County Circuit Court.

So much for Justice in Clackamas County, Oregon!

DA John Wentworth

Editor’s Note: I should note that this case started with Dunn and Henley filing a report with the State of Oregon regarding Linda Faulk (Wayne Faulk’s sister-in-law) allegedly stealing the assets of Wayne Faulk. Go to usobserver.com and search for Wayne Faulk to view a complete reporting of the history on this case.

The US~Observer has reviewed all the accounting provided by Henley and Dunn and even though we are not “expert accountants” we easily determined that Henley and Dunn spent far more on their friend and neighbor Wayne Faulk than they were reimbursed for. So, how in the world can accounting experts get away with charging the State of Oregon tens of thousands to conduct such a simple audit?

DDA Kara Brooks should be commended for realizing she doesn’t have enough evidence to prove the state’s ridiculous charges. Clackamas County District Attorney John Wentworth should be chastised for continuing his false prosecution of Jack Dunn and Rose Henley. If there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute Dunn and Henley today there surely wasn’t enough evidence to charge them in the first place.

Anyone with information of wrongdoing on the part of anyone mentioned in this article are urged to contact the US~Observer at 541-474-7885 or by sending an email to editor@usobserver.com.

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