Jessica Vickery VS Phil Fitzgerald – Day 1

LIBERTY, October 12, 2009 - During the morning of the first day of the trial of Jessica Vickery VS Phil Fitzgerald, Phil Fitzgerald remained on the stand answering questions of Jessica Vickery’s attorneys.

During the course of that questioning we learned that through lease agreement Glenn Vickery was to pay the Jessica Vickery Trust annual lease payments on property owned by the Trust as well as pay property taxes on trust owned property.

We also learned that Phil Fitzgerald had a fiduciary responsibility to Jessica Vickery as the Trustee of her trust and at the same time had a responsibility to Glenn Vickery through a power of attorney agreement. Phil Fitzgerald appears to clearly have had a conflict of interest that went on for years.

In testimony throughout the morning, Fitzgerald revealed that he and Glenn Vickery had struck a deal that in exchange for Glenn Vickery paying for some improvements to Trust owned property, Phil Fitzgerald as Trustee of the Jessica Vickery Trust would allow him forgo making the lease payments and paying the property taxes on the Trust owned property as required by the lease agreement previously discussed.

Just take a guess at what company was performing all this work on the Trust owned property paid for by Glenn Vickery. You guessed it. It was Hard Rock Construction Company a sole proprietorship owned and operated by Phil Fitzgerald.

Jessica Vickery’s lawyers argued that the Trust benefited from the work that was done, and no one knows how much of this work was done to benefit the Trust and how much was done to benefit Glenn Vickery on his property. Vickery’s lawyers further asked since some of the work benefited the Trust and was in fact income to the Trust was that income reported to the IRS on Trust tax returns. Fitzgerald said that is had not as he was waiting for a complete tally of the invoices. This arrangement had gone on for years leading attorneys for Jessica Vickery to imply that the income of the Trust had been underreported to the IRS for years, and was a clear violation of the Fitzgerald’s fiduciary responsibilities as Trustee of the Jessica Vickery Trust.

The trial is expected to last for about three days unless something out of the ordinary happens. 75th District Court Judge, C. T. “Rusty” Hight will be deciding the case as this is not a jury trial. Stay tuned and we will keep you informed.