Hamilton County prosecutors Thursday pressed in court for release of client names and billing records from PRO Seniors as part of a grand jury investigation into how the non-profit agency billed taxpayers.
Attorneys for PRO Seniors argued that while the agency wants to cooperate, billing records could contain personal information about elderly clients that is protected by attorney-client privilege. But assistant prosecutor Jerome Kunkel urged Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Nurre to order PRO Seniors to turn over all the records that prosecutors had subpoenaed.
"For them to hide behind that privilege, that gives them the license to steal," Mr. Kunkel said.
The grand jury hasn't started work because it has no records, prosecutors say. Judge Nurre said he could rule on the matter today. PRO Seniors provides legal services to county residents 60 and older under a $600,000-a-year contract with the Council on Aging. The council gets its money from a countywide tax.
The grand jury probe appears to center on whether PRO Seniors billed the council for unauthorized services, thereby getting taxpayer dollars improperly.
Mr. Kunkel said PRO Seniors billed 100 hours of time to research one phone call and that the research stopped only because the client died. At a rate of $80 an hour, that's an $8,000 cost to taxpayers, he said.
He also said the agency wrote a book on how to represent the elderly in Ohio based on research that might have been done at taxpayers' expense.
It isn't as if prosecutors lack probable cause for the investigation, Mr. Kunkel said. An audit by Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes' office charged the agency with billing taxpayers for such things as having a lawyer watch a videotaped Phil Donahue show.
Mr. Rhodes said the agency misspent $70,512 by charging the Council on Aging for unauthorized activities. Mr. Kunkel said that amount was suggested by PRO Seniors itself, because records the agency provided the auditor's office were such a mess the auditor's office couldn't calculate an amount.
Attorneys for PRO Seniors didn't directly address the allegations by Mr. Kunkel but denied the agency was using attorney-client privilege as a shield.
"Our concern is we have a statutory duty," said L. Clifford Craig, an attorney for PRO Seniors. "I don't like the idea that it's being characterized as something we're trying to do to hold up this investigation, because that's simply not true."
Jim Miller, a local certified public accountant and treasurer of PRO Seniors' volunteer board, said PRO Seniors isn't trying to hide anything. The agency's lawyers are simply trying to protect their clients, he said.
"It really gets down to doing what's right for PRO Seniors' clients," he said.
The subpoena dated Aug. 5 sought documents to present to the grand jury Thursday afternoon. Since those documents weren't ready, the grand jury hasn't been able to begin its work.
The documents include a client list, including names, addresses, and phone numbers of all clients serviced from July 1, 1995, to June 20, 1996, and from July 1, 1996, to June 30, 1997, that were billed to the Elderly Services Program. Prosecutors also want the intake report, daily attorney time sheets, running case record and client correspondence sheet for each client.
For the period covered in the subpoena, the agency had roughly 1,500 cases referred to staff attorneys, PRO Seniors managing attorney Thomas G. Bedall estimated in an affidavit presented to the court.
Mr. Kunkel argued that the records would be entrusted to the grand jury, which is sworn to secrecy, and that the investigation was about the lawyers at PRO Seniors, not their clients.
"The billing records which have been represented to this court as being privileged are the heart of this investigation," Mr. Kunkel said.
Without having all the information included on the billing records, the grand jury can't determine whether time was billed properly or improperly or whether the clients even exist, he said. Judge Nurre told Mr. Kunkel he had "a great desire to do what you want me to do" - to order PRO Seniors to turn over the complete records.
"But I still have a nagging concern, maybe more than a nagging concern, with disclosing all those seniors' problems, whatever they may be," the judge said.
Enquirer reporter Kristen Delguzzi contributed to this article.
