On Sept. 13th 2010 I filed a Complaint in Superior Court of Santa Barbara, California, for the Wrongful Death of my mother, Mesa Vernell Lundberg. She died in a hospice facility on Sept. 15, 2008. She had resided there against her will for seven lonely years. My brother Darius Lundberg and I are the Plaintiffs. Defendants are mainly lawyers, two conservators, nurses, a medical doctor, a banker, and Trilby Lundberg of Lundberg Survey Incorporated.

Mesa Lundberg had become complete owner of Lundberg Survey after I left the firm in 1986. The firm's flagship publication, the Lundberg Letter, was known as "the bible of the oil industry, as it had accurately predicted the Second Oil Shock in 1979. Unfortunately, after her husband Dan Lundberg (founder of the firm and widely called "the Oil Guru”) died in 1986, Mesa was to live the final quarter of her life in increasingly bad circumstances, except for a two-year respite in Arcata, California.

Some Culture Change readers already knew much of the above, and have followed the oil-industry connections of this publication’s concerns and its founder. The court documents at the end of this introductory article contain much of the whole story plus new insights that make the case for wrongful death. Yet, despite the awful aspects of this sad and ugly saga, this case is an opportunity for anyone to learn from this family’s experience with elder abuse and fraud. In fact, the implications of weakening community/family closeness were a factor in selecting the name Culture Change for the work of the organization I founded in 1988, then named Fossil Fuels Policy Action. In the Complaint filed on September 13, 2010 -- the day after Mesa's birthday, unfortunately a Sunday so the courts were closed -- the bigger picture is hinted at, in terms of social costs:

In addition to Plaintiffs’ need for damages to be paid by the Defendants, both compensation and punitive, for abusing and shortening the life of their loving mother – depriving them of her companionship and ability to pass along an inheritance – the Plaintiffs hope that this complaint and the trial will help shine a light on the out-of-control and self-serving methods and conspiracies of fiends legalistically preying upon elderly and wealthy individuals who lack defenses against abuse and fraud. [Page 9, Paragraph 27 “Attachment 12”]

Personal costs have been high within the Lundberg family, in addition to the total financial fleecing and loss of health suffered by Mesa Lundberg. For myself, I regret the long, on and off state of war that went on and on, costing me money but mainly costing me my time, which one can never get back. It’s also oppressive to get sued for trying to make a living at one’s only trade (in 1987); I had the express permission of the Chairwoman of the Board, to operate my own business, Lundberg Reports. But to have any basis to attack me in federal court, my opposition needed to claim (committing perjury) that I had taken proprietary information. The complete waste of time and funds in that case did nothing but weild costly weapons known as lawyers. I am fortunate that my post-oil industry years have been enriched by some worthwhile activism, priceless personal relationships, learning about peak oil and petrocollapse, and participating in creative and fun projects that protect the global climate, hopefully helping to bring on a sustainable future while we still have a chance.

- Jan Lundberg

Defendants Attachment
for Complaint form PLD-PI-001
Lundberg versus Lundberg

Trilby Lundberg
Mary Lou Parks, RN
Michelle Armet, MD
David Turpin, attorney-at-law
W. Joe Bush, attorney-at-law
John Parke, attorney-at-law
Margaret Barnes, attorney-at-law
Charles Sciutto, RN
Joy Sciutto
Marilyn Carliner [Carlander]
Debbie Hilton Ciambrone
Michael Markovitch, attorney-at-law

Attachment 12 Lundberg versus Lundberg

1. “Murder or manslaughter” is how the life of Mesa Vernell Lundberg (“Mesa”, mother of Plaintiffs) ended, according to a statement by the Chief Investigator of the Los Angeles County Coroner, Craig Harvey, to Plaintiff Jan Lundberg.

2. For almost a decade the Defendants knowingly failed to conserve and protect Mesa’s property and finances. Far worse, the Defendants knowingly deprived her of a healthier, longer life by preventing care and treatment befitting a non-terminally ill person. Seven years of forced confinement in a hospice facility was uncalled for when there were better alternatives in terms of appropriate physical care and affordability. The facility, Toltec Living Center, cost Mesa $8,000-plus per month for only room and board. No physical or occupational therapy, or mobility such as walking were available to Mesa during the seven years, except on rare occasion, contributing to predictable ailments which she endured, with resultant surgeries and deterioration of health. Yet Mesa hung on, still able to walk just barely after recovering from preventable setbacks, and was never terminally ill.

3. She consistently made clear her demands to leave Santa Barbara and live in her own home (an idea approved by her home county Court Investigator for Humboldt, northern California). In addition to negligence and fraud against her, Mesa was subjected to years of lying in her own urine each morning as the understaffed facility left her in a caged bed, when she was capable of walking to the toilet with her walker.

4. Finally, after she did not die after seven years, Mesa was placed [on] a life-ending regime of morphine, unknown to Plaintiffs, on September 10 and given increasing doses until she died on September 15th. Mesa had no condition known to require morphine, a well-known exit drug. To the knowledge of Plaintiffs who were in close touch with her, she was not complaining of pain, nor did she wish to die. The death certificate listed no cause of death indicating the need for morphine, such as painful cancer. The Chief Investigator of the Los Angeles Country Coroner told Plaintiff Jan Lundberg that “morphine did not seem to be indicated” and it was found at “higher levels than expected.” Regarding the narcotic’s administration he found the medical records to be “irregular” and “slapped together.” He determined there was Suspected Elder Abuse, which he reported on Form 341 filed with law enforcement. On the form he stated Mesa’s “death (was) occasioned by the actions of another.” One reason for his suspicions in this case was that morphine’s effect on a body is counter to any goal of enabling it to “thrive,” while Mesa’s death certificate’s main cause of death listed “failure to thrive.” On the same Form 341 the Chief Investigator identified culpable parties: Defendants Charles Sciutto and Michelle Armet. The Chief Investigator, Craig Harvey (over two decades on the job), also observed that Mesa’s soonest death maximized the profit of Toltec, as the facility had seized (through most of the Defendants’ actions) Mesa’s last quarter million dollars for the right to reside at Toltec until she were to die.

5. Conveniently for the Defendants, she did not live long enough to use up much of that money, and on September 15, 2008 Toltec suddenly had an $8,000-a-month bedroom freed up. The conflict of interest for Toltec to keep Mesa alive is matched only by the conflict of interest in the possessive nature of the conservatorship that drained Mesa of all her health, property and happiness. (Trilby Lundberg was Mesa’s first, and unwelcome, conservator.)

6. Plaintiffs had secured an autopsy of their mother Mesa in 2008 in order to show the years of consistent disuse of her muscles and inability to chew, conditions deliberately allowed to worsen by Defendants. Plaintiffs had on many occasions asked relevant Defendants to provide Mesa the therapy, mobility, and dental care she needed, and that food be provided for Mesa that she could chew (her dentures were missing for her entire stay at Toltec and her dental health was neglected). Plaintiffs were unprepared for Chief Harvey’s news of "elevated morphine levels" and “death occasioned by the actions of another” (the definition of homicide, noted Chief Harvey to Jan Lundberg).

7. Despite her circumstances and the massive injustice to her, Mesa was always stoic and dignified, and did not believe in complaining even in her own interest. She spoke quietly and slowly, whenever someone cared to pay attention to her. Behind her back some called her demented. For example, Trilby stated in a key pleading that “Mesa is too demented to decide her own residence.” Mesa tried to enjoy life by reading mystery novels daily, listening to music, hoping for more visitors, talking on the phone, and she even babysat frequently the infants of the owners of the hospice business. At her request she was taken to shops, movies, and relatives’ homes. Although Mesa coughed most days, her alleged pulmonary disease did not require Mesa to ever have oxygen administered, that the Plaintiffs know of. Mesa was not extremely healthy, but not in bad shape for a woman in her eighties who never got exercise or enough food (no special accommodation was made with the kitchen for her lack of teeth). Mesa had to witness many people dieing around her for years in the hospice facility, and their state when alive was what she was accused of being: incapable of intelligent conversation. Mesa’s adult companionship at the hospice “home” was therefore next to nothing.

8. Only with the report on the autopsy did Plaintiffs learn their mother was being given morphine (large and frequent amounts, despite her being noted in records as “comfortable and sleeping” during her final hours and days at the end of the five days of constant morphine). Jan Lundberg spoke with his mother two days before she died, and she sounded lucid, happy, and wanting to see him and speak on the telephone again soon (as always). Darius Lundberg visited her a few days prior to her death, after Trilby Lundberg called him and said “Mesa is shutting down.” He found this to be untrue when he immediately visited his mother and found her to be in her usual condition and steady, lucid frame of mind, without any mention or indication of pain or extra unhappiness. So he, like his brother Jan, was shocked at her death.

9. The death of Mesa on September 15, 2008 was from causes not limited to those on the death certificate, in two ways or phases:

10. In Phase Two, the more recent period, there are two causes of death apart from what is on the death certificate:

(A) The unusual amount of morphine was found in her system, when she had not been on the drug for any chronic condition, and she had not been “on hospice” to ease her pain to death. She did not want to die.

(B) Her physical condition was allowed to run down deliberately for years prior to death, as she was denied mobility and therapy, and she suffered from malnutrition due to having no upper teeth (and no special provisions were made for diet such as blended drinks with supplements).

12. Mesa resided at Toltec not just because persons named in this complaint were profiting off her wrongful residence at a hospice; the central idea was to make sure she did not get out alive in order to pursue her lost wealth and turn it against her philosophical enemy: major oil corporations (explained later in this Complaint’s Attachment).

13. The Sciuttos had a fiduciary duty to maintain Mesa’s health but they did not. The actions and omissions of the Sciuttos, Dr. Amet and their commander Mary Lou Parks, at the command of her friend Trilby Lundberg, were far beyond what is normally encountered as mere malpractice. The entire sequence of events over years reflected the modus operandi of a predatory group helping itself alone. Intimidation, lies and false promises of release were experienced and observed by Plaintiffs regarding their mother. She was incarcerated, in effect, at Toltec via fraudulent conservatorship, false statements, and obviously wrongful placement of a non-terminally ill person in a hospice facility for seven years. This was very profitable for some of the defendants, as approximately $825,000 can go around nicely. That figure only covered room and board, as the facility offered nothing but a place to die. Additional funds were from Medicare, which might not have been forthcoming if Mesa still owned a house and home. This might have spurred Defendants to dispose of the house and spend the proceeds on themselves, supposedly on behalf of Mesa. This complaint does not address Defendants’ possible defrauding of the government and the taxpayers.

14. Mesa’s house was liquidated and all proceeds, including over one million dollars cash that she had separately, went into the pockets of most Defendants.

15. For Phase One, the original and motivating crime that brought about Phase Two above was the swindle of corporate stock that Mesa owned. She lost it for a tiny portion of its market value, but it was due only to elder abuse by Trilby Lundberg and her attorneys. This loss of approximately $50 million was to the sole benefit of Defendant Trilby Lundberg, but Trilby may have had to pay other Defendants for their compliance in carrying out Phase Two above to keep Mesa in check and defenseless (especially with her do-nothing lawyer Joe Bush), and penniless, and finally gotten out of the way by her killing on September 15, 2008.

16. The Santa Barbara judge in the case, “Conservatorship of Mesa Lundberg,” approved the arrangements devised by Defendants perhaps because he trusted their honesty and ability to conserve and protect Mesa’s property, finances and health. The judge was lied to, misled, and he failed to take into account Mesa’s practical needs for physical and financial health. Her clear wishes, regularly expressed, to live in her own home with far less expensive yet one-on-one professional care were ignored. Defendants expressed their feelings against the idea of Jan’s living “for free” at Mesa’s house, even through he had paid rent and had himself generated most of Mesa’s wealth through his prior management of Lundberg Survey. Jan’s operating the anti-Big Oil organization Culture Change out of Mesa’s home, with her enthusiastic permission, was also something to be terminated in the eyes of the Defendants.

17. Mesa could have been more definite and aggressive to confront those opposing her, but it would have meant attacking her own daughter Trilby, which, like most parents, she could [not] bring herself to do strongly enough. Being unable to do so left Mesa vulnerable to allegations that she had insufficient mental capacity, although this was not confirmed or believed by her visitors who were not the Defendants or Does working for them. Also affecting her apparent mental condition, Mesa was forced to take drugs (such as the dangerous antidepressant Remeron) from October 2001 until she died, for the purpose of pacifying her and quell her demands for freedom. Mesa’s family members and friends never knew her to be depressed, and her distaste for medical drugs was legendary. Despite the drugs Mesa was always able and willing to talk about anything, including complex matters, with wisdom and wry humor.

18. As stated above, Mesa was not demented as alleged in court, and she was not terminally ill. Through the Defendants’ ignoring Mesa’s real situation and her rights, Mesa was elder-abused by Defendants and Does, and was a victim of fraud by Defendants. Unfortunately, a judge cannot get to know many of those greatly affected by his or her decisions, but if the judge in this case had taken the time to hear, know and understand Mesa, he might have realized she was not someone to be described and mistreated as she was. John Shellabarger, attorney-at-law in Santa Barbara, visited Mesa at Toltec and found her to be lucid and aware in terms of surroundings and the calendar. He informed Plaintiff Jan Lundberg in 2006 that his mother was suffering elder abuse.

19. Others who visited Mesa and did not find her to be demented or seriously ill were Barbara Shults, RN and Legal Nurse Consultant, and Mesa’s relatives David Nathenson, Sonya Nathenson, and Yoland Nathenson (Mesa’s nephew and nieces), Dana Lundberg Sharp (stepdaughter), Dana’s daughter Darla Sharp, and Erik Lundberg Scott (son of Guy Lundberg, stepson of Mesa). Erik saw her frequently over the years that Jan rode with him to Toltec to visit Mesa. Mesa's granddaughters Bronwyn Lundberg and Vernell Lundberg knew their grandmother was not demented, and it was with great joy that Mesa heard from them or saw them, or received news about them. Chief Harvey observed to Plaintiff Jan that “Mesa’s brain must have been working when she wanted to go home.”

20. Nurse Shults was initially shocked that Mesa was in an end stage facility, and believes that Toltec is not an appropriate facility for administering morphine, possibly lacking the license for such. Shults stated to Plaintiff Jan that there are other pain relievers to use – but they would not induce the apparently desired effect of respiratory failure, as morphine does. Morphine sedation reduces lung action, and serves to kill a person as in assisted suicide. Mesa Lundberg was not suicidal. She was a former lawyer who knew a money-grubbing game was being played around her for high stakes. She lamented her having any oil money, that it brought her great trouble and danger. She wanted to outlive the “attackers” (as she described her enemies) who were “bought off” (as she put it) so that she could see them hopefully live to experience their own conservatorship.

21. For Mesa or the Plaintiffs to have somehow forced those who were responsible to do the right thing by Mesa proved impossible, as it was most difficult without a huge war chest to counter Defendants’ relentless, unethical drive for profit at Mesa’s expense. Mesa’s plight was also determined by a flawed system: patients or victims of fraud are all too often placed and kept overly long in a facility where great profit is made not just by the facility, but by every self-interested professional (as in the Defendants) playing along and collecting a handsome fee. Letting a patient return home, despite savings of funds and better care and happiness for the patient, runs counter to the selfish needs of those wishing to profit; this happens with large hospitals as well as with small facilities involving a few people.

22. W. Joe Bush was Mesa’s attorney (along with his partner John Parke) from 2001 on until her death. Bush (Defendant) refused to do anything for his client other than to take her occasional statement that she wanted to return to her own home in Humboldt County. Bush was a family friend of the judge, and repeatedly stated he wanted to move Mesa to his friend’s new elder care facility (this did not occur). Bush was so disappointed that the judge had ordered a reduction in legal fees paid by Mesa that Bush cited this for his refusal to honor Mesa’s request to appeal the judge’s decision to sell her home and confine her to the hospice-home Toltec. Bush misinformed his client and Plaintiff Jan Lundberg about a possible jury trial on challenging the conservatorship: he said it was not possible. But through the Santa Barbara Court Investigator Jan and Mesa found in 2007 that he had misled and lied to us. Bush never challenged the conservatorship as his client wished as her annual right; only Jan did so, with no help whatsoever from Bush or Parke. Nor did they help Jan with his appeal of the judge’s decision, even though his case was accepted as valid by the top firm Lasher and Lasher.

23. Xenia Lundberg, former business partner and sister-in-law to Defendant Trilby Lundberg, stated that Trilby confided, after her father Dan Lundberg died in 1986, “One down and one to go.” – referring to Mesa. Trilby’s prime motivation was to seize control of Lundberg Survey, which she did from a position of outsider, having been severed from the firm in 1985, taking it over and forcing all other family members out and becoming, illegitimately, the sole owner. Trilby swindled the family business from Mesa with the aid of elder abuse in a questionable transaction, based on a cash loan from Mesa to Trilby that gave Mesa 1/200th of the market value of the stock in Lundberg Survey. However, even the small payment was not consistently paid each month, and was never completed.

24. In the entire conservatorship and confinement of Mesa, Trilby has enjoyed the full cooperation of every professional and official involved with her mother’s case, against Mesa’s wishes and interests. Much money was to be made or safeguarded by Defendants all the way around. With Mesa’s confinement and death their aims and improved pocketbooks were well realized. Mesa’s visits were controlled by the conservator, against Mesa’s and Plaintiff’s wishes. Trilby Lundberg did not object to these rules, as she found them not applying to her anyway due to special treatment. The visitation rules were for number of consecutive hours (three) per day, 24-hour notice required, and restricting of content of discussion on where Mesa could live. Such rules prevented her from fulfilling her wish to attend the funeral of her brother-in-law Simon Nathenson in 2003, but Toltec took her to see the Getty Museum about the same time period, such was her sufficient health and state of mind. Trilby took Mesa for occasional long and exhausting trips. These rules were obtained deviously by Defendant Turpin when he submitted them to the judge after promising not to do so. The rules were contrived in part to justify the heavy drugging of Mesa to stop her from demanding to go home. She had gone on a hunger strike in October 2001, and got drugged thereafter and her visits by Plaintiffs discouraged and controlled.

25. Lundberg Survey has for decades been widely known as a service of and for the major oil corporations. So the money and wealth of Mesa Lundberg was from the oil industry, in two ways: (1) when her funds and assets were seized in conservatorship – launched against her by Trilby with the aid of perjury in 1995 – her money that was all from Big Oil was used against her (Mesa) to deprive her of her property, her freedom and fast-dwindling wealth. (2) The ongoing cash flow from Lundberg Survey at Trilby’s disposal was of course Big Oil money as well, possible because Trilby owned and controlled the firm. Mesa attempted to gain back her stock by hiring the law firm McCutcheon, Brown and Enerson in 1999, as the firm believed she had a good case. Unfortunately, Mesa hired two Santa Barbara lawyers who failed to pursue her interests (Margaret Barnes and Joe Bush, Defendants), and they betrayed her when she was railroaded into eternal conservatorship and incarceration. The conservators Mary Lou Parks and Marilyn Carliner also failed in their fiduciary duty to pursue Mesa’s claim to all of the Lundberg Survey stock, as the conservators and all the Defendants were loyal to Trilby Lundberg’s each and every claim and desire against the interests of Mesa. Mesa clearly wanted the stock back in her name (not such a demented wish), and this may have been the reason that Trilby did not see or telephone or write to her mother for years prior to trapping her in Santa Barbara in 2001.

26. The role of Big Oil’s money in the demise of Mesa’s financial and physical health and earlier-than-necessary death is significant, given Mesa’s political leanings and her well-known support of anti-oil activism. In the Culture Change magazine, Fall 2001, she is prominently quoted: “Shell Oil Company is why I do not walk well today.” [in connection with pesticide exposure] Mesa Lundberg served as occasional editor of the magazine (previously known as the anti-oil pollution Auto-Free Times and the Paving Moratorium Update). The magazine’s publisher, her son Jan Lundberg (Plaintiff), enjoyed Mesa’s support on various levels for years. His activities against oil-industry expansion and ongoing pollution have been well documented, such as in the Washington Post, Associated Press, CNN-International, and elsewhere. Trilby and her major oil corporate masters did not want Jan Lundberg’s and Mesa Lundberg’s feelings on Big Oil to be (1) supported by one dollar of Mesa’s estate or (2) result in Mesa’s regaining control of Lundberg Survey. Jan Lundberg ran Lundberg Survey profitably prior to Trilby, but he left the firm voluntarily in 1986 for the sake of peace in the family.

27. In addition to Plaintiffs’ need for damages to be paid by the Defendants, both compensation and punitive, for abusing and shortening the life of their loving mother – depriving them of her companionship and ability to pass along an inheritance – the Plaintiffs hope that this complaint and the trial will help shine a light on the out-of-control and self-serving methods and conspiracies of fiends legalistically preying upon elderly and wealthy individuals who lack defenses against abuse and fraud.

28. Defendants’ roles in Lundberg versus Lundberg

29. The following persons in the Santa Barbara, California area were involved closely in Mesa Vernell Lundberg's estate, medical care, and legal proceedings. Their affiliations, jobs and roles concerning Mesa Vernell Lundberg are briefly described under their names. Most of them were mentioned above.

30. John Parke, attorney-at-law, partner of W. Joe Bush. Parke represented Mesa in court when Joe Bush was unavailable. When Parke appeared in Judge McLafferty's Santa Barbara Superior Court room, and did not argue for Mesa, he said upon the decision that Mesa would lose her house and be confined to Toltec Living Center against her will, “She will live ten more years and run out of money before that.” This shows that he knew she was being mistreated or wronged with a faulty decision. He also knew that the impetus for arguing for such a decision was based on falsehoods, whether deliberate or not.

31. Charles Sciutto, RN, is the co-owner of Toltec Living Center ("Toltec"), a hospice-respite facility for wealthy elderly people. Mr. Sciutto and his wife Joy Sciutto formally accepted business from Mary Lou Parks to place Mesa Vernell Lundberg ("Mesa") at Toltec as a full time resident. Mr. Sciutto was fully aware that Mesa, whom he and Ms. Sciutto utilized on occasion as babysitter for their son, was not terminally ill for the seven years she was forced to remain at Toltec. Mr. and Ms. Sciutto were also fully aware that Mesa needed physical and occupational therapy, and simple mobility, instead of being confined to her bed in a cage or sitting alone all day.

32. Mr. and Mrs. Sciutto were also fully aware that Mesa was undernourished chronically as she lacked teeth. No effort was made to retrieve her dentures from Arcata where she wanted to be in her own home. Without teeth, Mesa needed smoothies and other food preparation and selection, but this did never happened. Mr. and Mrs. Sciutto were also fully aware that lack of sufficient staff left Mesa in her bed each morning in a cage in her own urine, although going to the bathroom on her own was within her capabilities.

33. Joy Sciutto is the co-owner of Toltec Living Center, a hospice-respite facility for wealthy elderly people. Ms. Sciutto is business and domestic partner of Charles Sciutto. Ms. Sciutto and her husband were fully aware that Mesa did not want to remain at the facility around dying people year after year, and that Mesa would have benefited from a bit more care than that befitting a dying person, covered by the $8,000 plus monthly cost that Mesa paid for. On top of this sum, approximately $250,000 came to Mr. and Mrs. Sciutto for Mesa's perpetual care, in 2007, but she did not live to use much of the value of the sum. It could have been used for some physical and occupational therapy, or at least some staff assistance in the mornings to help Mesa walk to the bathroom, or for Mesa to go outside the facility and see some nature.

34. Michelle Armet, MD, was the principal medical doctor for Mesa. Dr. Armet was fully aware that Mesa responded well to physical and occupational therapy during the few occasions it was implemented, such as after Mesa's surgeries. Dr. Armet was also aware that the surgeries, for a broken hip and bowel obstruction, were caused substantially by lack of mobility and lack of therapy. However, Dr. Armet did not insist on or implement physical and occupational therapy for Mesa, even though Dr. Armet knew Mesa responded to it and was "doing well" in general, according to her statements to Jan Lundberg and Darius Lundberg. Dr. Armet was 100% compliant with the person paying her, Mary Lou Parks (Conservator), such that Mrs. Parks' refusal to allow Mesa to visit her home based on a claim of "frailty" were not refuted by Dr. Armet. Dr. Armet was fully aware that Mesa was being denied a re-evaluation of her neuro-psych condition, after a preliminary report in 2001 required follow up to measure Mesa's improved health.

35. Mary Lou Parks, RN, was Conservator of the Estate and Conservator of the Person of Mesa from 2001 until Mesa's death. Mrs. Parks was terminated in 2001 but was reinstated in a few weeks as her replacement, another RN, quit. Mesa simultaneously had a co-conservator, Mary Cardiff, Esq., an old friend, who insisted that Mesa return to her own home. Mrs. Parks initially agreed and promised that Mesa belonged and would be back in her own home in 2001, and begged Plaintiff Jan not to exercise the right to obtain county guardianship for his mother. After Parks’ consultations with Trilby, Parks tried to quash Mesa’s claim to the Lundberg Survey stock by reporting that Trilby was "not selling" Lundberg Survey. Mrs. Parks proceeded to follow all Trilby’s wishes in opposing all Mesa's wishes and ignoring her best interests (e.g., one-on-one care, physical and occupational therapy, and saving money that was as Mrs. Parks acknowledged was "hemorrhaging). Mrs. Parks took undue initiatives that limited Mesa's freedom and health, and practiced a double standard, at the urgings of Trilby Lundberg. For example, Mesa wanted to return to her own home, in part for better care and to save money, but this was thwarted by forcing Mesa to take drugs she did not believe were necessary or safe (Remeron; Dr. Armet and the Sciuttos went along with this). Mesa was also denied liberal visiting by her children, but in practice Trilby alone was exempt with the full knowledge of Mrs. Parks, as Mesa was taken on long car trips by Trilby. Mrs. Parks was aware that in 2001 one of these trips resulted in Mesa's fainting but Trilby did not take Mesa to a hospital or call 911. Mrs. Parks first called the episode "suspicious" but that was before Mrs. Parks and Trilby became close friends. Mrs. Parks always behaved as if Trilby were her real client, and paid well to deprive Mesa of her rights and health. As the Humboldt County Court Investigator found, and reported to Plaintiff Jan, “Money talks.”

36. Marilyn Carliner, was acting co-conservator when Mesa died on September 15, 2008. Like Mrs. Parks, Ms. Carliner failed to inform Jan or Darius Lundberg of Mesa's true condition or that she had died. (The brothers only found out when Jan called Toltec to speak with his mother.) Ms. Carliner did not respond to repeated requests for Mesa's property to be seen and shared by Jan and Darius Lundberg, as Ms. Carliner only responded to the wishes of Trilby Lundberg.

37. Margaret Barnes is an attorney-at-law who represented Mesa in early 2001 but was replaced by Joe Bush. Mrs. Barnes proceeded to become lawyer for Mesa's estate. At no time did Mrs. Barnes take any action to protect Mesa's interests health-wise or financially. Apart from taking her handsome fees, Mrs. Barnes participated in the draining of Mesa's estate, knowing full well that home-care in a paid-for home, in a less expensive community (Arcata, Calif.), would conserve the estate. Mrs. Barnes also knew that Mesa's estate could afford physical and occupational therapy. However, Mrs. Barnes played along with her colleagues all profiting of Mesa's incarceration and poor treatment, as Mrs. Barnes referred to Mesa as "incapacitated." Mrs. Barnes knew full well that Mesa could carry on any conversation but was reluctant to confront her daughter. Mrs. Barnes also knew that Mesa was being deprived of her neuro-psych re-evaluation. Mrs. Barnes rubber-stamped each expenditure draining Mesa's estate that simultaneously deprived Mesa of proper care. Mrs. Barnes was also aware of Mesa's wishes to preserve her wealth and to care for her children's and grandchildren's financial welfare, such as retaining the family home for future generations, but did nothing.

38. W. Joe Bush is an attorney-at-law who represented Mesa from 2001 to her death in 2008. As far as can be known, he only represented Mesa in two things: conveying her clear and consistent wishes to the court to leave Santa Barbara and return to her own home where her son Jan Lundberg had care-givers in place; Mr. Bush never made a motion. He also seemed to represent her by offering to see that Jan Lundberg's loan to her for legal fees would be returned to him if he dropped the appeal he launched in 2003. As a friend of the Judge and Mrs. McLafferty, handling their trust matters, Mr. Bush never opposed the Judge's tendencies to deprive Mesa of her rights and to allow the rapid draining of her estate. Full legal fees were restricted by the Judge, but this gave Mr. Bush the excuse to do nothing for his client. He never challenged the conservatorship, an annual right. He completely failed to pursue her claim to owning the stock in Lundberg Survey that was taken from her by her daughter Trilby Lundberg. He gave all the stock-related materials to another attorney, Morris Getzels, over whom he (Bush) had no control and who never represented Mesa Lundberg.

39. Debby Hilton Ciambrone was Trustee of the Mesa V. Lundberg Family Trust, and was or is an employee of Bank of the West (previously SanWa Bank). Ms. Hilton (her maiden name) did nothing to ever save any of Mesa's funds being wasted on inappropriate end-stage care at extremely high costs. Ms. Hilton was fully aware of the ways Mesa was being defrauded, after meeting with Plaintiff Jan Lundberg, and that Mesa’s real wealth was ownership of Lundberg Survey, but Ms. Hilton did nothing to alleviate or pursue these matters. Instead, she rubber-stamped each expenditure draining Mesa's estate that simultaneously deprived Mesa of proper care. Ms. Hilton was also aware of Mesa's wishes to preserve her wealth and to care for her children's and grandchildren's financial welfare, such as retaining the family home for future generations, but Hilton did nothing toward this.

40. David Turpin is an attorney-at-law for conservators. He was Mrs. Parks' lawyer and benefited from the substantial funds taken from Mesa for his own legal fees and for Mrs. Parks for her conservatorship fees. He was a friend of the late Judge McLafferty, judging from their conversation on a speaker phone in court when Mr. Turpin was in the hospital with cancer. Mr. Turpin knowingly wasted Mesa's estate and saw her health deteriorate and fail to improve due to the wrongful facility Mesa was forced to dwell in. Mr. Turpin is a business partner with Mrs. Parks and worked with Mr. Faulkes to carry out Trilby Lundberg's wishes (such as to deprive Mesa of her rights and to oppose her in her wish to repay the loan Jan gave her to retain McCutcheon, Brown and Enersen). Mr. Turpin fully knew that McCutcheon, Brown and Enersen were of the opinion that Mesa had a good case for owning the stock in Lundberg Survey.

41. Michael Markovitch is an attorney-at-law who was preparing the Lundberg Family Trust when Dan Lundberg died. At Markovitch's first meeting with the family at Lundberg Survey after Dan Lundberg's death, Markovitch said it was clear that Jan Lundberg (Plaintiff) was to continue running Lundberg Survey. Yet Markovitch unaccountably and without honesty or clarity soon ceased working in Mesa's interest, coming to represent Trilby instead in her goals to take over Lundberg Survey. He knew Mesa was being elder abused and manipulated in her confusion and grief so soon after losing her husband, but instead he pretended to represent Mesa's interests, and facilitated along with Gary Faulkes (an attorney of Trilby and Lundberg Survey) and other Does the swindling of Lundberg Survey from Mesa (after Plaintiff Jan gave up his claims). Markovitch, Faulkes and Trilby produced a revised family trust instrument that did not include Mesa's rightful ownership of Lundberg Survey. Mesa was clearly ill from strokes during this time, but before that was stripped of her job at Lundberg Survey and lost her title of Chairman of the Board to Trilby. The only connections to Lundberg Survey in the Lundberg Family Trust instrument were large cash loans to Trilby which she was to pay back (and did not) that were used to buy the Lundberg Survey stock from Mesa at ridiculously low rates. Plaintiffs are informed and believe and thereon allege that Michael Markovitch may have continued to act on behalf of the Lundberg Family Trust up to the time of Mesa’s death.

42. Trilby Lundberg is daughter of Mesa and sister of Jan and Darius Lundberg. Trilby is known as an elder abuser of her mother and of Dana Lundberg Sharp, whose untimely death in 2007 prompted Dana's niece to furnish a statement to the police in Santa Barbara. Trilby began her abuse and fraud of her mother after Mesa's husband Dan Lundberg died in 1986, resulting in the swindle of Mesa Lundberg's ownership of all the stock in the family business, Lundberg Survey. Trilby was not content to sit on these ill-gotten gains, when in 1995 she perjured herself to force her mother into conservatorship. She did so again in 2001 when she trapped her mother in Santa Barbara County and deprived her of ever seeing her home again, to die penniless “by the actions of another,” as reported by Chief Harvey of the Los Angeles County Coroner Department.

* * * * *

Note: the few words in brackets in the above Complaint Attachments signify clarification for Culture Change readers.

Questions for the Gasoline Guru-ess, Trilby Lundberg, Dec 12, 2006, Culture Change Letter #146
"Trilby Lundberg, guru of gasoline prices, has no idea how many miles her new Mercedes-Benz gets per gallon..." (Associated Press) MSNBC proclaimed, "Trilby Lundberg is ‘Prophet of the Pumps’" (AP, by Jeff Wilson) on August 20, 2006.

Big Oil/Lundberg Survey Scare Tactics Against Climate Legislation, July 11, 2009, by Jan Lundberg
Long called 'the Bible of the oil industry,' "it changed from an independent family business to a 100% tool for Big Oil, decrying 'burdensome environmental regulations' while the corporation's head says global warming is 'political hot air.'"

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