For all the horror and heartache surrounding the deaths of eight elderly North Dallas residents – apparently at the hands of an accused serial killer – litigation filed last week by their families against the community that had pledged to protect them didn’t have to find its way into court.
Negotiations were well under way and both sides were making headway. Families were closer to answers concerning their unfathomable loss. And owners of The Tradition-Prestonwood – the upscale residence that had pledged to protect them – were on the verge of avoiding a public relations nightmare.
But as you may suspect from the way those two paragraphs are written, that’s not the way it played out.
On June 18, Trey Crawford, Ali Ohlinger and Michael Lang of Crawford, Wishnew & Lang were in the middle of mediation on the issue with former federal judge Royal Furgeson when the die was cast. The firm, which represents six of the Tradition-Prestonwood families, was deep into the second day. Nondisclosure agreements had been signed. Clients were traveling to Dallas from as far away as Minnesota. After a year of investigation and negotiation, things seemed to be falling into place.
But during the lunch hour Judge Furgeson told them that lawyers for The Tradition had dropped off some documents at the CWL offices. What soon became clear was that the day before – even as they engaged in good-faith mediation – lawyers for The Tradition had filed six separate arbitration actions in a hardball play against the six families who had already suffered an agonizing loss.
“To do this in the middle of mediation was just disappointing,” said Lang, circumspectly.
“It’s a chickenshit move,” he added, somewhat less circumspectly.
Last Tuesday, seven days after their mediation fell apart, CWL struck back for the families. They filed counterclaims in the arbitrations as well as six sister lawsuits in Dallas County, adopting the counterclaims in one as claims in the other. The lawsuits ask for a ruling that the parties’ arbitration provision is invalid and unenforceable.
“We viewed this as a Pearl Harbor attack and they were forcing our hand,” Lang said.
Lawyers for The Tradition-Prestonwood, Dallas attorneys David Macdonald and James Stanton, aren’t talking. They deferred comment to Merrie Spaeth, a public relations representative who specializes in crisis management. She, in turn, declined to answer specific written questions.
“I’m not a lawyer,” said Spaeth, a veteran network television journalist and a former media relations director during the Reagan Administration.
Presumably, the arbitration actions were filed to force the ongoing mediation into an arbitration process. Lease agreements with The Tradition-Prestonwood include an arbitration provision, so it was an option available to their lawyers even before negotiations with the families began.
Whatever the purpose, the timing of the move has embittered a ghastly situation that may now be played out before a jury, a strategy that left some lawyers scratching their heads.
“I’ve never heard of a situation like this,” says Dave Wishnew, another lawyer on the case for the families. “With facts as egregious as this… to double down and triple down on bad decisions by filing arbitration actions against the families that have already lost so much.”
By striking the first blow, lawyers for The Tradition have now allowed the families to make present their claims as counter-claims, says Dallas trial lawyer Jeff Tillotson, who is not involved with the case. And now the families can do so with almost none of the usual procedural limitations.
“I think it’s the first petition I’ve seen in over 20 years that starts with: ‘Here are our counterclaims,’” Tillotson said. “It was a very smart, very clever use of the defendant’s first punch effort against them.”
Moreover, if the purpose of arbitration was to keep the situation out of the public eye, the damage might already be done.
“Arbitration clauses are imperfect weapons,” Tillotson said. “As long as there’s a fight over whether the arbitration clause applies, the odds are that fight will end up in court.”
And once that happens, he told The Texas Lawbook: “People like you are going to find it.”
‘No, never.’
Even under the kindest light, the underlying facts in the dispute are beyond disturbing.
Eight families, including the six represented by CWL, allege that their elderly relatives, all residents of The Tradition-Prestonwood, died at the hands of Billy Chemirmir, an accused serial killer who currently faces 12 charges of capital murder – a number that seems likely to rise significantly as the investigation progresses.
Chemirmir, 46, is suspected of targeting elderly victims by posing as a maintenance worker at The Tradition and other independent living facilities. Once he gained access to their homes, the charges against him allege, he suffocated them with a pillow and stole valuable jewelry. He is currently in custody at Dallas County jail with bail set at $11.6 million.
For the most part, the eight deaths at The Tradition fit a pattern. They occurred in a three-and-a-half-month span between July 18 and October 30, 2016. All but one victim were women. All but one died of asphyxiation. And all but one was missing valuable jewelry at the time of death.
The sole male, 89-year old Solomon Spring, was found with a head wound in a pool of his own blood.
Until Chemirmir’s arrest in March 2018, the deaths were officially listed as resulting from “natural causes.” Even Solomon’s death was assumed by police to have been the result of a fall.
Only two of the deaths at The Tradition – those of Norma French, 85, and Doris Gleason, 92 – have been formally charged to Chemirmir. Their two families filed lawsuits against The Tradition-Prestonwood in July 2018.
But the lawsuits filed this past week allege all eight deaths, including that of Solomon, have been attributed to Chemirmir by law enforcement.
After Chemirmir’s arrest, according to a court filing, law enforcement was able to use location tracking to place him at The Tradition-Prestonwood at the time of each death.
The lawsuits charge that during that spate of deaths, The Tradition-Prestonwood had allowed Chemirmir to move virtually unfettered on the property among the elderly residents. In a potentially more serious charge, the lawsuits allege that police might have been able to apprehend Chemirmir much earlier in their investigation had The Tradition been more forthcoming with information they apparently possessed.
For instance, the six lawsuits allege that in late 2016, employees at The Tradition conducted their own internal investigation of the jewelry thefts that had occurred at the time of the deaths. As a result of that investigation, according to an employee whistleblower, Chemirmir was confronted and actually escorted off the premises by one of The Tradition’s executives.
According to the whistleblower, Tradition’s owner Jonathan Perlman, who is also a named defendant, threatened to fire anyone who informed residents or their families about their contact with Chemirmir. And even after they knew better, the suit maintains, The Tradition’s staff sought to divert attention from the accused serial killer.
When the body of Solomon Spring was found in a pool of blood in his apartment, staff at The Tradition were sufficiently alarmed that they reported the death as a possible homicide. During the investigation, however, police were never informed about the four previous deaths at the complex, information that might have put Solomon’s death in a far different light.
Moreover, when families questioned the disappearance of jewelry during the incidents, the staff at The Tradition attempted to direct suspicion toward paramedics who had been called to the scene.
After Chemirmir was arrested, according to the lawsuits, a family member of one of the victims asked Jeff Wells, executive director of The Tradition-Prestonwood if the accused serial killer had ever been on the property.
“No, never,” Wells answered, according to the lawsuit. But according to the whistleblower, it was Wells himself who had escorted Chemirmir off the property.
CWL’s Trey Crawford said there are many pieces of evidence that bother him, but it is this single incident that disturbs him the most.
“The worst part about it is The Tradition actually covered it up,” Crawford told The Texas Lawbook. “It’s a blatant lie. That tells you everything you need to know.”
In a statement provided to the media, The Tradition-Prestonwood denied any culpability and disputed the facts as presented in the lawsuits.
“The Tradition-Prestonwood regards all our residents as family,” said the statement. “The Tradition-Prestonwood relied on the investigations of the Dallas police, its detectives, and other reputable, established governmental entities, including the Dallas County Medical Examiner, the Collin County Medical Examiner, and more. Any death was investigated by Dallas police and the Dallas County Medical Examiner and ruled as attributed to natural causes. Additionally, there were two autopsies which also confirmed death by natural causes.”
“Those rulings stood for more than 27 months,” it continued. “The Tradition-Prestonwood has cooperated with all the authorities and will continue to do so. The allegations against Mr. Perlman that he withheld information are absolutely false.”
‘Bring it.’
The Tradition – Prestonwood is no fly-by-night. It is managed and partly owned by Tradition Senior Living, a company founded in 2007 by Jonathan Perlman – an SMU-trained lawyer distinguished by two notable earlier careers: as a major league baseball player and an associate at Vinson & Elkins.
Like many real estate ventures, The Tradition-Prestonwood is jointly-owned and operated by a variety of real estate and real estate management companies that are, in turn, owned and operated by Perlman. But ultimately the largest stake in the operation is owned by Franklin Mountain Investments, a company owned by El Paso billionaire Paul Foster’s Franklin Mountain Capital. Big pockets.
In addition to its Prestonwood location in North Dallas, Tradition Senior Living also has an independent living facility on Lover’s Lane. In Houston, Tradition has a location at Buffalo Speedway. Tradition is also in the process of building Tradition — Woodway, a high-rise senior living facility with resort-style amenities that is expected to open next spring. It will be located in the heart of Houston’s Memorial and Tanglewood areas, next to Second Baptist Church.
CWL’s lawsuits claim The Tradition withheld what it knew because its “singular focus” was to increase “its bottom line at the expense of its residents’ safety.”
Although The Tradition markets to its customers by touting its state-of-the-art security standards, the complex failed to take some of the most basic security measures — and failed to fix “massive security defects,” including some exposed by burglaries that occurred before any of the deaths, according to the lawsuits.
“Had the family members known this they never would have put them in The Tradition,” said Trey Crawford. “They’re harboring a tremendous amount of guilt for choosing the facility.”
Wishnew and Crawford said the Tradition’s target market is wealthy elderly individuals — often widows who are looking to live in a community instead of alone in an empty house.
“Tradition knows that the elderly are some of the most vulnerable in our society,” Crawford said. “They exploit this by selling safety and security.”
Wishnew said he and his colleagues are unconcerned that The Tradition-Prestonwood is backed by deep pockets that seem disposed to aggressive litigation.
“Bring it,” Wishnew said.