A Michigan judge, her attorney father and two other people were charged in a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from vulnerable and incapacitated people under court-ordered guardianship, federal prosecutors said Friday.
Detroit residents Judge Andrea Bradley-Baskin, 46; attorney Avery Bradley, 72; Nancy Williams, 59; and Dwight Rashad, 69, were all charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan said in a press release.
Bradley, a veteran attorney, was additionally charged with one count of wire fraud. His daughter, a sitting judge on Michigan’s 36th District Court, faces a count of making a false statement to federal law enforcement agents.
Bradley, Bradley-Baskin and Rashad were also charged with multiple counts of money laundering.
Williams owned Guardian and Associates, a fiduciary agency appointed by the Wayne County Probate Court in more than 1,000 cases to manage the personal and financial affairs of adults deemed unable to do so, known as “wards,” prosecutors said.
According to the indictment, Bradley and Bradley-Baskin operated a law firm that often represented the agency in court, while Rashad operated group homes and residential facilities for elderly individuals, including wards, who needed support and care.
The four defendants allegedly conspired to “systematically embezzle funds from wards, and to obtain and retain money for themselves that rightly belonged to the wards and the wards’ estates,” prosecutors said.
In one case, Bradley, Williams and Rashad allegedly pocketing about $203,000 from a ward’s legal settlement. In another, Williams allegedly paid Rashad rent for wards who did not actually live in one of Rashad’s homes.
Bradley-Baskin, who was elected to her judicial seat in 2024, is alleged to have used $70,000 in a ward’s funds to purchase an ownership stake in a local bar. She’s also accused of using money embezzled from the estate of a ward to pay for a two-year lease on a new SUV.
“We respect the authority that covers a black robe. This state judge and her cronies allegedly abused that high honor for personal gain by preying on the needy protected by the court,” said Jerome F. Gorgon Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.
