Stardate 20010723.2153 (On Screen): This story is rather sickening. An 82 year old woman has a son who is a compulsive gambler, and another son that she trusted who had power of attorney. She had $600K in stock in a safe deposit box. The gambler stole the key, forged his brother's signature on a card, and based on that the bank let him open the box and remove the stock. They apparently didn't ask for ID, which would have stopped him since he was pretending to be his brother. He then forged her signature on a power of attorney, and somehow or other managed to get a notary to affirm it. Using that, he opened a brokerage account and sold the stock, and then gambled it all away. He's now confessed and is being prosecuted for larceny and forgery, and will probably spend the rest of his life behind bars.
But there is a non-trivial question here of the extent to which the bank, the notary and the brokerage violated their responsibilities. I'm not so sure that the brokerage is really to blame here; with a notarized power of attorney in principle they should be off the hook. The bank is in much deeper trouble here; they accepted a forged signature on a card permitting him access to the box, and their lame claim that "he had the key" doesn't wash. Asking to see ID would have been prudent and should have been routine; it's clear that they were negligent. She had been paying them substantial amounts of money for that box based on their claim that it was a secure place to keep things of great value; letting someone who is not authorized walk in and empty the box based solely on a forged signature and a stolen key isn't exactly "secure".
The biggest villain of the piece is the notary, and not only should he lose his license to practice but he definitely should get his ass sued off. (And I have to wonder whether there might be appropriate criminal charges.) Notaries are supposed to be skeptical; they are paid official witnesses and they are not supposed to take chances. This guy is obviously guiilty of malpractice and because of his negligence this woman lost a fortune. If he is not held liable then the notary system itself is rendered useless. (discuss)
