2002

Ex-judge gets 69 months for swindling disabled woman

Margaret Zack

Star Tribune Published Jun 8, 2002Testimony from 19 supporters, including prominent lawyers and a former Miss America, wasn't enough to save Roland Amundson from prison.
Amundson, the former Minnesota Court of Appeals judge who admitted taking about $300,000 while serving as trustee for a mentally retarded woman's estate, was sentenced Friday in Hennepin County District Court to five years and nine months in prison.
AmundsonThe 52-year-old Amundson was led to jail from the courtroom.
The sentence, a year longer than recommended by sentencing guidelines, matched the prosecution's request. Amundson's attorney, Ronald Meshbesher, argued for probation. Under the sentence, Amundson will have to serve three years and 10 months before becoming eligible for parole.
He resigned Feb. 26 after 11 years on the Appeals Court. He was charged the next day with five felony counts of theft by swindle and pleaded guilty in April.
During a hearing that lasted all day Friday, a psychiatrist, Dr. Carl Malmquist, testified that Amundson suffers from bipolar disorder, an illness that caused him to act irrationally. People who don't understand the ailment call what Amundson did greed, he said.
But District Judge Richard Hopper said he disagreed with Malmquist's assessment. Amundson engaged in a calculated series of acts for nearly five years and took steps to conceal them, Hopper said. He said Amundson's judgment was clouded, he was drunk on power and had a feeling of entitlement.
Dagmar Koch, the retarded woman's caregiver and one of four people who argued in court against leniency, said that Amundson had no respect for the victim's quality of life or her future. A year ago, he offered to pay for a trip for Koch from the trust account, Koch said, calling it bribery.
The trust for the woman, now 31 years old but with the mental capacity of a 3-year-old, was set up in 1994.
Amundson was named trustee by her father, a beer distributor who got to know Amundson when Amundson was executive secretary of the Minnesota Beer Wholesalers Association.
Among those appearing on Amundson's behalf was a longtime friend and neighbor, Curt Arvidson, who said he saw changes in Amundson's behavior over the years, describing mood swings and how Amundson failed to show up for social gatherings.
Amundson broke down in tears when the Rev. Laurel Lindberg, a pastor at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, called him "the son I never had."
His former Appeals Court colleague, Judge R. A. Randall, said Amundson was the most literate, best-read member of the court.
And Dorothy Benham, Miss America 1977 and a neighbor of Amundson's, said that, while what Amundson did was terrible, he had taken steps to correct the wrongs.
Many of the witnesses appearing on Amundson's behalf testified that the four orphaned Russian children he has adopted have made amazing progress since he took them in in 1998 and 1999.
Vivian Jenkins Nelson, of the Inter-Race Institute for Interracial Interaction at Augsburg College, said she and Amundson were soulmates who shared a passion for social justice and politics.
Malmquist testified that a mental disorder was the only explanation for Amundson's behavior, including out-of-control shopping on the Internet auction site eBay, where he bought items such as china for 80 people, and mailing photographs to the more than 700 people in his Rolodex.
He also bought expensive artwork, including a bronze sculpture for $3,000, and paid for marble floors, granite countertops and landscaping at his home.
Amundson has been treated at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kan., as well as locally.
Malmquist said Meshbesher contacted him because he was concerned about Amundson's mental state after Amundson tried to commit suicide by overdosing on insulin.
Because of family conflicts, Amundson did not speak to his family from 1995 until he learned that his mother had inoperable cancer in June 1997, the psychiatrist said.
Her death six months later was the key in the chain of events that led to Amundson's self-destruction, Malmquist said.
Taking money from the trust account between October 1995 and September 2000 didn't register with him the way it should have, Malmquist testified.
"This was so glaring it was like asking to be caught," he said.
Koch expressed concern about the trust account last fall when she asked Amundson about it and he said there was nothing left.
The investigation followed.
In imposing the sentence sought by prosecutors, Hopper said that the victim was particularly vulnerable, that the amount of money taken was substantially more than the usual offense, and that Amundson held a position of trust as the estate's trustee and as a judge.
Amundson, a graduate of the University of Notre Dame law school, was in private practice in Minneapolis before becoming a Hennepin County district judge in 1988. He was appointed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals in 1991.
He has repaid $517,234 to the trust fund and was fined another $30,000. The statute of limitations prevented prosecutors from charging him with thefts committed before February 1999.
After the sentencing, Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar said, "This confirms that no one is above the law, not even a judge."
-- Margaret Zack is at mzack@startribune.com .