Court documents allege ‘elder financial abuse’ of Sen. Dianne Feinstein

By Clare Foran | CNN

A petition filed in San Francisco Superior Court alleges that California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein has been the victim of “elder financial abuse” with regard to the management of a trust.

The petition states that when Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum died in February 2022, a trust that had been set up by him required its trustees to establish a marital trust funded with $5 million to benefit the senator. But, the petition alleges the trustees “have still neither funded the Marital Trust nor made any of the required income distributions to Senator Feinstein.”

The legal document accuses the trustees of committing “financial abuse” of Feinstein by “wrongfully withholding distributions,” and of “elder financial abuse” by “wrongfully and in bad faith depriving her of property rights.”

The San Francisco Chronicle was first to report on the petition.

The petition has been brought by Katherine Feinstein, who it says has been appointed by the senator “as her attorney-in-fact under a limited durable power of attorney.” The filing states that Katherine is the senator’s daughter from a prior marriage.

Michael Klein, Marc Scholvinck and Verett Mims, are named by the petition as the respondents and as co-trustees of the Richard C. Blum Revocable Trust.

Steven P. Braccini, an attorney for Klein, Scholvinck and Mims, said in a statement that, “the trustees have acted ethically and appropriately at all times; the same cannot be said for Katherine Feinstein,” adding that “this has nothing to do with (Dianne Feinstein’s) needs and everything to do with her daughter’s avarice.”