Estranged Family Of Alexander Chatfield Burns Arranged For Taxpayers To Fund Fake Claims Following His Suicide

(MENAFN- EIN Presswire) Sydney Alexis Barrett Burns and Ronnie Burnbaum Burns tell conflicting court stories after their estranged relative commits suicide pending criminal sentencing

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, USA, October 4, 2023 /EINPresswire / -- Sydney Alexis Barrett (formerly Sydney Alexis Barrett Burns , aka“Alix Burns” via her own accounts) arranged for South Carolina taxpayers to fund her estate claims in a probate matter involving her estranged husband, Alexander Chatfield Burns, by re-filing her 2019 divorce settlement with Burns and claiming it is“unpaid”, which those affiliated with the matter are calling“patently untrue”. C.A. NO. 2021-ES-10-02273.

Ms. Barrett, the estranged wife of the deceased, along with Burns' estranged mother, Ronnie Burns (aka“Ronnie Burnbaum”) of New York, alleged that Alexander Chatfield Burns had no assets on his death to attain a court-appointed representative to the deceased's estate in 2021, meaning South Carolina taxpayers funded the legal fees to collect and preserve the pending criminal's assets. The two estranged individuals then quickly changed their stories and made a series of 'secret claims' on Burns' known associates' assets, including the assets of his former employer. The two estranged claimants seemingly never claimed Burns owned these assets during his life in pursuit of their“creditor claims”, nor while arranging for South Carolina taxpayers to fund the estate matter for them. The two estranged individuals then filed these creditor claims on the estate, seemingly making false statements of fact to the State of South Carolina in doing so. The lender to Barrett's divorce settlement, and a former shareholder of the company involved in Burnbaum's claim, both acknowledge that their creditor claims are likely false.

Alexander Chatfield Burns was on probation awaiting criminal sentencing when he committed suicide. As a condition of his probation and sentencing, Burns reported his employment and his assets to his probation officers and federal authorities during his life. According to the probate court records, those federal authorities have not been contacted for these records to date, nor has any information been collected from Burns' associates or his employer.

That notwithstanding, the estranged family members have spent over $138,000 of taxpayer dollars on what attorneys affiliated with the matter have called“a blind fishing expedition”.

Seth Warren Whitaker, Esq. (a solo-practitioner) was appointed to represent the estate. Mr. Whitaker purportedly served as in-house counsel for the deceased's former boss, in the offices where the deceased worked. As such, Whitaker was well aware of the factual inaccuracies of his claims of 'secret estate holdings' in the matter. According to that employer,“I was told Whitaker was the cheapest attorney in Charleston and only worked for startups, which might explain his mishandling of this probate estate matter.” That employer's (and others) assets have been listed in the estate as“secretly” belonging to Alexander Chatfield Burns. Whitaker has willfully refused to turn these assets over to their rightful owner(s), ignoring legal demands to do so.

The“blind fishing expedition” also included liquor companies, insurance firms, asset managers and even references to various“other trusts that may or may not exist”, according to Whitaker's reports. C.A. NO. 2021-ES-10-02273. Despite these claims having no merit, many of the claims themselves violate state and federal laws, meaning that Whitaker's actions alone subject taxpayers to additional fees in the form of state and federal fines. In lieu of presenting the probate court with evidence for his claims, Whitaker signed a series of documents himself, using his own signature, and presented that as his evidence, based on his own authority to sign. He then claimed that no other shareholders came forward to contest his self-signatures presented to the probate court, solidifying that he has a legal right to claim these assets for the estate, presumably for the living Burns' and Burns' – aka Barrett's and Burnbaum's – benefit. C.A. NO. 2021-ES-10-02273. Whitaker has gone so far as to present his self-declarations in multiple courts of law. Case 2:22-CV-00709. Whitaker's legal allegations suggest it is the onus of company owners to search probate court records for their own company shares, which is both false, and a dangerous legal assertion, in itself.

Most curiously, the estranged claimants in the matter signed at least three separate court declarations that Whitaker has“special knowledge” which entitles him to receive two-times the legally allotted attorneys' fees allowed by the probate court, making these two estranged individuals largely responsible for the fees that Charleston taxpayers have incurred.

The“fishing expedition” is reportedly stayed, pending other legal matters to which Alexander Chatfield Burns was involved in, involving insurance fraud crimes he committed around 2015.

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