Ventura County judge begins resolving conflicts over conservatorship

from Bironda LyonsCalMatters

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For years, a Ventura County trustee funneled client money to her husband’s law firm and health care company, all with court approval. A newly appointed judge began to dissolve the pleas weeks later a CalMatters investigation disclosed conflicts of interest.

Ventura County Probate Judge Gilbert Romero ruled that Angelique Friend violated court rules c three cases when she hired her husband, David Esquibias, as her attorney, and her clients paid the bill. The judge ordered her to stop hiring Esquibias as her attorney and Townsgate In-Home Services, Esquibias’ company. Romero blocked Esquibias from collecting attorneys’ fees in all three cases.

“Here, the conservator, who employs her husband as her attorney and reasonably pays his fees from the estate, may create the appearance of a conflict of interest and be perceived as selfish,” Romero wrote in a decision.

The judge also removed Friend as trustee in a fourth case after beneficiaries of the Mettler Trust alleged that she breached her fiduciary duties by paying Townsgate $1.1 million from the trust from 2021 to 2025. They are asking the court to compel Friend to restore the property.

The friend claims that she revealed his relationship with Townsgate and that she has no equity in the company. A hearing on the case is scheduled for July.

Romero began a hearing on March 23, establishing the chronology of the relationship between Friend and Esquibias and when it was officially disclosed. The more questions he asked, the angrier Esquibias became. The lawyer called the judge’s line of questioning “pretty disgusting.”

“I am helpless to protect her,” Esquibias said of his wife. “I have to tell the court, ‘Don’t question my client.’

Romero replied, “Doesn’t that lead to the conflict?”

In one case, Friend became the conservator of Brenna Clark’s estate in 2014, court records show, and Esquibias represented Friend before they were married. They never officially disclosed their relationship on the record, only verbally, Esquibias told the court.

Romero said that was a problem, even though the previous judge had allowed it. That judge, Roger Lund, was reappointed last fall, weeks after CalMatters began raising questions about the settlement.

“As soon as you and Ms. Friend started a relationship, that was a violation of the court’s rules,” Romero said. “I think your services should have been terminated at this point.”

Esquibias expressed shock that his working relationship with Friend has now become an issue after years of court approval.

“It was something that was actually celebrated in the same courtroom by colleagues … who attended my wedding,” Esquibias said. In fact, retired Judge Glenn M. Reiser signed their marriage certificate in 2019

The judge also considered disallowing Townsgate’s payments in one case, but he gave Friend a chance to show that hiring Townsgate was in her client’s best interest. The judge is scheduled to hear the case again on May 4.

The CalMatters investigation found that Lund approved of Friend and Esquibias’ arrangement for years, despite family members complaining. Court records show the couple raked in about $3 million from 2019 to 2025 from clients in the six cases reviewed by CalMatters; However, $2.7 million went to Townsgate court rules and the California Professional Trust Bureau code of conduct generally prohibit such conflicts.

Nearly three weeks after the story broke, in a rare move, Romero filed his own motion to review Townsgate’s attorney fees and costs, which he had recently approved. Romero noted that he could only review the approvals he had signed and could not do anything about the years of approvals that were before him.

“I have an obligation to correct myself,” Romero said.

In an email, Friend said “these relationships have been disclosed from the beginning, repeatedly presented to the court and pre-approved.”

“While I respect the new judge’s decision and have taken immediate steps to comply with it going forward, including retaining new counsel and replacing the care company,” she wrote, “I do not agree with applying this new view retroactively to agreements that were fully disclosed and pre-approved.”

She said they were “evaluating the next legal steps to formally challenge the retroactive decisions.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.