Trial begins for woman accused of stealing from mother’s estate
The brother of a West Virginia woman accused of failing to divide assets from their mother’s estate testified in Fayette County Court Tuesday that personal items from his childhood home came up missing after the funeral as well, including a baseball card collection worth almost $150,000.
Michael Mehall, 41, of Scottdale testified that he and his mother, the late Rosemary A. Mehall, had a tradition of going to yard sales and flea markets to look for baseball cards, from the time he was 5 years old until she died in January 2004.
Michael Mehall listed several individual cards worth thousands of dollars that were part of a collection of more than 300,000 cards, including a 1952 Eddie Matthews card, the last card in a highly collectible set, estimated to be worth $10,000.
Marlene R. Wesolowsky, 49, of Morgantown, is on trial for a single count of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds. As executrix of Rosemary Mehall’s estate, Wesolowsky was responsible for dividing assets among six siblings, and according to Assistant District Attorney Douglas Sepic, there were collections of coins and knives, as well as jewelry and a mink coat, which were never accounted for nor distributed.
The baseball card collection belonged to Michael Mehall personally, he testified, but he was not permitted by Wesolowsky to enter Rosemary Mehall’s home on Junior Street in Hopwood until almost four years after their mother passed. By then, he testified, the baseball cards were gone.
According to Michael Mehall, Wesolowsky became aggressive when he came to pick up his belongings on Aug. 1, 2007.
“She said something I’ll never forget,” Michael Mehall testified. “She said that ‘these cards aren’t yours anymore. They’re part of the estate and I can take them up to the garden and burn them if I want.'”
Michael Mehall said Wesolowsky would not permit him to go into the basement where the most valuable cards were stored, only to the attic and his old bedroom. When he came back on Nov. 17, 2007, the basement was empty of baseball cards, he testified.
Ernest Mehall, 50, of Hopwood said he lived with Rosemary Mehall for about six years before she died and still stored some of his personal belongings in his childhood bedroom.
Among those items, he testified, was a baseball and bat signed by Roberto Clemente. Ernest Mehall said in about 1971, he and his father and some other relatives went to a Pirates game on bat day, and through an usher who was a friendly acquaintance, Ernest Mehall was able to get the signed memorabilia.
Ernest Mehall told the jury that he kept the items under his bed for safe keeping, but by November 2007, the bat and ball were gone too.
The value of the bat and ball is sentimental, not monetary, Ernest Mehall said.
“It was an entire day with my father,” he said, who died before Rosemary Mehall.
In his opening statement, Wesolowsky’s attorney, David Kaiser, told the jury that this case amounts to a family feud, and that testimony will show that there’s plenty of bias and hatred among the siblings driving the complaint.
Testimony will continue before Judge Nancy Vernon at 9 a.m.