A California state agency created to protect elderly residents from unscrupulous guardians has been effectively paralyzed for years, leaving vulnerable adults at risk of financial abuse, according to an investigation published April 9 by CalMatters.
The Professional Fiduciaries Bureau has operated without a director for 18 months, with three of four staff positions vacant. A single employee oversees nearly 900 licensed fiduciaries who manage billions in client assets across the state.
The dysfunction allowed licensed professional fiduciary Donna Bogdanovich to steal from clients for years before facing consequences. When Vinyasi’s car broke down, his eviction notice arrived, and his food ran out, Bogdanovich was supposed to pay his bills from a special trust. Instead, she stopped making payments, according to court records.
Vinyasi filed a complaint with the bureau in 2019. The agency took no action. Vinyasi became homeless.
Complaints against Bogdanovich began arriving within months of her obtaining a license, records show. The bureau fined her for minor violations like late reports and working with an expired license, but imposed no serious consequences. For years, she avoided punishment by simply refusing to respond to agency requests. The bureau lacked authority to revoke licenses for non-cooperation.
In 2022, a victim bypassed the bureau and contacted Los Angeles police. Bogdanovich was arrested on charges of stealing $2.5 million from clients. Even after her arrest, she retained control over Vinyasi’s finances for nearly 10 more months until she voluntarily relinquished the case. Bureau records show she managed 24 cases and $2.8 million in assets while in jail.
Bogdanovich pleaded guilty to stealing more than $160,000 from Vinyasi and over $1 million from other clients. She received a four-year prison sentence. The bureau revoked her license four months after her arrest. Legislators closed the non-cooperation loophole in 2023, a decade after the first complaints.
A second case closer to the Bay Area involved fiduciary Iris Hecker, who approached 93-year-old Betty Stagnaro at a San Mateo County nursing home in 2022. Stagnaro had dementia when Hecker obtained her signature on documents transferring control over finances and medical decisions, according to court filings. No ombudsman was present during the signing, as required by state law. No one verified whether Stagnaro understood what she was signing.
Over three months, Hecker sold the elderly woman’s apartment, disposed of her belongings and isolated her from friends, records show. She paid herself $65,000 upfront, later acknowledging the amount was “excessive.”
The bureau knew nothing about this at the time. Hecker had filed late reports for nearly a decade without the agency initiating a single review. An investigation began only after an external complaint.
Hecker surrendered her license at the end of 2024 but continued working. In March 2026, she signed documents to sell a deceased client’s San Francisco home for $2.25 million. When asked by CalMatters about her continued activity, she responded: “I’m not practicing. I’m just finishing up.”
Both cases highlight the same systemic problem: the bureau does not monitor those it licenses. Fiduciaries self-report whether they have been removed from cases or left after complaints. Public information is heavily redacted, showing only blacked-out pages with “yes” or “no” checkboxes. The checkboxes can be incorrect, and the bureau only learns about problems when someone complains.
The bureau received 174 complaints in 2025. License revocations took an average of more than two years. Since 2022, five licenses have been revoked out of nearly 900.
A 2021 law could help by requiring courts to notify the bureau when judges sanction fiduciaries for abuse. But the law cannot take effect until funding is allocated. No money has been provided.
Carole Herman, an elder rights advocate and president of Foundation Aiding The Elderly in Sacramento, helped create the bureau 20 years ago. She told CalMatters the agency lacks both staff and funding. “Nobody is really overseeing things the way they should be,” Herman said.
She had believed the bureau would become a strong oversight body. “But it turned out differently,” Herman said.
A Department of Consumer Affairs representative declined an interview, citing the vacant director position. A spokesperson for Governor Newsom said he is “actively seeking a candidate.”
While the search continues, Iris Hecker continues signing documents for the sale of deceased clients’ real estate in San Francisco.