After the “Where is Wendy Williams?” documentary began airing on Lifetime, the internet has been exploding with opinions as to how valid her guardianship arrangements. However, it turns out the judge who ruled on it might be a little suspicious.
The talk-show host was placed under financial guardianship in 2022 after Wells Fargo asked the court. The bank petition claimed Williams was the victim of undue influence and financial exploitation as a result of being an “incapacitated person.” By that, they were referring to her illness at the time and eventual diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia which was confirmed last week by her team, per NBC News.
After an insane battle between Williams’ family and children over who should steward her funds (after allegedly abusing their access to her money), New York Supreme Court Judge Lisa Sokoloff appointed someone outside of the family - attorney Sabrina Morrisey.
One would think the chaos would come to a close but nope. A resurfacing article from ABC 7 New York named Sokoloff as one of the Manhattan judges with a suspicious link between campaign donations and guardianship rulings in favor of lawyers.
Read more from ABC 7 New York:
Manhattan judge Judge Lisa Sokoloff received $5,720 in campaign donations from 2019-2022 from 20 guardianship lawyers, law firms or people who deal in guardianship cases and awarded those same people or law firms 62 appointments in 2022.
One of the lawyers who donated to her was Paul Mederos. In 2022, he donated $1,000 to Sokoloff’s election campaign. Sokoloff gave Mederos seven guardianship appointments in 2022.
Mederos told Eyewitness News the donation was not a conflict of interest. He said he has known Sokoloff for 29 years and has always supported her career.
It has not been determined whether Morrisey donated anything to Sokoloff’s campaign for state supreme court justice. Her name and law firm do not appear on the list of donors. We don’t even know what their relationship is, if any. However, according to documentary producer Mark Ford, the attorney has almost no relationship with Williams.
“I think the family thought, and we all thought, ‘Shouldn’t there be somebody here more often? Shouldn’t there be somebody filling a refrigerator and checking in on her on a daily basis?’ None of those things were happening,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
This finding merely just casts even more skepticism on how Wendy Williams is being treated or possibly, taken advantage of.