A lawyer representing the three children of Jamey Noel’s late brother, William “Leon” Noel, has filed a lawsuit against Noel and his daughter to try to recover the remainder of their inheritance.
The lawsuit, filed Friday, accuses Noel of mismanaging his brother’s estate, including selling Leon Noel’s home to his own daughter, Kasey Noel, below market value, leaving her an additional $36,000 in equity and improperly paying himself out of the estate.
The complaint exactly reflects the petition Attorney Amy Wheatley filed a motion in March seeking to reinstate Leon Noel’s estate, but that motion was denied earlier this month when the judge ruled that too much time had passed to pursue an appeal in that manner.
Leon Noel died in late 2018 and was appointed to manage his brother’s estate the following month. He closed the estate checking account in early 2020 after distributing a total of more than $66,000 to the three children, records show.
But Wheatley said they had not received everything they were entitled to, and they did not know until the information was released as part of the Indiana State Police’s 14-month criminal investigation into Noel.
“It was a traumatic time. They had lost their father,” Wheatley said of the time Noel was managing the estate. “They were relying on their uncle to take care of them and look after them – he was the sheriff at the time – and they had no reason to believe he would do that.”
Neither Jamey nor Kasey Noel had an attorney for the civil case as of Tuesday afternoon.
Noel also faces 31 other serious crimes, including theft and tax evasion, related to his time as Clark County Sheriff and managing an emergency services agency.
The lawsuit accuses Noel of fraudulently selling his brother’s house, breaching his fiduciary duty and engaging in “self-dealing.”
It reveals that in 2019, Noel sold his brother’s house to his own daughter, Kasey Noel, for $180,000, which was allegedly below market value.
The lawsuit states that Noel also gave his daughter $36,000. Equity capital on the property. After that was done and the mortgage and closing costs were paid, a check for $25,545.78 was deposited into the estate’s bank account.
The lawsuit states that Noel paid a construction company from the estate’s account and the Utica Township Volunteer Fire Department, also known as New Chapel EMS, just over $16,000 for work on one of Leon’s properties.
It is said that Noel then reimbursed himself $16,000 from the estate account for construction work that he had not paid for and used more than $52,000 from the estate to build a 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner for personal use.
The complaint states that he later withdrew more than $52,000 from New Chapel and deposited it into the estate account.
In the lawsuit, Wheatley asks the court to determine that the house sale was fraudulent and void from the beginningShe has also filed for a temporary restraining order preventing Kasey Noel from selling or disposing of the home during the proceedings.
In his lawsuit, Wheatley also demands that Noel reimburse the estate for the full market value of the home plus the gifted equity and return the 1969 Roadrunner or reimburse the estate for the purchase price.
“I hope to get back the assets that Leon wanted to give to his children,” Wheatley said. “I don’t think he believed that would happen, otherwise he (Noel) wouldn’t have hired him to do it.”
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