The April 22, 2019, discovery of the body of a 53-year-old Frenchwoman floating in a Parisian river resulted in one of the five-year-old cases left in the public administrator’s docket.
The death of Marie-Alice Dibon was national news in France. In Nevada, her estate survives her in Douglas County District Court.
Former Public Administrator Steve Walsh was not in attendance at a status hearing on Tuesday where attorneys told District Judge Tod Young there could be as much as $450,000 in the estate.
Young gave attorney for the public administrator’s office Justin Clouser and William Peterson for the Dibon Estate three weeks to wrap up the 2018 taxes for the estate.
A CPA working on the case was confident he could complete the 2018 corporate taxes but that 2019 and 2020 are not assured, according to Clouser.
Peterson said it was his intention to file a petition to obtain some of the money in the case for Dibon’s 86-year-old mother, whose health is declining and requires assisted living.
Peterson, Clouser and attorney Leigh T. Goddard all said the delay in filing taxes was entirely Walsh’s responsibility.
Clouser said he was meeting with Deputy District Attorney Cynthea Gregory and Interim Public Administrator Brook Adie to figure out next steps.
“This case has lingered way too long,” he said.
“There’s still quite a bit of work to do,” Goddard said.
Young said he was concerned the estate was being consumed by the process.
“My concern is spending the estate on attorneys and accountants and that’s a disaster,” Young said. “These taxes need to get filed. We need to move along.”
He ordered attorneys to confer and figure out the distribution and set a Feb. 18 review date.
Young also granted a request from Clouser to revoke letters of administration issued to Walsh, acknowledging that he likely relied too much on Walsh.
Just nine days before his Dec. 19 resignation, there was a status hearing on the case, which Walsh told commissioners in May that he expected would be done in June.
The case settled Aug. 21, 2024, and Young issued an order in October to compel Walsh to file final accounting and payment of taxes.
On Thursday, an ordinance eliminating the public administrator as an elected position was introduced by county commissioners. The ordinance includes reporting requirements to ensure administration of people’s estates who die without a will or like Dibon, whose heir was the man who reportedly killed her. Commissioners also voted to establish a new fund solely for administration of estates.
Dibon had two corporations registered in Nevada before her death in addition to a home in Round Hill.