Federal and state investigators began a criminal investigation two years ago after the Times-Tribune newspapers uncovered evidence that court-appointed guardians and their associates were looting the estates of people who were deemed incapable of handling their own finances.

THE PLAYERS:

Gregory Walker, former president of the now-defunct Northeast Institute of Education, is serving a 30-month federal prison term for misusing funds from the estate of Loretta Sullivan, a Jermyn woman who died in 1993. He also pleaded guilty to misusing a city-administered loan and federal student loans while president of NIE. He faces sentencing Monday in Lackawanna County Court after pleading guilty to similar state charges.

Philip Bosha, a former Scranton insurance executive, is also serving a federal prison sentence for looting estates in Wyoming and Lackawanna counties. In November, he was sentenced in Wyoming County Court to three years probation on similar state charges.

Ronald Worobey, former solicitor for the Lackawanna County Area Agency on Aging, is serving a 24-month federal prison sentence and faces an additional 21 months in state prison for fraudulently billing estates for legal work in his capacity as Mr. Boshas attorney.

Ronald Migliorino, a Scranton insurance salesman, was sentenced to two years probation and two months home confinement by a federal judge for writing a phony $1 million bond for Mr. Bosha in the estate of a Nicholson woman. He also was sentenced to two years probation in Wyoming County Court on a state charge related to the phony bond.

THE FALLOUT:

Judge Frank Eagen, who oversaw Orphans Court from 1988 to 1994 and appointed Bosha to serve as guardian of numerous estates, became the first judge in Lackawanna County ever to lose a retention election. Voters ousted him from the bench in November.