A Superior Court judge has ruled that a phalanx of probate attorneys were justified in collecting $576,000 from an 88-year-old widow the court was (supposed to be) protecting. The judge rubber-stamped half of the fees without even holding a hearing into whether they were reasonable.

Judge Pro Tem Lindsay Ellis also signed off on the Sun Valley Group helping itself to more than $417,000 in guardian and companion care fees.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court Chief Justice Rebecca Berch this week announced a new initiative aimed at improving protections for vulnerable people. Among the issues to be addressed: fees charged by guardians and fiduciaries.

She could start with the astounding case of Marie Long, an old lady worth $1.3 million when she came under the protection of Maricopa County's probate court in 2005. Today, she's destitute and depends on taxpayers for support.

Which, we are told, is in no way the fault of those who wound up with all of her money.

In a take-no-prisoners 21-page ruling issued Monday, Ellis described the fees that put Marie Long into the poorhouse as "reasonable, necessary and for the benefit of the ward." She blamed Marie's court-appointed attorney Jon Kitchel, along with Dan Raynak and Pat Gitre, attorneys for Marie's sisters, for driving up costs, saying their "venomous" and "hateful" attacks on the trustee, the guardian and their attorneys forced the other side to defend themselves.

With Marie's money, of course.

The opinion was lauded by Sun Valley Group, which withdrew as Marie's guardian when her money ran out in November. Says Sun Valley's CEO, Peter Frenette: "I am grateful for the court's decision as it finds 'there is no legitimate dispute about SVG or its performance of its duties as guardian for Long.' The court confirmed that this has been an unfair attack not just on SVG but also the guardianship process."

I, too, am grateful for the court's decision as it proves my point all along, which is simply this: The court that is supposed to be protecting people like Marie Long is doing no such thing. Instead, the court is allowing a cozy group of lawyers and fiduciaries who are appointed to help vulnerable people help themselves to a nice pile of cash - until the money is gone, at which time the "ward" is dumped onto the taxpayers.

Then the court approves the spending, in a ruling I like to call "Ellis in Wonderland."

Down the probate rabbit hole, Ellis says the three people to blame for stripping Marie of her assets were the people who collected nothing from her. (Kitchel did collect $15,000 four years ago but since then has worked for free, as have Gitre and Raynak, the son-in-law of one of Marie's sisters.) Meanwhile, the people lauded by Ellis as tireless advocates for Marie were the ones who wound up with all of the old lady's money.

The sisters who visit Marie regularly were cast by Ellis as greedy villains whose continuous complaints about Marie's treatment drove up costs while the California niece who controlled her money - and hasn't seen Marie in four years, according to court records - was the victim of the sisters' unwarranted attacks.

I first wrote about Marie in October. How she was worth $1.3 million when she was put under the protection of probate in 2005. How her attorney Kitchel began begging Ellis to do something in November 2008 when he discovered that hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal and guardian fees were going out the door. How he, Gitre and Raynak followed up with motion after motion asking the judge to stop the bleeding before Marie was sucked dry. How Ellis didn't do a thing and how the drain actually accelerated as the various parties feeding on Marie's money used what was left of her money to defend their use of her money.

Until finally, it was gone and she was tossed on the state's welfare rolls for long-term care.

In her ruling this week, Ellis wrote that Sun Valley was entitled to $182,000 in guardian fees and $235,000 in companion-care fees. Ellis said Sun Valley, as guardian, was entitled to assign itself and profit as caregiver, never mentioning a Supreme Court rule that bars fiduciaries from "self dealing or the appearance of a conflict of interest."

Ellis gave a blanket approval to Sun Valley's bills, calling them "reflective of the micromanagement required of a guardian when dealing with a problematic family."

Yeah, like the $19.50 Marie was charged when one Sun Valley employee had to call another Sun Valley employee for directions to a restaurant. Like the $106 Sun Valley charged to pick up her hearing-aid batteries. Like the $62 to discuss among themselves a kitchen grease fire caused by one of their own employees and the $32.50 to go to the bank for Marie. I could go on.

All these things Ellis found reasonable.

Likewise, she was OK with Marie paying $576,000 to attorneys - more than $330,000 to trustee's attorney Brenda Church's law firms, while nine other attorneys divvied up the rest. Church didn't respond to a request for comment. A colleague of hers, who asked not to be identified, called the ruling "a complete vindication."

Kitchel and Gitre called it basically business as usual. "This is not an isolated case," Gitre said. "What the minute entry is saying to me . . . is that you don't screw around with the people that are in the probate system and if you do, you're going to get punished and the person that's protected is going to get punished."

In her ruling, Ellis lambasted Kitchel, Gitre and Raynak, saying they refused to negotiate and launched a "crusade to vilify the fiduciaries and attorneys." She even blamed them for a federal RICO lawsuit filed on Marie's behalf by another attorney.

"What Raynak, Gitre and Kitchel fail to recognize is that their litigious behavior and lack of compliance with probate rules and procedures created the evil against which they so loudly complained," Ellis wrote. "The costs of these proceedings and the diminution of estate assets cannot be lodged solely against the Trustee and Guardian."

Finally, we agree on something. I don't blame Church, et al for slurping up every dime they could inhale. It's what lawyers do - a lot of them anyway. Likewise, I don't blame Kitchel, et al for refusing to give in and accept the heavy drain from Marie's account under the threat that they'd drain even more if he didn't keep quiet and go along with it. The one who should be answering questions is the one who never ruled on any of Marie's pleadings to intervene. The one who stood by and allowed that giant sucking sound to go on and on and sadly on.

Ellis might want to spend some time peering into, rather than through, the looking glass.