A Chesapeake City Council candidate is being sued by her great aunt for allegedly mistreating the elderly woman and her late husband and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property and cash from them.
The civil lawsuit was filed Friday in Chesapeake Circuit Court against Amanda Newins by Shirley B. Davis.
Davis is seeking $541,648 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.
Newins, 30, is a lawyer, former prosecutor and vice president of the Chesapeake Bar Association. The Republican also is among 13 candidates running for one of five open seats on the Chesapeake City Council.
“We are disheartened to learn that a baseless lawsuit has been filed by an estranged family member against Amanda so close in time to an important election,” said Newins’ attorney, Alison Zizzo, in a statement provided to The Virginian-Pilot late Monday.
“Amanda has the complete support of her family including her siblings, father, grandmother, cousins and her uncle’s siblings, family, and his lifelong friends. We are certain that the court will find Amanda’s actions were not only appropriate but above reproach. Attempting to drag an opponent through the mud with unfounded accusations is not a new tactic in politics but an unfortunate consequence of today’s American political system.”
Newins’ attorney didn’t provide further detail about why she believed the lawsuit was politically motivated. Davis’ lawyer, Ashley Berle Horbal of the law firm Oast and Taylor, denied that politics had anything to do with the lawsuit, or the timing of it.
“Ms. Davis is in her eighties and cannot wait to start the litigation process based on anyone else’s preferred timeline,” Horbal wrote in an email to The Pilot. “Ms. Davis’s previous counsel attempted to resolve this matter for quite some time and Ms. Davis retained our office to represent her on September 2nd when no resolution could be reached. Suggesting this case is about politics is misguided, as Ms. Davis has been a long-time resident of Virginia Beach.”
Shirley Davis and her husband, Bobby, were married for 58 years and had no children, according to the lawsuit. Bobby Davis was diagnosed with late-stage Alzheimer’s disease and advanced dementia, and Shirley Davis relied on hearing aids and glasses to effectively communicate and see.
The lawsuit alleges that beginning in 2020, Newins was among multiple relatives of the Davises who began helping the couple with various activities, such as delivering groceries to them and taking the couple to appointments.
By the fall of 2020, Amanda Newins began telling the Davises not to “bother” other relatives, and instead rely only on her, the lawsuit said. Not long after that, she told the couple the 13-mile trip from her Chesapeake house to theirs in Virginia Beach had become too burdensome and that they’d either have to go to a nursing facility or move in with Newins and her husband, according to the complaint.
After the couple moved into Newins’ home, she charged them $1,000 in monthly rent and insisted they remodel their Virginia Beach home so it could be rented out, the lawsuit said.
She also disposed of most of their furnishings, prevented them from communicating with friends and family, kept things like their cellphones, eye glasses and hearing aids from them, and didn’t provide the proper medications to them, the lawsuit said.
Between 2020 and 2021, Newins and her husband used the Davises debit and credit cards to pay for multiple personal expenses, the lawsuit said. The amount totaled $31,148.
The couple executed a durable power of attorney appointing Newins as their agent in November 2020, and Newins added herself as a joint account holder to eight checking, savings, and money market accounts the couple had, the claim said.
A few months later, she sold two vehicles Bobby Davis owned and used the proceeds to buy herself a BMW, the lawsuit said.
In February 2021, Newins coerced the Davises to execute a deed gifting their home to her, the lawsuit said. An exhibit attached to the lawsuit states the deed was prepared by Chesapeake attorney Kevin Hubbard, yet Hubbard has no client file related to the case, the claim said.
In March 2021, Bobby Davis was admitted to a hospital. Newins prevented Shirley Davis and other relatives from visiting him and sent Shirley Davis to live with someone else, the lawsuit said. Bobby Davis died about three weeks after being admitted.
While he was in the hospital, Newins attempted to withdraw $85,000 in investment funds from one of his accounts, the lawsuit claimed. About a week after he died, she took out $62,000 from one account and $51,000 from another, the claim said.
Despite repeated requests, Newins has refused to return Shirley Davis’ birth certificate, social security card, Bobby Davis’ original will, and other personal property, the lawsuit said. She also has refused to give Shirley Davis her mail and the sympathy cards she received after her husband’s death, it said.
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
