She Wasn’t Ready for This – $250K Trust Fund Stolen Right Before Her Eyes!

A mother is in distress after a massive sum of money meant for her disabled daughter’s care mysteriously vanished. Ashley McDowel is desperate for answers after $250,000 disappeared from her child’s trust fund, money that was supposed to secure her daughter Mia’s future.

“I would love to think that maybe all of this was just poor money management,” McDowel told WFLA. “I would love to think that.”

But she doesn’t believe it was a simple mistake. Instead, McDowel suspects businessman Leo Govoni played a role in the missing funds. Her fears intensified after a judge held Govoni responsible for $120 million that disappeared from his nonprofit, the Center for Special Needs Trust Administration.

McDowel had won the trust money in a federal medical malpractice lawsuit after a severe allergic reaction left seven-year-old Mia in cardiac arrest for 22 minutes, causing irreversible brain damage. That money was supposed to support her daughter’s complex needs, but now, it’s gone.

“You’re looking at the person that called—why do you think the Attorney General got involved? It was me,” McDowel said.

McDowel set up the trust through the Directed Benefits Foundation in 2023, believing everything was secure. The foundation oversees disability trusts, while Govoni’s nonprofit managed them. But now, she feels betrayed.

“He was at the closing table for my settlement,” McDowel recalled. “I had sat down with him. I’ve had dinner with this person. I truly trusted him, and I think that’s how some of us have gotten victimized because we never saw it coming.”

A lawsuit filed in May 2024 accuses Govoni and his associates of siphoning $142 million from vulnerable individuals who relied on these funds.

“Know that there are those throughout this state that want to make sure that we are protecting the most vulnerable and those that would take advantage of them need to be held accountable,” former Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody told WFLA.

Since Moody’s election to the Senate, McDowel is urging the new Attorney General to take immediate action.

“Take this with a fine-tooth comb and audit everything because it reeks that there’s something shady going on,” she insisted.

Govoni has not been charged with a crime and declined to answer WFLA’s inquiries about the missing funds.

Meanwhile, McDowel is facing an agonizing reality. Without the trust money, she fears she may have to place Mia in a group home while she finds a way to earn a living.

“I might have to put her in a group home because I have to be able to work,” she said. “I have to be able to figure something out.”

Govoni did not respond to The U.S. Sun’s request for comment.