Heartbreaking fall of the brilliant 44-year-old lawyer who abandoned his career and family after suffering mental illness during COVID and now lives on the streets of LA as an abuser.

Family members of a brilliant lawyer who abandoned his family and career amid a mental health spiral during Covid have spoken of their devastation after he ended up living on the streets of LA.

Two years ago, Rob Dart, 44, was an award-winning attorney and loving father living in a $2 million home in South Pasadena.

He had overcome a previous mental health crisis a decade earlier, following the end of his marriage which saw him plagued by voices in his head.

Back then, Dart still had the means to turn to his family for support and managed to recuperate at home in his childhood bedroom before leaving and reinventing himself as a high-flying lawyer.

But in 2022, his life began to unravel once again with the arrival of the pandemic, which saw him spend hours working from home.

Dart stopped therapy and his medication and soon lost contact with his family, as well as his job.

He lost his rent, his car was impounded, and soon after, his phone was cut off.

“I got on a plane,” his mother Sherry Dart told the Wall Street Journal. “I thought I was going to find a dead body.”

When she finally found her son, he was almost unrecognizable and furious.

Dart allowed his mother to greet her grandson for a short while, before shooing him away. He then proceeded to ignore his mother’s repeated phone calls over the next few days.

It was a similar story for Dart’s sister, Jennifer, when she tried to visit him in July, weeks after he was evicted.

Jennifer scoured the area before finding her formerly clean-cut brother with his hair tangled and in total disarray at a Starbucks.

“The only thing I could recognize was his eyes,” she said, describing an equally hostile reaction.

Dart was one of millions of Americans whose mental health problems were exacerbated by the pandemic through disruptions in treatment, routine or other reasons.

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by 25%, according to a scientific report published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Dart’s family hoped California’s stronger laws on detaining people with severe psychotic disorders would provide the safety net they desperately needed.

In 2022, the CARE Court Acts introduced powers for judges to commit mentally ill people to facilities if family members applied to the courts.

In most states, loved ones can do little to access treatment on behalf of patients without their consent.

However, Dart’s moments of lucidity and his legal background meant that he was often able to argue his way out of the crime.

One such occasion came after he was persuaded to be hospitalized in December 2022 after neighbors called his mother to report that he had become hysterical.

A frightened Sherry immediately called the police who dispatched mental health specialists who were able to persuade him to get treatment.

Sherry flew to California the next day and was devastated by what she found in her son’s apartment.

Opening the door, she was hit with a musty smell and saw crazy writings in the notebooks describing how Dart had heard Satan’s voice.

His paranoid rants included that he was, John Lennon, “St. Nicholas Cage”, ‘the invisible Obama’ and that people were trying to steal from him.

Dart was released from the hospital and appeared in an erratic state on his ex-wife’s front porch on December 28.

His condition alarmed her and she refused to allow him access to their son, prompting Dart to file motions in court accusing her of violating the custody agreement.

The judge was convinced by his articulate arguments and granted a hearing. However, when the extent of his breakdown became known, the courts granted him a protective order.

In the months that followed, Dart’s family tried desperately to reach him, invariably with little success.

Things took an even more terrifying turn in September 2023 when he was shot in the leg on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Dart had been trying to “meditate” during the stretch when he was hit by a stray bullet.

He initially refused hospital treatment, but was later tricked into attending by a friend.

Once there, a psychiatrist tried to get him admitted. However, Rob used his legal background and clarity to successfully argue his way out again.

The following weeks were marked by trips back and forth to area hospitals, but never for long.

His family continued to try to support him, funding Airbnbs, hotel rooms and the occasional meal on DoorDash. Sherry has spent her life savings trying to protect her son.

On December 27, Dart posted on Facebook looking for a place to stay.

‘Hey guys, I’m looking for a place to crash in Los Angeles. That’s because I’m homeless. If anyone has any space in their apartment or anything please DM me. Thank you,’ he said.

By this time, Dart had become one of the 46,000 homeless people on LA’s streets.

The next time his family heard from him was three months later, when he handed in a petition to be left alone.

For his part, Dart maintains that he is not sick and that going off his medication has improved his life.

“I wanted out of the hospital and I didn’t want to take the drugs,” Dart told the Wall Street Journal.

“It made me more scared, less assertive, less confident. Who wants to feel like that? You realize you’re kind of the same person,” Dart said. “You just know more about yourself.”

But for his family, it feels too late, as they are simply left with the memory of who he was.