Marti Oakley
Predatory Guardianships
This story recounted below, is being repeated across the country in every state of the union as predatory guardians, with the aid of banks, attorneys and corrupt courts and police departments, prey on the elderly. Using the aid of the courts, and numerous violations of due process, civil rights and violating many laws, the elderly are being virtually kidnapped from their homes, isolated from family and friends and declared incompetent. Once this process is set in motion with the sanction of the courts, the theft of the estate begins. Everybody gets a piece of the pie while the victim….now held prisoner in a participating nursing home or other facility, is drugged, isolated and held against their will.
Think this can’t happen in America? We got laws, right? Yes we do, but the courts have decided they can make their own and are not obliged to honor those pesky laws or the rights of the people victimized by them.
This is one Iowa family’s short history of the kidnapping and imprisonment of their mother as “the Team”, comprised of bankers, attorneys and a predatory guardian attempt to seize and liquidate the assets of the woman they now hold hostage.
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Dorothy Driesen, a 90 year old widowed Mother, has had her estate taken away from her by court decree and forced to reside at a nursing home that has had multiple felony accounts charged against it in 2003.
The judge took our Mother into his chamber, asked her a few questions and then declared her incompetent, fired her son as Trustee, appointed a bank to be her new Trustee and set a court appointed guardian over her. All of this happened within one days time upon the filing of court documents by the wannabe guardian and friend of the court.
After this drastic and unbelievable event in the local district court, the two sons of our Mother have been falsely accused of various things and incarcerated on three separate occasions. To add insult to injury, the two sons of our Mother and their families have not been able to visit their Mother since August of 2008.
The last call that was made from our Mother during New Years weekend in 2009 was a call of desperation in which our Mother claimed her life was in danger and she pleaded with us to get her out of this nursing facility. That is the last time that the family of our Mother has heard her voice. Mail that the family tries to send our Mother is received by the guardian and does not seem to reach or Mother.
Shortly after our Mother was incarcerated in this nursing home after the disastrous court decision, the family would attempt to visit our Mother and shortly after we would arrive, either the guardian would show up standing in the door way and demand that we leave or the town police officer would show up and demand the same.
This case has been heard at the county/district level starting in early 2008 and appealed to the state Supreme Court. The original trustee lost the first court battle as the Trust attorney did not preserve error relative to the long standing Irrevocable amendment of the Trust. The predators and bank, thinking they had victory, filed for more perceived damages from the original trustee, Jay Driesen who is Dorothy’s son in his neighboring, Lyon County.
Unable to find an attorney to represent himself or stand in the way of the bank and its “team”, Jay decided to fight back and save his incarcerated Mother and her Irrevocable Trust. For over one year, the predators and bank have attempted to gain their loot and then to shut the case down by way of motion. The bank has been unsuccessful and the case is scheduled for a jury trial the 14th of October. Jay’s goal is to reinstate the Irrevocable Trust and to secure his incarcerated Mother. Mother Driesen has had all of her visitation rights with her family taken away since the bank took over.
Update: 9/15/10: The Lyon County Clerk is listing the case as closed. This ruling means a denial of our previously scheduled jury trial. We are filing last minute items for preservation and to amend the ruling. And then on to the Iowa Supreme Court appeal. The appeal has been filed. Numerous errors and illegalities, from the county case, are being brought to light in the appeal.
Update: 01/04/11
The predators have filed again in the Sioux County, IA Court using a past customer of Jay’s business. The “team”, as they are known, is now attempting to lay claims of a fraudulent transfer of land Jay made to his brother, Merlyn, three and one half years ago. The bank, who is now trustee of Mother Driesen’s Irrevocable Trust is seeking to use the past customer in gaining access to Merlyn’s farm land as the bank/trustee has a judgment against Jay from the Lyon Co case which is currently under appeal. It has come to light that old Judgment Dockets, against Jay’s former business, have fraudulently been changed in the caption to include Jay rather than only the former business of Jay as set in the original judgment ruling against Jay’s former company by the South Dakota Court.
This is another case like the ones reported on here just a couple weeks ago and to which I made a comment – http://bit.ly/hUErml
What is missing in this case (and to my knowledge all others) and needed for others to negatively Social Preference against the harm doers to Dorothy Driesen and the likely many more like her, is to publish the names *and* identifiable photographs of these “predatory guardians”.
If I were among Dorothy Driesen’s family and friends, I would go to the nursing home where she is kept against her will and photograph/video any and all attempts to keep family/friends from seeing her. If entry is gained peaceably, then I would video Dorothy, noting her condition and ask her questions on camera. Then I’d make it public on the Internet if no lawyer in the area is willing to use the video in the legal system. Let the residents of the county and state know visibly what is taking place, where and who is a part of it either by direct commission or by enabling it.
There are many people involved here in allowing this to have originally taken place and to continue – and making it known publicly who they are is a very powerful way to influence their behavior towards corrective change. When significant numbers of individuals in the immediate and nearby areas withdraw their voluntary association with these individuals because of their actions *and* make it known publicly it is highly likely that the harm-doing individuals will cease. But it is necessary for the public “outing” to start!
The people needing to be “outed” in all these cases of court-assisted/enabled harm-doing to elderly are the court-appointed professional guardian, the involved lawyers, judges and bank officials, the nursing home management and the Sheriff and his/her (hir) officers who have physically prevented visits/departure of the “ward” (Dorothy Driesen in the example here) from the current incarceration facility and/or removal of hir from hir home. There may be other categories of individuals that I’ve missed, so they too should be included. The point is anyone in a particular case who is an actual physical harm-doier or even a party to enabling such should be publicly identified. Let these harm-doers/enablers defend themselves publicly – if they can – and be subject to public evaluation, just as the “outers” should be.
Selective (discriminating) association to exclude those who cause harm – and also toward those who support /enable such harm-causing – is a potentially very powerful method of non-violent action, referred to as ostracism and shunning by many down through the ages. It is included in Gene Sharp’s 2nd volume (of 3), “The Politics of Nonviolent Action”, Chapter 4, “The Methods of Social Noncooperation”. I and husband Paul Wakfer began to use the term “negative Social Preferencing” for purposeful non-voluntary association (contrasted with positive Social Preferencing towards those who do provide value) many years ago and have described how it is the ultimate effector of social order in a truly free society (The Freeman Society) – http://selfsip.org/solutions/Social_Preferencing.html