The PPJ Gazette

Please share widely.

“During your campaign, you pledged that “As AG, I will increase resources to defend seniors from neglect, abuse, and exploitation. I’ll ensure that unsafe assisted living facilities and in-home care providers are stripped of their licenses, issue scam notifications for public awareness, and vigorously prosecute cases of Medicaid fraud.”

It seems this particular promise came with conditions that did not include anyone other than allegedly abusive family members or low-level nursing home employees such as CNAs.

Clearly, with regards to this issue, you are just another corrupt politician.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\

Gretchen Rachel Hammond on Facebook

Open letter to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel

Ms. Nessel,

In 2018, as you were running for Michigan Attorney General, I was an award-winning investigative journalist, member of the LGBTQ community and Democrat. Had I also been a resident of Michigan, I would have cast an enthusiastic vote for both you and Governor Gretchen Whitmer. This was not because of my political and social backgrounds.

I’ve interviewed politicians, lines of them. All of them parroted whatever talking points they thought my newspaper’s readers wanted to hear. The post-election reality was, as expected, entirely different.

You ran a campaign that seemed to be based on genuine sincerity rather than expedient politics.
“It’s just a basic belief that it’s never the wrong time to fight for justice,” you said. “It’s never the wrong time to fight for what’s right, and that there are so many people out there clamoring for representation, clamoring to have their voices heard, clamoring for recognition of their rights and equal dignity, just as human beings.”

Having spent my career, driven by the same ideology, your promises resonated with me as much as they clearly did with Michigan’s voters who included the voiceless.

But the post-election reality is that you have not only broken that promise, but actively shielded the alleged perpetrators of some of the most horrific and repugnant crimes and flagrant abuses of civil and human rights in Michigan’s history.

In July last year, myself, a team of three Wayne State University researchers and a forensic fraud examiner launched an investigation to determine whether allegations of the abuse, exploitation torture, isolation and robbery of Michigan’s senior and developmentally disabled communities by public administrators and judges at the Detroit-area Oakland County Probate Court was systemic in nature.

On March 12, at the behest of your Communications Director Kelly Rossman-McKinney, my team met with a contingent of your staff led by Child, Elder, Family and Financial Crimes Division Chief Scott Teter.

Over the course of four hours, we presented evidence in the form of court documents culled from 2,278 separate cases belonging to now-former Oakland County Public Administrators Jennifer Carney, Jon B. Munger, Thomas Brennan Fraser and John Yun who had been appointed as guardians and/or conservators over allegedly “legally incapacitated” seniors and developmentally disabled individuals by Oakland County Probate Court Judges Jennifer Callaghan, Linda Hallmark, Daniel A. O’Brien, Kathleen Ryan and former judge Elizabeth Pezetti.

Our findings, which also included data-driven research and interviews with family members and whistleblowers in the legal and medical communities, included:

1. The filing of fraudulent petitions for guardianship/conservatorship by agencies such as Michigan Adult Protective Services (APS) with no corroborating medical evidence.

2. Guardian ad Litems (GALs) working in the interest of a court appointed guardian rather than prospective wards by encouraging them to accept a public administrator (sometimes name specific), while discouraging them from attending a guardianship hearing and filing their reports and recommendations as late as the day of a guardianship hearing.

3. Public administrators appointed with no due process afforded to the wards or rights guaranteed under Michigan Compiled Law as well as the dismissal of family members in favor of a public administrator.

4. The use by APS of legal representation by the Attorney General’s office to ensure the guardianship of a ward, over their objections and in cases where the GAL also felt no guardianship was necessary.

5. The vacating of advance directives such as Durable Power of Attorney and Medical Advocacy forms without cause.

6. Families (husbands/wives, siblings, parent/child) put under guardianship at the same time and, in some cases separated.

7. The forced removal of wards from their homes.

8. Placement of wards in unlicensed small group facilities with little or no staffing and subhuman living conditions.

9. The isolation of wards from their families and friends without cause or due to judicial retaliation.

10. Multiple cases of neglect in nursing facilities resulting in multiple falls and subsequent fatalities.

11. Possible Medicaid fraud where Medicaid is applied for by a public administrator prior to a spend-down and when the ward has over $2k in non-exempt assets.

12. Evidence of 59 ward homes sold at a combined to total of $2 million under market value to local investors and probate attorneys, with connections to the public administrators, who then resell the homes at market value or higher.

13. Massive overbilling, breach of fiduciary duty, double and triple dipping and hundreds of thousands of dollars in unaccounted for money in estates belonging to wards who passed away while under guardianship.

14. Guardian accounts filed with no corroborating evidence, such as receipts. to justify charges which were approved by all four judges.

This evidence was just part of a systemic pattern and practice established by this investigation, which has been unchecked since for at least the past two decades.

However, in an email that evening, Mr. Teter requested I forward him only the case number and alleged victim contact information in one case where a home was sold under market value or a Durable Power of Attorney ignored.

He did not ask for any further information regarding the use of unlicensed group homes, Medicaid fraud, overbilling, judicial misconduct or public administrator malfeasance.

This was a surprise given the weight and breadth of the evidence we presented to you.

As was your March 25 announcement of an Elder Abuse Task Force, my attendance at which Ms. Rossman-McKinney actively blocked. While your announcement presented nine reforms to Michigan’s guardianship system, no criminal investigations into the activities of public administrators, private guardianship companies, probate attorneys or judges were ever mentioned.

The membership of your Task Force was also concerning as it included pro-guardianship agencies and organizations such as the Michigan Probate Judges and Guardianship Associations, the Michigan State Bar and the State Court Administrator’s Office who successfully blocked reform legislation proposed by the 1998 Supreme Court Guardianship and 2005 Granholm Task Forces.

Furthermore, the SCAO has shielded judges, such as Macomb County Probate Judge Kathryn George who, in 2008, was caught handing over cases to ADDMS Guardianship Services—an organization formed by two attorneys who donated to George’s 2003 campaign and, following an independent audit by the Whall Group, found to have engaged in multiple acts of malfeasance.

George remained on the Macomb County bench allowing history to allegedly repeat itself when a 2019 investigation by WXYZ determined precisely the same behavior with a guardianship company formed by an attorney who donated to George’s campaign. Meanwhile George is still taking guardianship and conservatorship cases in Macomb County begging the question as to why.

That isn’t the only thing which has not changed.

Some of the ward family members who attended your Elder Abuse Task Force Listening Sessions and presented horrific stories of abuse and neglect at the hands of probate judges, public administrators and attorneys across Michigan have reported back that there has been no action taken by your office to investigate these cases.

We have letters to complaining families from State Public Administrator Michael Moody who has responded with a similar answer to complaints, he received long before and after you took office, by telling families their best option is to “get an attorney.”

Your sudden August 23 firing of Yun, Carney and Fraser was similarly ineffective. As Teter told my team, and you have since repeated, public administrators take on guardianship and conservatorship roles outside of the job description and as private attorneys. Therefore, they are not subject to oversight by the State Public Administrator.

Moreover, reports from families indicate that neither they nor the judges have modified their behavior in the slightest.
Although Munger was fired as a public administrator in 2017, he still takes guardianship, conservatorship and deceased estate cases in Oakland County the most prolific of which is the guardianship of Aretha Franklin’s eldest son Clarence.

Other reports from families in Oakland County indicate that Fraser has attempted to seize wards from their homes as recently as last week, while Carney filed for a Contempt of Court order on two advocates who wanted to help a woman forced from her home and into long-term care shortly before the holidays last year.

In Wayne County, reports from families suggest that professional guardian Mary Rowan continues a cycle of shocking predatory behavior, using local police to forcibly separate wards and their families, isolating wards and viciously retaliating against families who challenge her in court.

The same goes for Washtenaw County where Probate Judge Julia Odzwiej continues to show a blatant disregard for the law, in favor of her professional guardian appointees and recently sold a ward’s home for $250,000 under market value.
I am have also received calls from St. Clair County. People who put their trust in you are now turning to me for help.

Your September 6, 2019 announcement to “intervene” in the recent Macomb County Case is more of a band-aid than a solution. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills filed by the guardianship company with no corroborating evidence should be investigated not “objected to.” The receipts should have been filed upon demand from the family and the company should not have been given until January next year to produce them.

Your astonishing lack of commitment to any kind of criminal investigation into these alleged crimes led my team down a new line of inquiry as to why.

We received our answers when we discovered campaign ties between yourself, Whitmer and Oakland County Probate Court Chief Judge Kathleen Ryan who has long standing professional ties between her colleagues on the bench and the officers of her court.

All of this was laid out in our published report of August 23, 2019.

During your campaign, you pledged that “As AG, I will increase resources to defend seniors from neglect, abuse, and exploitation. I’ll ensure that unsafe assisted living facilities and in-home care providers are stripped of their licenses, issue scam notifications for public awareness, and vigorously prosecute cases of Medicaid fraud.”

It seems this particular promise came with conditions that did not include anyone other than allegedly abusive family members or low-level nursing home employees such as CNAs.

Clearly, with regards to this issue, you are just another corrupt politician.

The shame of it all is that those who will suffer the most from your inability to keep your campaign promise are the “people out there clamoring to have their voices heard, clamoring for recognition of their rights and equal dignity, just as human beings.”

The seniors and developmentally disabled individuals who are being terrorized by these courts are not just the people you swore to protect, they are human beings.

They deserve better. They deserve justice.

Sincerely,

Gretchen Rachel Hammond.

4