By Terri LaPoint, Real News Spark
February 16, 2021

Joann Bashinsky was well-known for her selfless generosity and philanthropy. She was heiress to the sizable Golden Flake potato chips fortune. She had fame, fortune, friends, and a good heart. Yet, none of that was enough to protect her from becoming still another victim of elder abuse via the manipulation of guardianship and conservatorship laws. Sadly, she spent her final year and a half on earth fighting a fierce battle for the simplest thing — control over her own life.

All it took was for a couple of disgruntled former employees to file a petition with a probate judge (on the same day that they were fired, no less) declaring her to be mentally unfit, and Mrs. Bashinsky’s life was forever changed. With no due process, and without a judge ever hearing a shred of evidence in her defense, complete strangers were appointed to manage her money and given effective control of her life.

Horror stories like hers happen every single day, right here in America. People are thrown into a system that dehumanizes them, stripping them of basic freedoms and human rights, all in the name of “protecting” them. More than 1.5 million adults in the United States are under guardianships and conservatorships, with more than $250 billion dollars a year in assets at stake.

Certainly, some of these cases involve incapacitated elderly adults in need of protection –truly at-risk individuals who have no one to care for them or make decisions for them when they are unable. However, an increasing number of people are falling victim to predatory webs of lawyers, social workers, guardians and conservators — and to corruption in the courtrooms. Much of it is enabled by doctors who are quick to label someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s, even when other doctors disagree with their diagnosis.  READ MORE HERE