Our guest tonight is Arlene Sandra. She and Reverend Ralph will be talking about the numerous BS bills in Pennsylvania each of them an underhanded protection of the predators.. Two are listed below…there’s MORE!
HB 422 (Hickernell) Creates a database for tracking and criminal or civil convictions for abuse, neglect and exploitation in care facilities.. (but does not mention professional predators or attorneys)
HB 1430 (Day) specifically expands the ability for dept. of aging, an adult protective services to civilly prosecute family members for accused criminal activity and allows the state to assume the estate and the ward in adult guardianships. Specifically to increase Medicaid pay for “professional” guardians to $300 a month per ward.
These are just two of the upcoming bills that target family members and conveniently overlooks the predators. the 2nd bill is an obvious money maker that will be paid through taxes to the predators. I suppose stealing an estate, selling other peoples homes, collecting the social security and/or military retirement, and/or railroad retirement wasn’t enough.
Welcome to Pennsylvania! We take human trafficking for profit very seriously!
LISTEN LIVE HERE! Tonight June 17, 2022 at 7:00 pm CST! Call in number is 917-388-4520
On tonight’s show we introduce you to…Reverend Ralph, a minister out of Montgomery co Pennsylvania. He is very concerned about the abuses he is hearing about in his hometown. He will be reviewing with us the constitutional right to freedom of religion. That the ward has a right to clergy visits. Anyone can become a clergy member online. Reverend Ralph will educate us on how to do it.
Tonight on TS Radio we are asking that anyone who may have information on the whereabouts of David Italiano, resident of Pennsylvania, who has been seized in an unnecessary guardianship and disappeared in the system, please contact us. David has been isolated in an undisclosed location for unknown reasons. Send info to tsrad1@outlook.com
PA, like many states, is quick to rush to guardianship vs. less restrictive ways to support a person. We have worked with many groups to find assistance to help David Italiano.
We reached out to the local Ombudsman for help but were told that there was a guardian and there was little that the Ombudsman could do. They were helpful when David requested his medical records. David wanted to know what evidence would be submitted to the court to support the need for a guardian. Sadly, this took close to 9 weeks and David received his records after the court hearing.
We escalated our conversation to Margaret Barajas, the PA State Long Term Care Ombudsman.
We had multiple meetings with her that went nowhere. We met with her supervisor, PA Sec. of Aging, Mr. Robert Torres, to request his office facilitate a meeting with the guardian.
I have attached communication from the Pennsylvania Council on Independent Living and the reply from the PA Dept of Aging regarding the request to meet.
We filed complaints with the PA Office of Civil Rights but with no signed release from David, they would not act.
We had the same response from the Federal Office of Civil Rights, they wanted a release to follow up on the allegation of an abusive/unnecessary guardian.
We had a meeting with staff from ACL to discuss the conflict of interest with the Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) serving in the role of guardian. As we discussed today the AAA is his guardian, provider, Rep Payee in addition to serving as the Ombudsman and the Adult Protective Services agency for Huntingdon County.
At one point the AAA/Guardian told us that they would not facilitate a care plan meeting for David as it was a duplication of services to have both agencies working to help David. We explained that there is no duplication of services as we are federally funded and mandated to provide Transition Services.
We have reached out to PA State Rep Jeff Wheeland for help. Like many of the others, he would not get involved due to their being a guardian.
We contacted Senator Robert Casey’s office to request help. Both Senator Casey and his policy person for the Elderly and Disabled population, Michael Gamel-McCormick agree that the guardianship system is badly broken, there was nothing that they could offer in the way of help. Senator Casey is drafting legislation to be introduced to the 118th congress to address systemic changes that are needed to protect people from unnecessary guardianship.
We spoke with the Community Legal Aid office in Philadelphia, but they would not commit to helping David.
We filed a complaint with the PA Dept of Health that went nowhere. We were in touch with an advocate, Dr. Janet Parker. Dr. Parker is with an organization called Medical Whistle Blowers. She was very interested in helping us but without a signed release of information from David, she was not able to bring this to the attention of the United Nations.
We also reached out to some local press. No one would get involved due to the guardian.
We facilitated a meeting with David and Joe Shapiro from NPR. Again, the guardian was the reason that Mr. Shapiro would not get involved.
I think that sums up our efforts to find David.
There are two things that really strike me about this situation. First is that prior to the AAA becoming his guardian, both the facility and the initial guardian, Jim Malee, were supportive of David not needing this level of care.
The second is that the initial guardianship was put in place “to protect him from his wife.” His wife is now deceased, she is clearly no longer a threat to David.
We are nearing the end of the year and its just about break time. We have a lot to cover and will wind down for the break on the 17th. We will cram in as much as we can before then.
Please welcome a new addition to PPJ writers: Elaine Mickman. Elaine has been dragged, stomped on, torn up and left in the dust after dealing with corrupt family courts.
“After the court system “asset-stripped” this woman and “perfected injustice“, the court ordered-away and canceled-outher Constitutional Rights to silence her and censor her cases plagued with fraud and “cover-ups” by “gatekeeping” her court-access, amounting to nothing less than a “judicial-hit-job.” The book is intended to inform and educate the public, and “sound an alarm” to prompt positive reform.”
Court-Gate…the Courts “Divorced from the Law” : Without Liberty or Justice at all
“Of all that happens in probate tribunals, the most disgusting has to be the forcing of the victim to pay for the actions of the predators. Everyone who comes against the victim is allowed to bill the estate for the attack.”
This is no time to grow old in this country, especially if you have property and other liquid assets. Roaming freely in the general population are predators whose only purpose is preying upon elderly individuals who can then be abducted, isolated and robbed blind.
Trafficking the elderly for profit is far more lucrative than working a regular old job. You simply have to have a lack of morals, integrity, sympathy, empathy and any sense of decency and you too can be a professional guardian.
It is estimated that 1.5 million individuals have currently fallen victim to this predatory system here in the U.S.. This number of victims has been chronically sighted as far back as 2015 by numerous sources, but I personally believe todays number of wards is far, far higher. The intentional refusal of state and federal agencies to admit and/or collect these statistics is to facilitate the ongoing attacks on the elderly in the hopes of reducing their numbers significantly. It is also a massive transfer of wealth from the vulnerable to predators who refer to themselves as professional guardians and attorneys, but who are, in fact, nothing more than professional parasites. More
Join Coz and Marti tonight as they host Liz Rizzo,
Liz Rizzo was Rusty Warren’s companion. Rusty is a well known comedian from the 60’s. She had 7 gold albums from that period. Her cutting edge humor was signified in her popular routine, “Knockers Up!”. At 91, Rusty has fallen prey to guardianship trafficking. Abducted and held captive by her abductors, she is told Liz doesn’t want to see her or talk to her. This is trauma based bonding by the book. Isolated, terrified and suffering from the onset of dementia, everything is being done to dehumanize Rusty and frighten her.
“Rusty was my partner over 35 years, we built a life together. We have a Trust to protect our assets and she put her wishes in writing. Judge Lee in Tucson disregarded the Trust, taunted me about being gay and said I was not credible. I was legally Trustee of the Estate but they challenged it.”
As so many others have discovered, pre existing legal instruments are quickly discarded to allow the predators access to any assets. This was never about Rusty or her well-being. It was only about gaining access to her jointly held estate and stealing as much of it as possible. To do that, Rusty had to be taken prisoner and deprived of her legal capacity.
Please join us as we cover this case which exposes more of the hunting of the elderly for profit.
Joining Marti tonight will be Elaine Mickman, alternate co-host for “In The Mix” Nothing in this broadcast is to be considered legal advise.
To speak to the hosts: 917-388-4520 and hit #1 to be put in the cue.
We are not attorneys, but the current state of affairs on so many levels has required the public to do their own legal research in an effort to understand just what exactly the BAR associations and the so-called judiciary are using to get away with the abduction, isolation, and theft of estates under guardianship.
We will be talking about our research into legal capacity, legal agency, and legal status; three areas of law the predators do not appear to want the public to have knowledge of. It is through the avoidance of these things that victims of the guardianship racket lose the right to their own identity, their medical treatment wishes and their estates. They also lose the right to freely associate with family, friends, and religious leaders. Isolation is a known form of human torture. This is what allows the predators to designate the victims as “things”, “units” and “merchandise”. We have been commodified! Seen by the predators as nothing more than a commodity to profit from.
Join us we take a look at just how deep this racket runs. The very people who are supposed to advocate for the law are the same people who twist it, abuse it and select only those things that will be benefit them personally in choosiing what to uphold or what to ignore.
“It would seem to me that if you are intent on depriving a targeted victim of their identity, this should be done in a civil court, where evidence would have to be provided under oath attesting to the charges being levied. Let a jury decide if your personal identity should be taken from you and gifted to a professional predator that most likely has a long and sordid history of preying on those they perceive to be vulnerable.”
Declaring the living individual dead to enable the theft of the estate.
Barratry, a term that is now referred to as archaic, rarely, if ever, appears in the legal lexicon. It is the act of knowingly bringing false claims and charges against a targeted individual by members of the BAR Associations. And, it is the result of “the frequent incitement of lawsuits and quarrels that is a punishable offense.”
Every such individual ever forced into one of these pseudo “courts” that are in reality, tribunals, has suffered barratry and been subjected to a foreign jurisdiction and form of “pseudo law”, within which they were specifically disabled and unable to defend themselves. These unconstitutional tribunals were specifically created for this purpose: to leave the individual totally unable to defend themselves against a system devised to render them without any rights or protections. The Constitutional authority for these tribunals has been argued under the 1st, 3rd and 4th Articles of the Constitution, the sheer number of these treatises being a clear indication that they are not Constitutional.
Next, is the use of personage ( a term redefined for obvious reasons). Both barratry and personage are crimes against the individual by members of the BAR. Both of these criminal acts are used to enact foreign statutory law against living people. Foreign to the people, as statutory law circumvents the natural rights and liberties guaranteed in the Constitution and erects a legal fiction contradicting and adverse to the Constitution Bill of Rights, to directly benefit its creators. Which is exactly the only purpose of statutes.
The term “personage” has now been redefined to mean a person of importance or rank. Originally, it meant to assume another individuals’ identity with the intent of accessing their property; an act criminally prosecutable.
Today we recognize personage as identity theft. Of course its only a crime if you do it…if a member of the BAR Association does it in collusion with a for-profit guardian intent on availing themselves of your identity with the intent of fraudulently accessing your assets, it is not a problem; just all in a day’s work. Once the identity theft has been secured, testamentary powers are gifted to the predators who now present themselves as the civilly dead person so that the liquidation of the estate assets can begin in earnest. More
Tonight on “In The Mix”…Did you know about “falial” laws? These laws remain on the books in 27 states. What does it mean? It means that adult children can have their assets stolen from them through these predatory guardianships that are rampant across the country.
A recent guest on our show was sent a threatening letter from an infamous predator guardian, that ended with the open threat that she would come after her (the daughter’s) assets if she continued to impede the theft of real property from her parents. The predator sighted the state’s falial law as grounds for the threatened coercion and extortion.
Massive nursing home bills can top 100’s of thousands of dollars. What possible services could be provided to an elderly individual that would rack up a bill like that, is unknown to us. But it doesn’t stop there. Medical bills are a separate issue.
You’re most likely to be deemed legally liable for a parent’s medical bills when:
Your parent does not qualify for Medicaid
Your parent is impoverished.
Your parent has medical bills and cannot pay for them.
You do have the ability to pay, or your parents fraudulently transferred assets to you.
Join Marti Oakley, Coz Whitten-Skaife and Austin Gibson as we explore the magical, mystical world of corrupt judges who facilitate the theft of estates of the elderly, and who appear to have magical powers that allow them to “re-interpret” the final wishes of the deceased as laid out in their wills, trusts and other instruments. Montgomery Cty Pennsylvania courtrooms appear to operate on an overload of judges who have magical powers not available to us mere mortals.
What goes on in Montgomery Cty. Pennsylvania courtrooms? The corruption from the bench is blatant. Supposedly having far more knowledge about intended heirs and recipients of benefits from wills and trusts, one judge in particular has decided that his clairvoyant capabilities have helped him determine what the deceased really wanted as opposed to what the will says.
Having diverted art collections to city owned galleries instead of going to the college designated appears to be the result of an clairvoyant epiphany. In another instance, a judge decided that instead of intended family heirs receiving their inheritance, the funds should go to certain charities. Charities that the judge was involved in? I guess anything is possible when you are channeling the dead for profit.
And could someone explain why so many people targeted for guardianship/estate theft and then isolated in a nursing home have their heads shaved?
When families seek judicial intervention, they have no clue of the web of judicial abuse, deception and theft of the family’s assets that will soon ensnare them.
One typical scenario, which compels a family to seek judicial help, is an elderly family member is being held hostage while his/her assets are drained. The family does not foresee that the abuse of the hostage taker is about to be replaced by the abuse by the probate court. The various mechanisms employed by the court are limited only by the ingenuity of the judges, but certain patterns are often seen.
As explained previously Financial Rape: Business as Usual in LA County Probate Court, Judge Lippitt forces the elder person to mediation where the person is subjected to fraud, coercion and exhaustion. All the elder has to do to gain her freedom from the seemingly endless mediation is sign whatever documents the coven of evil shoves in front of her.
As Judge Paul Suzuki explained, all that matters is that she signed the settlement agreement. The Mozer v Augustine supports Judge Suzuki. It does not matter if the elder is comatose during the mediation, all that counts is that somehow the elder’s signature appears. How it got there is irrelevant and no amount of fraud, threats, lies, etc. may ever be introduced into court to show that the elder was financially raped. (Mozer cites: Evid. Code, § 1119 (a)-(c) mediation communications are confidential. “Sign this or never see you son again” – not admissible under Mozer)
For the third year, Del. Mark Levine, D-Alexandria, proposed a bill intended to strengthen family members’ and loved ones’ rights to visit adults who are under legal guardianship. After spending a year working with numerous stakeholder groups to refine the bill into something everyone agreed upon, he was surprised when a lawyer from the Virginia Bar Association stood in opposition during the bill’s subcommittee hearing.
Levine’s first attempt at the bill was inspired by a constituent, Mike Jacobs, who came to Levine with a story about how he had been unfairly banned from seeing his longtime partner, Jane Lopez, who had Alzheimer’s disease, by an attorney serving as Lopez’s legal guardian, Levine said.
Shannon Laymon-Pecoraro, an elder attorney representing the Wills, Estates and Trusts Section of the state bar, objected to several parts of the bill. Among them is a provision that would place greater emphasis on the guardian ad litem determining whether any conflicts of interest exist among the parties in the guardianship case. A guardian ad litem is an attorney appointed by the court to investigate a guardianship case and represent the allegedly incapacitated person’s best interests.
” I have a warrant out for my arrest because I saved my mother from criminals. The warrant was put out by the same judge and guardian that stole my mother’s freedom and her estate.”
What I am about to share with you is unbelievable, yet it is happening around the world. It is the best kept secret of white collar criminals.
I invite you to view my website below that chronicles my and my mother’s story of horrific abuse by the probate / family courts in the United States, which forced us to flee to Greece for our safety and our lives.
I helped my mother escape a fraudulent guardianship in which a judge forced her to give up all of her rights, forced her into an institution where she was drugged and isolated, and forced her to forfeit her entire estate, including her homes and companies to a corrupt guardian that is unrelated to the family. To conceal their crimes, the predators label their theft of her human and civil rights “in her best interest.” There was nothing wrong with my mother. She was simply wealthy and vulnerable due to age, becoming a widow, and trusting two of her own corrupt children. My mother and I made an extraordinary escape in 2016 and now live in exile in Greece. She is originally from Greece. We are both American and Greek citizens. Had I not taken my mother, she would not be alive today. She lost everything to guardianship; I lost everything to save her.
We left with the clothes on our backs leaving our children, grandchildren, homes and our lives behind. After months of hiding, we arrived in Greece with the help of friends, relatives, complete strangers, and the kindness of a representative at the Greek Embassy who granted us emergency passports for our safety.
“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
Hubert H. Humphery
Probate Watch is made up of group of people whose lives and loved ones have been impacted by probate court guardianships. We are looking for others to help lobby our legislatures and state organizations to drive change. We need help to show the need for additional legislation to protect our seniors, respect their rights and show how existing laws are being violated.
Please take our guardianship survey:
We are collecting data through an on-line survey to identify areas where there needs to be reform in the guardianship/conservatorship system. The survey is designed to collect statistics supporting the need for reforms and also provide details on how seniors and families have been affected. Your input is valuable to us and we encourage you to participate.
Note: Our survey uses google form documents. Some company IT systems block access to these documents. If you have problems accessing the survey, please try using a different computer or smart phone.
ALARMING 2-PART SERIES SUNDAY NOVEMBER 17th & MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18th with Special Guest and STAR WITNESS, Whistleblower Advocate Attorney, Lisa Belanger with co-hosts Marti Oakley & Tanya Hathaway.
The heinous crimes of elder abuse essentially encompasses and is not limited to:
*Theft of a loved one
*Theft of estate
*Physical, financial and emotional abuse.
Our guests riveting and current story is raising a call to action not only for what has happened with her own beloved and now deceased Father, but the retaliation, as she is being maliciously attacked by the MA Board of Bar Overseers.
You see, they stop at nothing to cover up the public corruption crimes, but it didn’t stop Lisa from filing a 2015 Racketeering action showing MA Probate & Family Ct is a criminal ring. There is ongoing “disciplinary”action the very corruptors are imposing on our guest.
Lisa has stood up in court as a fierce advocate for people like you and me. Let’s give Lisa the support she deserves. Please listen in as you will hear about her courageous “Journey to Justice” on Marti Oakley’s TS Radio Network not only on “Tanya Talks ; Where your voice is heard- and your story is told” and on MARTI’s Whistleblower Show Monday as well.. Tanya HATHAWAY and Marti are co-hosting this series on both nights.
Please tune in and if you’re in Oklahoma; listen in on Stephen Burke’s 89.9 f.m. KLRB Lighthouse Christian Radio.
This can happen to you, your loved ones or your children if we don’t start making what’s wrong right and stand up to these unimaginable crimes by those who are commissioned to protect us!
Join Coz & Marti tonight as we highlight more of the “Ottholes on Parade”. Joining us will be Elaine Mickman and “Rebecca”.
Thanks to Judge Stanley Ott, some of the Ottholes have 100’s of “wards of the state”. Individuals who have been targeted, kidnapped, isolated and now are subjected to trauma based bonding. No one can visit them. No one can talk to them. No one can know what condition their health is in. The predators assure them that only THEY care….after all….no one else is visiting them. Of course they don’t tell the victim that they won;t allow anyone else to visit them. And could someone please explain to us how one guardian can possibly manage all the life decisions, medical care and financial decisions for hundreds of people that they themselves rarely if ever see or communicate with?
We will also be discussing the coming Montgomery County,Pennsylvania elections and the attacks coming from the courts on women involved in divorce.
Attorneys & Fiduciaries hid Legal, Accounting, Securities and other Records from Trustees
Nashville, Tennessee | Team Reporting by SPF
Tennessee is now the only the only state in the nation that allows attorneys and financial principals to hide and destroy legal and financial records from others involved in a legal and financial transaction.
Tennessee’s appeals court has upheld a lower-court ruling in a breach of fiduciary duty case involving the accountings for an estate out of Williamson County. The ruling wipes out centuries of black-letter law and makes it legal in Tennessee for attorneys, bankers, brokers, realtors and other fiduciaries to hide legal and financial records from clients, beneficiaries—and the courts.
Williamson County Tennessee Judge James Martin III
The original ruling was made by Judge James G. Martin in a claim involving the accounting for an estate and trusts based in the small town of Leiper’s Fork.
At the federal level, and in all other states, if an attorney or fiduciary hides or destroys legal and financial records, or hides records from their client-beneficiaries, it is considered a breach of fiduciary duty, fraud and/or obstruction of justice.
The ruling from Tennessee’s courts is a seismic shift in their laws and alters what people can expect from the legal and financial professionals they employ—and are subject to—when doing business in the Volunteer state.
A DRILL-DOWN: BIG NAMES TIED TO A SMALL CASE
The case was a simple one with a common theme: The widow of a Tennessee man wanted more money than she had agreed to when she signed the pre-nuptial with her spouse. To get more money, the widow teamed up with her attorney to hide and destroy the records of those assets from the man’s sons, who were trustees and beneficiaries of the estate.
Court records show that the estate itself was relatively small, with less than $200,000 subject to probate. (Many of the family’s assets had been placed into trusts.) More
An Etowah County woman will end up returning more than $3.85 million to her mother’s estate as the result of a judge’s ruling.
The case, decided last month in Etowah County Circuit Court, dealt with the conservatory and custodial duties of a woman appointed co-conservator of her mother. Circuit Judge George Day Jr., ruled that the woman, who has not been charged with any crime, “breached her fiduciary duty to her mother’s Conservatorship estate, has failed to properly account for her actions and the funds and assets under her control, all of which has caused substantial damage” to the estate.
Additionally, the Court awarded a judgment against the daughter in relation to the custodial accounts for the incapacitated woman’s granddaughter, totaling $393,509.
Chris Hamer and Rebecca Wright of the Hamer Law Group represented the incapacitated woman’s conservator, an attorney who was appointed after the daughter resigned as conservator. The case has also generated a federal court action.
“This case represents the most egregious breach of fiduciary duties we’ve ever seen,” Hamer said in a statement. “Cases involving misappropriation and misuse of assets by family members appointed as fiduciaries are especially distressing for all involved.”
As a result of the decision, all money in the estate has been accounted for, attorneys said. According to court documents, the daughter of the incapacitated woman became conservator of her then-77-year-old mother in 2014. The woman, who died earlier this year, had 12 children.
TAMPA, Fla. — Hospitals across the Florida are paying lawyers to go to court to take away patients’ rights, a three-month I-Team investigation uncovered.
I-Team Investigator Adam Walser found hospitals in Orlando, Miami, West Palm Beach, Naples and other Florida cities paying private attorneys to file hundreds of court petitions to put patients into guardianship.
An I-Team review of state court records found:
Tampa Bay area hospitals, including those owned by Baycare, AdventHealth and HCA, went to court to put more than 100 patients into guardianship since 2017 alone.
Tampa General Hospital filed five nearly identical court documents seeking guardianship for patients, describing each as having “disorganized thinking and poor cognition.” A hospital spokeswoman said TGH spent $28,000 on guardianship cases so far in just 2019.
An attorney for Florida Hospital Altamonte requested guardianship for a patient because her “Kia Soul that was almost paid off… may be repossessed.”
Tampa guardianship attorney Gerald Hemness questioned hospitals’ widespread use of guardianship.
“Certainly, missing a payment on a car doesn’t seem like it would be a financial emergency,” said Hemness. More
Facing the glare of the elder-fraud spotlight, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (left) is sending his top experts to address the problem in a Steubenville public forum.
Titled “Protecting the Unprotected” the forum will be held from 12:30 pm to 4:00 pm on Wednesday, October 23, 2019 at the Towers Building, 500 Market Street, in the 2nd floor conference room.
Ohio has battled elder-fraud for years, and the state is again in the hot-seat due to a racketeering case brought by Dr. Mehdi Saghafi from Cleveland. A racket is a crime at both state and federal levels and can be spotted when the those billing to “fix” or “manage” a problem are the same people that caused the problem in the first place.
Dr. Saghafi’s claim is that his family was the victim of financial exploitation when his 80-year old wife was trapped in the legal maze of a court-ordered guardianship. The family claims that once “captured” in the court system, attorneys and accountants targeted the family’s assets and billed the family hundreds of thousands of dollars for the ”care” of his wife.
Just months before that racketeering suit was allowed to proceed, there was the FBI investigation of Ohio Judge Diane Vettori-Caraballo (shown left). The judge was indicted and pled guilty to charges stemming from her theft of over $100,000 from an estate for which she was the court-appointed administrator. For more on that story, go here: https://wp.me/p9585T-gD
Ohio is not alone in the fight against fraud. Weeks ago, Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel fired four of her state’s probate administrators after complaints that the attorneys had used their court-power to drain the assets of estates they controlled. See this link for details: https://wp.me/p9585T-fH
Over the summer, Florida’s probate system made national headlines when court-appointed guardian Rebecca Fierle (right) was accused of causing the death of a man who was in her care by issuing a “Do Not Resuscitate” (DNR) order—without informing or getting the consent of the man who was “not to be resuscitated.” For more on this fraud story, go here: https://wp.me/p9585T-gt
Yost’s Steubenville event features nearly a dozen speakers including four with state-wide experience in elder-fraud investigation and prosecution: Sylvia Pla-Raith; Kevin Barbeau, CFE; Michael Kaizar, CPA CFE; Kelly Igoe, JD. The session offers residents of the region a place to meet and learn about the “red flags of fraud” from Ohio’s experts in elder financial fraud.
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) calls fraud “theft by deceit,” and “theft with a smile and is prosecuted every day across the USA. But in cases where the “mark” or victim is an incapacitated and/or elderly person, the issues can expand from simple fraud into a RICO and civil rights cases.
“Many people don’t know that there are thousands of people in guardianships in Ohio,” says Rosanna Miller (shown right with her father, Clair) who is a member of the advocacy group “Ohio Coalition to End Probate Corruption” (OCEPC). The Ohio coalition is just one of nearly a dozen grass-roots groups across the United States who fight guardianship and elder financial abuse including NASGA, AAAPG and VGPR.
New federal elder-care legislation (U.S. H.R. 4174) details that there are approximately 1.3 million elderly adults in the United States who have their lives controlled in a guardianship. These vulnerable adults have amassed roughly 50 billion dollars in assets. These figures will get bigger with the aging of the “boomer” generation and the rise in life-expectancy.
The Steubenville forum is designed to help people learn how to spot and stop fraud from the best and brightest in the area of elder fraud prevention and prosecution. The speakers will detail the warning signs of elder financial exploitation and financial crimes and give attendees tools and strategies to assist victims of financial exploitation.
In addition to the state-level experts, there will be local Jefferson-County speakers as well, including Sheriff Fred J. Abdalla; Jefferson County Attorney Jane Hanlin; Marie Holt, Ericka Kirkpatrick and probate Judge Joseph Corabi. The forum is designed to give people in the community a local contact when they need expertise in the elder financial fraud area. Q&A sessions are expected, time permitting.
The event is free but the room holds only 125 people. Please use this link to pre-register:
SAN ANTONIO – A group of adult children sued the state of Florida’s governor and attorney general in Florida Northern District Court, alleging that, under court appointed guardianship, their parents’ estate, assets, 401k funds, social security money, jewelry, cars and homes are being stolen.
After all is liquidated or redistributed, the senior citizens under these alleged unconstitutional court appointed guardianships are starved, denied medical care or prescribed high doses of toxic psychotropic medication to intentionally cause death, according to a press release.
Plaintiffs Barbara Stone, Lesa Martino and Patty Reid are collectively calling for an executive order from President Trump to the FBI and the Department of Justice to enforce the law and criminally investigate the Defendants.
“The Florida guardianship statute is being used as a pretense of legitimacy for an immoral, inhumane, barbaric color of law proceeding wherein judges are working together with attorneys and guardians to abuse vulnerable adults,” wrote the Plaintiffs in their Sept. 5 complaint.
Governor Rick DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody are Defendants named in the lawsuit along with Florida Senate Chairman Bill Galvano, Florida Speaker of the House John Oliva, Office of Public and Private Guardians Director Carol Berkowitz who recently resigned along with the state’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis and Secretary of Elder Affairs Richard Prudom.
Gretchen Rachel Hammond, investigative reporter, fills us in on the after shock of her expose’ on Oakland county Probate Court, Michigan. Gretchen’s five part series, fully documented in tedious detail the corruption and abuses that have been on going for years! The number of lives destroyed while predators in the system were given ownership and control of vulnerable elderly an disabled individuals, allowing them to warehouse these people and help themselves to their assets is a national disgrace. All of it done within the full view of the state’s attorney general, Dana Nessel. She wasn’t the only AG to turn a blind eye, just the last in a long line.
“It seems the guardians and judges at the Oakland County Probate Court have been doing a bit of house cleaning since August:
Elderly and developmentally disabled victims are getting moved out of unlicensed group homes.
Small refunds are being offered to victim family members on the proviso that they sign a form saying they received a refund for “accidental over billing.”
Guardians are trying to close out cases and get rid of their own assets (such as half million dollar homes).
Files in case dockets are being altered or removed (such as accounts, change of address forms and ex parte orders).
As of last week, the court’s only public access computer (the one my team and I used to research case files without paying $1-per-page) is gone.”
Tune in as Gretchen fills us in on the recent activity in Michigan. Amazing what a top-notch investigative journalist can do!
Tonight, Patricia & Robert Femia join us to talk about the downstream effects of predatory guardianships. Patricia’s mother, captured and isolated from her family, soon succumbed to the psychological torture inflicted upon her. In a classic case of trauma based bonding, she rejected all ties to her daughter and her family. Instead, she identified with her captors. In what was a clear case of the Stockholm Syndrome, and the effects on the family as this unfolded were staggering.
“This horrific ordeal has left me and my family completely heart-broken. My mother was taken care of and had her daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren living closely around her every day. She lived comfortably, was healthy and had her independence for many years. Once this whole scenario unfolded,she died all alone in a nursing home.”
Tune in as Patricia and Robert tell how they managed to survive this attack on their family, and where are they today in managing the damage.
Guardian abuse came about from a broken system. States often provide guardians for when the elderly and incapacitated need outside care. County or state courts appoint them to take care of their wards either personally or financially.
But the system failed thousands of people by allowing dishonest people and corrupt politicians to handle guardianship. Public guardians cut off wards from communication with their families, charge massive fees, and in some cases, cause the death of their wards.
A System Motivated By Greed
Not all guardians commit these atrocities. However, more and more victims report guardian abuse every day.
“It’s nothing personal, it’s all about the money,” says Charlie Pascal, whose mother-in-law was a victim. “That’s what I tell all the victims. You have to get past it.”
The National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse (NASGA) writes that guardianship laws threaten “the health and wealth to our elderly and disabled citizens.” Director Elaine Renoire said that while people are working to pass laws, “legislation is slow moving, so we’re still at it.”
Guardianships For No Reason
The system supposedly helps those that need it. But what happens when those that don’t get caught?
When Mary Whitten and her sister, Cos Skaife, dealt with their uncle’s guardianship in the State of Pennsylvania, they had no idea how much was involved. The two collected horror stories of wards over-medicated and isolated from their families by unscrupulous guardians.
The Silver Standard with Romona Paden, contributor
This year’s Whistleblower Summit had many interesting and illumination discussion panels.
For us at the Silver Standard and The EARN Project, the panel conducted by Marti Oakley was of most interest.
Many people are drawn to the Summit just to meet Marti. They have listened to her shows on her TS Radio Network, and they appreciate her for being a leading voice for reform and her achievement in bringing this issue to the Summit. She was her usual dynamic self, shining a light into the dark corners of this growing global threat. More
On May 2, 2016, my mother and I fled from her Minnesota guardian and Judge who collaborated with attorneys to create a guardianship based on a fraudulent diagnosis. The only thing wrong with my mother was that she had two sons that continually pursued her, at the expense of her life and her health, for control of her estate. As a result of family discord, the racketeers banded together to create a lucrative guardianship. After my mother suffered isolation and inappropriate drugging with the judge’s approval for almost two years, we determined the only way out was to run, and run we did! My mother and I are currently living in exile in Greece; the country she immigrated from.
Her guardian, Dan Lodahl, principle of First Fiduciary Corporation (City of Eagan) has many complaints against him. These complaints are well known throughout Minnesota, but are consistently and systematically ignored and hidden from the public. Mr. Lodahl and his wife, Michelle Lodahl, use unethical billing practices while forcing wards to submit to their demands through false imprisonment, isolation, and inappropriate drug ingestion to promote unconsciousness and early death. Dan Lodahl is the Jared Shafer (Nevada) of Minnesota: untouchable.
My mother recently told a reporter, “When my husband died, everyone came after me just because they could. I had a life, a home, money; they took everything.” Family members, attorneys, a physician, a Judge, a guardian and assisted living facility staff perpetrated incomprehensible cruelty against my mother and I. We are law abiding citizens, professionals in our field, that are now fugitives seeking refuge from criminals.
For three years, as the guardian and judge fraudulently denied knowledge of my mother’s whereabouts, my mother was completely dependent on my VA disability for all her living and medical expenses. The guardian continued to bill her estate thousands of dollars for his salary and expenses that he created without a ward in his jurisdiction. The guardian did everything in his power to deny my mother’s request for her social security income, which she finally received in 2019. He had, and has, no concern for the welfare of ‘his ward.’ She is simply a cash cow.
Despite notifications to the guardian of his ward’s location, he and the judge continue to declare her as missing hoping to make it to the four-year requirement in Minnesota that allows them to designate a missing person as deceased (Death in Absentia). This would give them faster access to her estate in probate court, which they can utilize to deplete her entire estate to fill their own pockets.
Although we are free, we will never truly be free. After a lifetime of dedication to her work, and carefully saving for her future security and that of her children, my mother cannot afford to live the life she worked for. She lost everything to guardianship. I lost everything to save her. Our losses are much deeper than financial; we cannot spend our senior years with our children and grandchildren and we cannot live the life we planned. We live in constant fear of being pursued. We are forced to live a life in exile while unwillingly relinquishing control of my parent’s estate and family legacy. We cannot return to the United States or I will be sentenced to jail and my mother will be forced back into human trafficking.
Currently, the only way out of guardianship is to let the racketeers steal your estate, accept defeat, and escape the country to regain your freedom – your life.
In 2018, a team of journalists and a forensic examiner began an investigation into the alleged abuse of thousands of senior and developmentally disabled individuals by judges and attorneys in a Michigan probate court. This is a fraction of what was uncovered. For the full story, click here : https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019…
I’m lucky. I have a tight-knit family. I realize for many it’s not like that. Kids move far away and trust that their parents will always be the same. But as people hit their 80’s or sometimes earlier, changes happen fast. Adult kids haven’t thought about it. It’s easy to see how that could happen because most people don’t understand much about the aging process. I mean, as a society we don’t want to face it, and everything in advertising and media is about staying young. It’s truly important to bring reality to the forefront without shaming or demeaning our children’s failings unless real abuse has occurred. Sometimes negligence can be stopped by education.
If your kid’s don’t pay attention, what’s to prevent Adult Protective Services and others from removing an elder from their home by court order? Let’s say an elder has fallen and lands in the emergency room. Everybody knows that elders become less able to care for themselves very well at some point. Officials can see this as the equivalent of leaving a child alone at home if they want to. (The court can and does set aside a power of attorney you have in place.) Where’s the line? Think of it this way: What would happen if somebody found a kid at home alone and they had an accident? That kid would be taken away and put into a foster home. We need to understand that elders over 65 need more and more attention as they age, and anyone not living with an elder needs to know the risks. 65 is basically the age you become an elder who is looked at differently–as more vulnerable.
Tell your kids about this. Chances are, an outcome like this wouldn’t happen, but it could. Adult Protective Services, a doctor, nurse, social worker –or a professional who trolls emergency rooms (believe it or not there are social workers or others who do this with connections on the “inside”, much like ambulance chasers) can legally initiate a petition to have you put under the control of a professional court-appointed guardian. If the court agrees that this is an emergency, that person then controls all decisions and your assets. This emergency petition basically bypasses due process.
The unit is on the second floor of the facility and only accessible from the main entrance via a code-restricted elevator the doors of which open into a common area that looks like a hybrid of a hospital ward and prison day room.
Lahser Hills Care Center in Southfield, Michigan.
Image from Lahser Hills website
Legally deaf, Virgil (whose last name is omitted for privacy reasons) stared directly ahead. He made no eye contact, but his expression was one of despair. His only answer to questions from this investigation was given through a single tear that ran down his cheek, which he made no attempt to wipe away.
For 40 years, Virgil had lived in his childhood home in Pontiac under the care of his mother Beth. After she passed away and left the home to Virgil, the neighbors, with whom both mother and son were close, stepped in and helped wherever they could. Virgil was not a wealthy man. He had no savings to speak of, and his only income came via a Social Security check.
However, he did have property.
In late 2016, former Oakland County Public Administrator Jennifer Carney was given control over that property alongside Virgil’s income, identity, possessions, and future after he was placed under her guardianship by Oakland County Probate Court Chief Judge Kathleen Ryan.
The home was one of a myriad of unlicensed small group facilities across Michigan’s Oakland, Wayne and Genesee Counties in which adults and developmentally disabled individuals have been placed after being declared an “incapacitated ward” by Oakland County Probate Court Judges, Jennifer Callaghan, Linda Hallmark, Daniel A. O’Brien and Chief Judge Kathleen Ryan.
Carolyn, 64, who like her two roommates, Rita and Mary, asked to keep her last name private, had been moved into the facility by her court-appointed guardian and former Oakland County Public Administrator John Yun.
The three women told this investigation that they had been alone since the previous Wednesday, when all staff left for the Thanksgiving holiday. On their way out, someone had wrapped a large chain around the handles of the kitchen’s refrigerator/freezer combo unit and padlocked them shut. More
ALLEGED MASSIVE ELDER ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION RING IN MIGHIGAN PROBATE COURTS
The guardianship system isn’t new; in fact, it’s rooted in medieval English law. Every US state still uses some form of the system, which, at its best, is designed to protect citizens who are no longer able to protect themselves by declaring them wards of the state. We know, of course, that the system is rarely at its best, with increasing reports of abuse cropping up nationwide, prompting Congressional calls for reform.
But the level of controversy over how guardianship cases are handled in one Detroit-area probate courtroom has reached such heights, the story reads more like Orwellian fiction than it does a model of the American experience.
An unsettling number of accusations have been leveraged against the court, citing abuse, neglect, robbery, and exploitation, often in cases that arguably didn’t merit guardianship in the first place. In as little as a year, “incapacitated wards” are stripped of the entirety of their savings and possessions and rendered completely reliant upon social services and benefits such as Medicaid. Even high-profile families, including the estates of Rosa Parks and Aretha Franklin, have been drawn into the quagmire.
Award-winning investigative journalist Gretchen Rachel Hammond spent the past 13 months independently investigating a systemic problem at the Oakland County Probate Court, which has allegedly been shielded by the highest levels of Michigan government for the past 30-some years. With the help of a forensic accountant, three Wayne State University Journalism School researchers, and thousands of corroborating documents, she has published a first-of-its-kind exploration into the court system, its four judges, four guardians, and the stories behind more than 2,200 wards.
Background:
In July 2018, Hammond engaged in a freelance, self-funded investigation to determine if alleged abuses at the Oakland County Probate Court were systemic.
Discoveries include the forced separation of families and isolation of the vulnerable; fraudulent petitions for guardianship by Adult Protective Services investigators; massive overbilling; the forced removal of individuals from their homes and the placement of them in nursing facilities or unlicensed group homes with subhuman living conditions; real estate fraud; and missing assets that number in the millions of dollars.
The investigation met with constant challenges, including threats and harassment by Oakland County Sheriff’s officers. A surreal March 12, 2019 four-hour meeting between Hammond’s team and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s staff led to a new line of inquiry and discoveries of campaign ties between Nessel, Whitmer and Oakland County Probate Court Chief Judge Kathleen Ryan and her family.
Biography
Gretchen Rachel Hammond is an award-winning freelance investigative journalist based out of Chicago. Her work has won or been nominated for four successive Chicago Press Club awards, been recognized by the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Journalists (NLGJA), and covered topics such as criminal justice, abuse at ICE detention facilities, and alleged discrimination on the part of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services leading to the unnecessary separation of children from their parents.
GRETCHEN IS AVAIL FOR INTERVIEW AND THE FULL 5 PART SERIES IS AVAIL
Marti Oakley
Lisa Belanger
The PPJ Gazette 