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.
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
On the morning of Tuesday, July 16, 2019, Connie Reguli received a phone call notifying her that there is a warrant out for her arrest.
She will be turning herself in to the Brentwood Police Department on Wednesday morning.
Connie has never been arrested before. The founder of the Family Forward Project has no criminal history, nor have there been any allegations of criminal activity. Yet, for doing her job as an attorney to have the voice of her client, a parent, be heard, she is being criminally charged.
Retaliation like this, Connie says, is the reason that families often cannot get legal help when their children are taken from them. Attorneys who fight for clients’ Constitution rights such as due process and who fight against corruption are often threatened or bullied into backing down.
This makes it difficult for parents whose children are taken by Child Protective Services, no matter how unjustly. Many attorneys are simply scared.
More often than not, the allegations against parents are baseless and end up being unsubstantiated. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “Child Maltreatment” Report, only 17% of allegations against parents are substantiated. (See link.)
The charges against Connie Reguli are facilitation of custodial interference and accessory after the fact of custodial interference in the case of a client she represented. The client is also facing charges of custodial interference.
The client’s children were seized by the Tennessee Department of Children and Families (DCF) based on an “ex parte order.” That is, the order was brought before a judge and signed by a judge without notifying the mother or her attorney.
As the mother’s attorney, Connie Reguli asked for her client to have due process and get a court date where she could be heard after the children were seized on the basis of an ex parte order.
Ex parte orders are supposed to be reserved for times when there is an emergency situation, one in which there is risk of irreparable harm if parties have to wait for a court hearing. All too often, however, they are the normal practice in Child Protective Services cases.
In the case in question, there was never any evidence of the allegations against the mother, and the petition against her was ultimately dismissed. However, DCF took her children away from her, put them in several different foster homes, and subjected the children to almost a year of trauma before the case was dismissed and the children returned home.
Action Sparks
Connie will be turning herself in around 11 am. She anticipates being released on her own recognizance.
Anyone who would like to support Connie Reguli is invited to come to the Brentwood Police Department, 5211 Maryland Way # 1000, Brentwood, TN 37027, at 10:30 am on Wednesday, July 17.
Calls may be made on Connie’s behalf to the Williamson County District Attorney Kim R. Helper at (615) 794-7275. She is also on Facebook.
By Terri LaPoint
