Were you sold on the idea that guardianship/conservatorship once had a noble purpose? Neither ever did. It has always been a system of human trafficking with the intent of depriving those targeted of their assets, land, possessions and finances.
Tonight, Marcia Southwick, A Director of the National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse, will join Marti to describe the Oklahoma guardianship system that was put in place to “protect” the Five Civilized Tribes and the Osage in the early 1900’s. Guardianships were transferred to state control when Oklahoma achieved statehood. Just as occurs today, county courts became responsible for probate cases and guardianships. Many Native Americans were deemed “incompetent,” especially as oil began to be discovered on their land. The atrocities and systematic theft are recorded in an investigation done in 1924, and in other documents. If you believe that removal of rights is the best way to protect another person’s interests,you’ll question that assumption after listening to the show.
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
Luanne Flemming host of “Hidden Truth Revealed” will be co-hosting and will be joined by Phil Ross, attorney for Shelley Thomson. Shelley will also be calling in so that we can hear from her personally.
Shelley Thomson is in a New Braunfels, Texas nursing home (Colonial Manor). She does not belong there and is desperate to be liberated.
Under the guise of guardianship, Texas Health and Human Services Commission took her computer, all her money and assets – and (HHSC) used her disability as an excuse to abduct her, steal her house, her cat, and move her into an abusive nursing home. Her guardian has threatened her with violence. Shelley is held prisoner with no right to leave her room, no visitors, and no exercise.
Shelley Thomson was labeled as incapacitated falsely and maliciously by the state of Texas. State guardianship fraud is a national scandal. Under the guise of protection, states target victims for their money, and treat them worse than prisoners. Shelley’s guardian has threatened her with violence and she has been drugged against her will.
If Shelley cannot pick her own psychiatrist, the court will assign their own, and they will choose the cheapest expert to rubber stamp a denial of capacity once again.
A GoFundMe campaign to raise enough money for Shelley to hire her own psychiatrist, and to help defray expenses of her lawyer who has represented her for over 13 months pro bono. Please click on the link, read the ad and donate. Thanks!
Join us this evening as Lisa Belanger joins the show to talk about the Netflix series “Dirty Money-#5” Guardians Inc. This episode features Lisa and exposes the ongoing targeting, isolation, and theft of estates from vulnerable seniors and the disabled.
Guardianship has become nothing more than a government sanctioned and facilitated system of human trafficking for profit. One of the most insidious parts of this disgusting system is the forcing of the victim to pay all of the expenses of those involved in the predatory guardianship. Doing so makes the theft of estates so much easier and more efficient.
Estates are stolen, homes are sold, trusts are broken into, wills are discarded, bank accounts raided, and personal items and family memorabilia are disposed of. Everything that defined that elder’s life is wiped out, thrown away, discarded. They have been effectively erased.
While we are encouraged to regard lawyers, doctors, guardians, attorney’s and others as somehow deserving of respect, this issue has clearly exposed the fact that many of these people are the worst among us. For those in any one of these professions who have enough integrity, sense of honor and morals, attempting to defend a victim from these predators can be career suicide.
As despicable as many of these professionals are, that individual sitting on the bench is the worst of them all. Everything revolves around the cooperation of this individual to make sure the system runs smoothly.
Visit her at Medway Manor Nursing Home, in Massachusetts. Messages for her via email at JusticeforMargaret@Mail.com
Justice for Margaret Cook
Margaret Cook is an elderly, disabled Massachusetts woman whose property, civil liberties, life savings, and right to the pursuit of happiness as an American citizen have all been taken away.
She is currently held against her will at Medway Manor nursing home, in Massachusetts, despite an independent psych exam which stated that she was competent enough to live at home, with in-home care, as she has desperately asked. She has been stopped from going to her home, even for a Christmas, Thanksgiving or birthday visit, for a year and a half.
See her video statement if you have access to: vimeo.com/395830770
Imagine if you were removed from your home, told you could never return, and held against your will while your property, and every penny from your bank accounts is taken away.
Imagine that your bills and your taxes are up to date. Imagine that you have had no criminal record in your entire life.
Something like this could only happen in some far away country, a place without respect for human rights and freedoms, right?
You would be wrong. There is a woman named Margaret Cook who would like you to know that this tragedy could happen to anyone. She is in the state of Massachusetts, in the United States. More
We have two guests this evening. Our friends in Australia return to follow up on past broadcasts and the events that have resulted from speaking out.
Mr. D, who reported on the abuses at a nursing home supposedly established to serve those of the Jewish faith, is facing charges for revealing publicly what is transpiring in these gulags for the aged. Mr. D is facing charges for making supposed “anti-semetic remarks” to a man who is Catholic. Mr. D is himself, Jewish. This has all the markings of a concocted excuse to target, intimidate and threaten him. This is so ludicrous that I cannot believe it is actually taking place, but it is.
2nd half
Mia returns to talk about dementia, What are the signs? What can you do? Are dementia-like symptoms the result of psychotropic drugging meant to cause the victim to appear to be suffering from dementia, when actually they are not? We know these deadly drugs are widely used here in the US as chemical restraints, and produce dementia like symptoms. Apparently, Australia has followed suit.
In Minnesota, clearly “protective services” is actually for profit “human trafficking services” for ALL VULNERABLE ADULTS AND CHILDREN! THIS MUST STOP!
There is no Constitutional provision for negating of law into unlawful or illegal statutes.
The only possible way to rectify this assault on the elderly and other vulnerable men and women who have been declared to have suffered a civil death at the hands of these civil tribunals, is to abolish them altogether.
The elderly in Minnesota, as they are across the country, have been, and are, being targeted for exploitation by professional, for-profit guardians. Guardianship has been described as the fastest growing cottage industry in the country. The trafficking of the elderly through the probate system has allowed the theft of estates and the accompanying isolation and abuse of the targeted individual. As a result, the greatest transfer of wealth in this country, is not from the rich to the poor, but rather, from the elderly to professional predators who game this system for profit. It is aledged that 5-10 billion is stolen annually from the elderly by these predators. Generational wealth in the form of inheritance is being stolen from intended heirs.
Its no Different in Minnesota
Minnesota government at all levels has allowed a predatory, for profit system to flourish and, has even colluded with those who profit from the trafficking through a civil tribunal system in order to facilitate the kidnapping, isolation and financial exploitation of the elderly, the disabled and other vulnerable men and women. Allegedly, many of our legislators are connected through business associations to the most virulent of these predators. The business of trafficking the elderly for profit has become so lucrative that large fiduciary corporations who profit from this activity have sprung up across the state.
Probate “courts” are civil tribunals; they are not courts of law, nor are they courts of record. Probate was to become active only upon presentation of the death certificate, and then only to determine if the estate was testate or intestate. (With a will, or without one) The only duty of probate was to determine the distribution of assets to the appropriate heirs. The probate examiner was to have only one clear purpose; fact finding. This was extended to include guardianship and conservator ship of the living man or woman. As it is used today, either of these acts against the living man or woman, causes the civil death of that man or woman. The granting of guardianship petitions is the de facto death certificate.
Sec. 11. Probate jurisdiction.
Original jurisdiction in law and equity for the administration of the estates of deceased persons and all guardianship and incompetency proceedings, including jurisdiction over the administration of trust estates and for the determination of taxes contingent upon death, shall be provided by law.More
A $22 million civil RICO case from Cleveland, Ohio has survived another procedural hurdle and appears headed to trial in Cuyahoga county court.
RICO stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization. It was passed by congress and signed into law by President Nixon 50 years ago, in 1970. Originally designed to combat organized crime, the laws’ application has expanded to include any group profiting from an illegal activity.
Macomb County Probate Judge Sandra Harrison ordered the release of Fred Smith, who lives in Bruce Township, but with a stern warning that if he doesn’t account for the missing funds, he will find himself back behind bars.
A Utica man has been confined to the Macomb County Jail for over three weeks and will spend at least two more weeks there for failing to account for millions of dollars spent from his mother’s trust fund that he controlled.
Two former clients of disbarred Hendersonville attorney Andy Allman may finally get their day in civil court after a special judge recently denied a motion to dismiss the cases.
Linda Cela of Clarksville and Erbit Navarro-Teran of Lebanon both filed complaints in Sumner County General Sessions Court against Allman nearly three years ago.
Investigators say Traci Hudson stole more than $500,000 from a man she had guardianship over.
For the latter part of his life, Maurice Myers lived on his own in a small home south of Sarasota.
Then, in March 2017, when he was 92, Myers was hospitalized twice with numerous health complications. He was released to a rehabilitation facility, then moved to a senior care home in Pinellas Park. There, he’d be closer to his daughter, who oversaw his affairs.
The case highlights the unexpected downsides of court-appointed adult guardianships, which are designed to help the old and the infirm manage their lives but are under fire nationwide amid allegations of neglect, abuse and financial exploitation. Those problems haven’t escaped the watchful eye of Congress, as evidenced by the recent introduction of HR 4174 to enact protections against elder abuse and neglect under guardianship.
As legislation is being passed and proposed in several states, allowing those deemed to be mentally ill or suffering from dementia to be starved to death, we see Australia following suit and targeting their elderly also. Simply arranging for a diagnosis of dementia regardless if it is a legitimate diagnosis, can facilitate the kidnapping, isolation and theft of estates. Now with this handy option available to starve them to death as the estate is being plundered by professional predators, this global harvesting of the elderly for profit is in high gear.
Lawyers along with doctors and government agencies are gaming the system, and are allowed to take over elderly individuals lives and affairs. Protected by probate tribunals and government, massive profits are gained by preying on a vulnerable sector of the population. If in fact, these individuals are compromised, wouldn’t the moral thing to do be to secure their rights and protections? Instead, the governments and their predatory tribunals treat them as if they were nothing and violate even their most basic rights.
As both an advocate for victims of guardianship abuse and legislative change nationwide, the National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse (NASGA) commends Michigan Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist’s decision appointing Katharyn Barron as State Public Administrator as a hopeful step in the right direction in a state which has been plagued with horrific abuses of constitutional, statutory and human rights of individuals under guardianship and their families allegedly committed by County Public Administrators and Probate Court Judges for the past 30 years.
Although the November 22 announcement by Attorney General Dana Nessel curiously omitted any mention of former State Public Administrator Michael Moody, who held the position for over eight years, NASGA Community Outreach Coordinator Gretchen Rachel Hammond says the decision to replace him is long overdue.
Prior to joining NASGA, Hammond was an award-winning investigative journalist who published an August, 2019 groundbreaking five-part series detailing alleged abuses by now-former Oakland County Public Administrators in over 2,000 cases. The articles noted that Moody had been consistently unresponsive to complaints by desperate families who reached out to him stating that public administrators, acting as guardians and conservators, were isolating, abusing and stealing from the estates of seniors and developmentally disabled individuals placed under Oakland County Probate Court guardianship often after petitions filed by agencies such as Michigan’s Adult Protective Services which were not accompanied by any corroborating medical evidence. More
A disturbing aspect of an elder law and trusts and estates practice is the discovery of elder abuse. According to the National Institute on Aging, hundreds of thousands of adults over the age of 60 are abused, neglected, or financially exploited each year. Elder abuse includes physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in addition to neglect and abandonment. The perpetrators are often relatives or friends who have influence over the individual who may be vulnerable due to illness, disability, or age. Sometimes the abuse occurs at the hands of caregivers, whether in the home or in a facility.
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has introduced bipartisan legislation to help protect the elderly and infirmed by improving health care worker hiring practices in long-term care and medical facilities. Too often the elderly and infirmed are harmed as a result of the individuals working in the very facilities that are charged with helping rehabilitate them.
The Promote Responsible Oversight and Targeted Employee Background Check Transparency for Seniors Act, also known as “PROTECTS,” is an act that would expand access to the National Practitioner Data Bank for Medicare and Medicaid providers to conduct background checks on employees. Specifically, PROTECTS would include Medicaid/Medicare-certified skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, hospice programs, and pharmacies.
The Act has been endorsed by the American Health Care Association and the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. The aforesaid Data Bank would reveal malpractice for potential employees and assist facility administrators in their hiring and consequently affect the standards of care.
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.
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:
Join us this evening as Gretchen Rachel Hammond returns! We have lot to talk about!
We will be discussing the do’s and don’ts of survivors of guardianship abuse and, the failure of agencies to act when a crime is reported to them with evidence. It would appear, it is only a crime if someone outside the inner circle does it. If it is one of these tribunal participants like probate examiners, guardians, attorneys and others who routinely traffic the elderly and disabled through these kangaroo courts, nothing will be done. The police won’t respond, nor will any agency whose sole existence is supposed to be making sure these things don’t happen no matter who does it! Obviously if you are connected to these rackets no one will make a move against you.
Gretchen will also speak about her new position with the National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse (NASGA) where she will head up Community Outreach. After her year long investigation on the massive abuses taking place in Michigan probate tribunals, Gretchen is off on a new endeavor!
For almost 30 years, tens of thousands of Michigan’s elderly and developmentally disabled citizens have been subjected to neglect, abuse, torture, forced isolation, exploitation and embezzlement by the state’s probate judges and attorneys, professional guardianship companies and public administrators.
Declared incapacitated “wards” by a probate court judge, with little or no corroborating medical evidence, Michigan’s most vulnerable are stripped of their statutory, civil, constitutional. and human rights and handed over to a court appointed guardian.
In as little as a year, wards have been rendered completely indigent and reliant upon social services and benefits such as Medicaid. Their homes are sold off, their savings accounts, IRAs, investment accounts, cars, personal belongings, keepsakes, heirlooms and jewelry stolen.
Nessel’s Elder Abuse Task Force has accomplished nothing.
Judges already do not obey the law as written so it’s announced legislative probate reform initiatives are pointless. Reforms are pointless without consequences to those who have flagrantly violated and continue to violate Michigan law.
Nessel’s recent, unexplained firing of public administrators John Yun. Jennifer Carney, Thomas Brennan Fraser and Robert Kirk accomplished nothing since they can still take roles as court-appointed guardians and conservators.
We, the undersigned, demand that the abuse, neglect and exploitation Michigan’s elderly and developmentally disabled individuals by the state’s probate courts must stop!
We demand criminal investigations into any and all probate attorneys, public administrators, guardianship companies and judges suspected of criminal behavior and abuse of power.
We demand investigations not initiatives.
We demand the immediate resignation of the State Court Administrator.
We demand an explanation as to why no action has been taken against judges or their appointees who have donated to or accepted donations from the Nessel and Whitmer campaigns.
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.
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…
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.
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
The Australians are back! The last few weeks have seen major activity behind the scenes. The first Australian Summit on trustee (guardianship) abuse and estate theft was held. Approximately 100 victims attended and spoke. With media, the shadow Attorney General Mr David Jantezkin in attendance, the 3 hour planned summit was extended to 5 hours to allow everyone to speak.
Highlighted at the Summit were the:
Physical & Psychological Isolation- Usually very quick
Bed side hearings
Victims drugged and moved without notice
Notice they do this when the victim is close to family and loved ones
Order placed to control visitations
In the midst of all this, the Australian government tries to cover its tracks and close all the loopholes in what is an expanding police state. Everything is being privatized including titles on property. Even the banking royal commissioner is upset over the growing distrust of the government. The efforts currently appear centered on property and financial interests.
We will also have several family members of victims calling in.
All that Nancy Scott has wanted was for her mother, retired Alabama schoolteacher Marian Leonard, to be able to live out her final years surrounded by the love and support of her family. Nancy never dreamed that such a simple wish could be thwarted by lawyers and judges and doctors. Now, it appears that time has run out for her to get her mother closer to her home in the Wiregrass area of southern Alabama.
A Hospice staff member called Nancy Scott Wednesday morning and told her that she needs to return to Birmingham as soon as possible, because the end is near.
A year and a half ago, retired Alabama schoolteacher Marian Leonard was taken from her family, placed under state guardianship, and forced onto Hospice, all against her will.
Marian Leonard assigned her daughter Power of Attorney, but all of her documents were set aside by probate judge Alan King. She is in solitary confinement, though she has committed no crime. See story: More
Coalition of Organizations for Reform and Ethics
The PPJ Gazette 