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
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!
An FYI on how much state and national organizations care about the abuse of elderly/developmentally disabled people, if nothing else as a time saver for folks who want to report such cases.
Since I have evidence of people endangered in illegal, unlicensed facilities with subhuman conditions, which the Attorney General doesn’t want, I have been keeping a running tally of agencies both inside and outside of Michigan I called with a simple request:
“These are people whose lives are in danger. I would like to report multiple crimes. To whom do I send the addresses of these group homes, home/property owner, names of the victims and the guardians who put them there?”
Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs: Left messages. No response.
Adult Protective Services: Hung up on me.
Office of the Inspector General: No response.
Federal Bureau of Investigation: No response.
Michigan Elder Justice Initiative: “Call the Attorney General.”
State Long Term Care Ombudsman: No response.
AARP: “We have our own plans to address guardianship issues. We don’t want to talk about them.”
National Center on Elder Abuse: Received email September 11 stating they were going to try and reach out to someone in Michigan. No response to follow up messages.
Justice in Aging: No reply to voicemails.
American Society on Aging: “We don’t help people with that.”
National Consumer Voice for Long Term Care: Won’t pick up their phone. No response to voicemails.
Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper: “Good luck with that.”
Michigan State Police: “This is a civil matter.”
US Attorney Michigan, Civil Rights Division: No response.
All State Reps and Senators: No response except two.
Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper: “The Senator does not appreciate your constant attacks on the Attorney General.”
Michigan Sen. Peter Lucido: I can’t help you. My advice is to contact the Macomb County Bar Association, the Michigan State Police or the FBI.”
First time I can remember I’ve tried to report a crime and no one has cared. I guess if they were kids and not the elderly and developmentally disabled and if a group of attorneys and judges were not involved who have paid off people like Dana Nessel and Gretchen Whitmer, something would have been done months ago.
But let’s be honest here, America does not give a fuck about anyone it considers disposable.
I just want it clear and on record. I have attempted to report a crime. I have been fundamentally clear that lives are in danger. For whatever reason, no one wants to hear about it.
If I have to fight alone the Michigan Attorney General, along with all her supporters, the Michigan State Legislature, a collectively apathetic Michigan media, Facebook and this damnable probate court until the attorneys and judges committing atrocities against the elderly and developmentally disabled are in jail, I will.
I know a lot of folks are probably sick of what you could argue had become a single note in my life of late. I can’t share it here at the moment but I’ll be damned if I’m going to stop trying to raise awareness.
But if it was you, and you saw these crimes against the helpless, knew they were still happening and it was equally clear no one, outside the victims, their families or advocacy groups, gave a shit or was prepared to take any action, what would you do?
I accuse you of being complicit in the abuse, neglect, torture, robbery, brutalization and isolation of Michigan’s most vulnerable.
I accuse you of being an accomplice in the destruction of evidence of these crimes.
I accuse you of breaching your duty as Attorney General and of outright deception to the people of Michigan.
Are you sufficiently threatened yet? If so, I dare you to come and arrest me.
Because if you think because I’m alone I’m weak, you understand very little. If you have anything to do with protecting the people committing those crimes and you are not afraid, then you understand nothing at all.
So, for your own sake, understand this:
I’m going to find you. I’m going to expose you and I will never ever stop.
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.
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!
Update from Gretchen Rachel Hammond about Oakland Co. (MI) Probate Court which she investigated thoroughly for her five-part series, “The Fortress.” ( https://www.dailykos.com/…/-The-Fortress-Part-One-of-Five-U…).
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From Gretchen: Good, sneaky and bad news.
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.
So, the good: removal of victims from unlicensed group homes.
The sneaky: small refund as long as you agree to saying. “No worries. Small oops. Could have happened to anyone.”
The bad: destruction of evidence and hiding assets. If Dana Nessel was really investigating these crimes, one would imagine that such activity would be a naughty no-no.
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
“During your campaign, you pledged that “As AG, I will increase resources to defend seniors from neglect, abuse, and exploitation. I’ll ensure that unsafe assisted living facilities and in-home care providers are stripped of their licenses, issue scam notifications for public awareness, and vigorously prosecute cases of Medicaid fraud.”
It seems this particular promise came with conditions that did not include anyone other than allegedly abusive family members or low-level nursing home employees such as CNAs.
Clearly, with regards to this issue, you are just another corrupt politician.”
Open letter to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel
Ms. Nessel,
In 2018, as you were running for Michigan Attorney General, I was an award-winning investigative journalist, member of the LGBTQ community and Democrat. Had I also been a resident of Michigan, I would have cast an enthusiastic vote for both you and Governor Gretchen Whitmer. This was not because of my political and social backgrounds.
I’ve interviewed politicians, lines of them. All of them parroted whatever talking points they thought my newspaper’s readers wanted to hear. The post-election reality was, as expected, entirely different.
You ran a campaign that seemed to be based on genuine sincerity rather than expedient politics.
“It’s just a basic belief that it’s never the wrong time to fight for justice,” you said. “It’s never the wrong time to fight for what’s right, and that there are so many people out there clamoring for representation, clamoring to have their voices heard, clamoring for recognition of their rights and equal dignity, just as human beings.”
Having spent my career, driven by the same ideology, your promises resonated with me as much as they clearly did with Michigan’s voters who included the voiceless.
But the post-election reality is that you have not only broken that promise, but actively shielded the alleged perpetrators of some of the most horrific and repugnant crimes and flagrant abuses of civil and human rights in Michigan’s history. More
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.
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
A Michigan court tasked with protecting its most vulnerable citizens has become home to a roiling controversy charging abuse, exploitation, robbery and neglect.
According to state and national activists, it’s a system that has been left unchecked for decades and is now so broken that it has led to unprecedented judicial overreach and the eradication of the constitutional, civil and human rights of thousands of Americans who have suffered from resulting neglect, isolation, abuse, torture and theft on a massive scale, allegedly at the hands of the same individuals assigned to protect them.
Both in Michigan and nationwide, the system is called “guardianship” and/or “conservatorship.” Once assigned to an individual that a probate or family court judge declares “legally incapacitated” and unable to manage their own affairs, often a complete stranger in the form of a court-appointed guardian or conservator assumes control over every aspect of that person’s life.
Every last possession, penny and decision is handed over to one of Michigan’s professional guardians and conservators culled from a pool of county public administrators, estate and probate attorneys or private guardianship companies.
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 gone, as are their savings accounts, IRAs, investment accounts, cars, personal belongings, keepsakes, heirlooms, jewelry and even their clothing. Every dollar of their social security, disability income or pensions falls under the control of their guardians with the exception of an allowance as low as $60 per month.
Inevitably, it’s the developmentally disabled and exponentially growing senior populations who are the most affected not only in Michigan but nationwide. Advocates for both groups claim that guardianship, by design, results in a “civil death” for those who are subjected to it and that, although free from any charges of wrongdoing, a person under guardianship has less rights than an imprisoned felon.
Pro-guardianship organizations claim such statements are histrionic; that a guardian has simply assumed the rights of an incapacitated individual, also called a “ward,” as a protective barrier against those who would exploit them. More
A number of studies have found that the greatest fear expressed by senior citizens, a demographic that’s exponentially growing in number in this country, is not death but the eradication of their independence if they are forced to live in a nursing facility. According to a lawsuit filed on May 8, that fear became reality for a vital and healthy Detroit-area woman, Virginia “Jean” Wahab, who spent two years falsely imprisoned in a Waterford, Michigan, nursing home owned by Lourdes, Inc., and sponsored by the Dominican Sisters of Peace religious order. The home demanded payment of what amounted to a ransom of $25,000 to release Wahab from the facility.
“Mom was a fearless, independent woman before Lourdes took control of her,” Wahab’s daughter and caregiver Mimi Brun said. “When I finally got her out of there, it took me a long time to wean her off all the unnecessary anti-psychotic and anti-depressive drugs they had been giving her.”
Brun is the plaintiff in the lawsuit, which claims her mother was subject to false imprisonment, negligence, breach of contract, malicious prosecution, abuse of court process, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress. Filed in the Oakland County Circuit Court, the complaint is a first for Michigan and comes on the heels of Attorney General Dana Nessel’s creation of an Elder Abuse Task Force.
Brun said that although her mother had been living alone before her ordeal began in 2016, by the time she was able to secure Wahab’s release after a protracted legal battle, “She couldn’t stand up. She was terrified of being locked in a room and of someone coming to take her back to Lourdes.”
Before Wahab passed away at the end of April, mother and daughter were finally able to spend a precious few months together after having been kept apart by a court order obtained by Lourdes that severed Brun’s visitation rights.
Short-term rehab to long-term guardianship
According to the complaint, the family’s problems began in February 2016, when Wahab was admitted to Lourdes Senior Community, a $21 million nonprofit organization housing 250 residents at four facilities, for short-term rehabilitation following a recommendation from her doctor. By April 2016, Wahab’s insurance company, Health Alliance Plan, had terminated Wahab’s Medicare benefits at Lourdes, stating that she needed no further services or medication and was “medically stable for discharge.”
Please tune in tonight at 5:30 Pacific, 6:30 Mountain, 7:30 Central, and 8:30 Eastern time on Tanya Hathaway’s “TNT Tanya TalkS; Where your voice is heard-and your story is told” on the legendary producer and whistleblower- Marti Oakley’s “TS Radio Network” . You can also tune in to Stephen Burke’s KLRB, 89.9 FM Christian Radio as he broadcasts our show live straight from Stuart Oklahoma who love broadcasts this show three every Sunday with exception to the 3rd (Sunday) each month.
Last week we heard from Gretchen Rachel Hammond; multi award-winning investigative journalist, who by continually pouring herself into her job-with dignity and strength- found out by doing so- just how much is at risk in the arena of corruption: when it comes to doing something about it. Reporting it!
We continue to report the truth- telling from victim’s and advocates well-vetted testimony, and with stead-fast collaboration of efforts are making headway- at least they are beginning to listen. More
This is extremely disturbing news, EVERYONE, and a CALL TO ACTION. Below is a December 27, 2018 post about Gretchen Rachel Hammond, an American journalist who reportedly went missing in Southfield, Michigan, on or around December 20, 2018.
“I am posting on behalf of Gretchen Rachel Hammond family who are very worried about her. They have not heard from her for nearly a week and she did not come home for Christmas. They have reached out to her friends in Chicago and the folks she was working with in Detroit and they do not know where she is. Her cell phone goes to voicemail. The last time she reached out to them, she said she was heading to the library in Southfield Michigan. That was on December 20. Please reach out to me if you have any information.”
This development follows the post below by Gretchen about news of a threat she received.
If you know anything, please let us know at “The Face of Vulnerability” — https://www.facebook.com/TheFaceOfVulnerability — and we’ll forward the information to Mary Spaler who circulated the above missing person alert.
My source at the Probate Court reached out to me yesterday to let me know that I am now in considerable danger. They did not specify what “danger” entails: an attempt to discredit me before the story is published, the use of the Oakland County Sheriffs to concoct a reason to throw me behind bars (a tactic already used on a rather outspoken activist) or something quite worse. A physical attack was not ruled out. The point is, they have had quite enough of me and, if this were any other time, one might easily laugh it off.
My team is safe. I have managed to keep them completely anonymous. My research, that includes court documents, accounts, interviews and all relevant data, is also in trusted hands on both coasts via continually updated and mailed flash drives and I’m building alliances across the country on a daily basis.
“These are extremely powerful people,” I was told. “You have become radioactive to them so you need to do something about your security. There is a lot at stake here for a lot of people so make sure you take precautions.”
Anyone reading this has become a part of my heeding such a warning and I would ask you all to somehow ensure the following is protected via safety in numbers: My name is Gretchen Rachel Hammond. I am a journalist investigating systemic elder abuse and exploitation at the Oakland County Probate Court in Michigan. My team’s discoveries thus far have entered the realm of the horrifying. Thousands of elderly and vulnerable lives are in ruins or extinguished. Their homes have passed through the the hands of a disturbing group of people.
“June 27 was petition day at the Oakland County Court. As soon as people saw my press badge, I was approached by at least 15-20 different families all begging me to write about their case. It was as if I had carried a loaf of bread into a village of starving people. Midway through the morning, I was escorted out of the building by at least a half-dozen sheriff’s deputies who were acting on orders of the courts judicial attorney Ryan Deel’s claims that I had not been given permission by the clerk of the court to be there.”
After the above article was published detailing elder abuse by professional guardians in Northern Michigan, I visited the Oakland County Probate Court to watch a June 27 hearing on a petition for visitation brought by Mimi Brun who has not seen her mother Virginia Wahab for the two-years since Mimi’s power of attorney was tossed out Wahab had been assigned a professional guardian Jon Munger.What is happening in Oakland County is systemic and in literally hundreds of pages of documents I have already collected, I am seeing the same pattern in multiple cases involving at least six professional attorney/guardians there and three out of the four judges.
The guardians are alerted to a new admission by a nursing home with whom they have a downstream relationship. The nursing home then files a petition for guardianship which is granted by an Oakland County judge regardless of an existing power of attorney or whether or not the senior or his/her/their family is represented by counsel. The guardian then immediately halts visitation by the family members. In complete control of his ward’s medical and financial life, he proceeds to strip the estate, sell the house at far below market cost and bill the ward thousands. Within months, the ward has been declared both incapacitated and destitute. The guardian then applies for Medicaid benefits on behalf of the nursing home. Both the guardian and the nursing home make a tremendous profit while the ward is left to rot, often in a substandard facility.
In the Wahab case, detailed in the article, the reason that Munger had been assigned was stated as a past due-bill owed Lourdes and a need for the organization to apply for Medicaid benefits for Wahab. There is no Michigan statute that allows for a petition to be made or a guardian to be assigned because a nursing facility is owed money.
At 92 years old, Virginia “Jean” Wahab hadn’t lost any of the vitality and health she maintained throughout her life. She raised two daughters as a single mom and made a home for them in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park, Michigan. Wahab worked on her feet and didn’t retire from her job at a local family restaurant until she was 88.
Fiercely independent, Wahab was quite happy living at home after retirement. She had a healthy social life. She did her own grocery shopping and chores. She so rarely needed to pay a visit to a hospital that her health insurance was barely touched.
Her eldest daughter, Mimi Brun, converted to Judaism at the age of 18. She went on to become a prolific Jewish artist, who sold her work all over the world. In 2010, she began to establish art schools for children under 12 in France and then Chicago. Although Brun was estranged from her younger sister, she and her mother were extremely close. Wahab was Catholic, but Brun noted that she had the fastidious nature of a Jewish mother.
Wahab’s legal affairs were in order including a durable power of attorney she had signed in January 2016 which named Brun as a patient advocate (the handler of her medical needs) as well as giving her daughter charge of her financial affairs should she ever become incapacitated. Wahab’s home was also registered in Brun’s name in a quit claim deed signed by Wahab on Dec. 29, 2014.
The two talked on the phone every day. Brun particularly relished visits with her mother during which she would gift her a piece of art. Wahab was an eager collector of Brun’s work.
1) On June 6, 2016 a petition was filed for guardianship a Waterford, MI nursing home, Lourdes Senior Community, for a back-due bill owed by a short-term rehab patient there Virginia Wahab- there is no Michigan statute which supports this.
The PPJ Gazette 