Think your well-tended nest egg will protect you from the depredations of old age? Don't count on it.
Little has changed since the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled almost a decade ago that Probate Judge Kaye Christian abused her power by ordering retired economist Mollie Orshansky, creator of the federal poverty line, removed from her sister's care in New York and placed in a District guardianship against her will.
Even multimillionaires cannot prevent a judge from appointing a total stranger to take complete control of their affairs -- and banish family members who object.
That's what happened to five-term D.C. Council member Hilda Mason and her husband, Charles, a Harvard graduate who traced his lineage back to the Plymouth landing. Despite Charles' $22.5 million fortune, this power couple ended their lives in squalor.
Blind, wheelchair-bound and suffering from diabetes and skin cancer, Charles spent his last days in dirty clothing and worn-out shoes, with fingernails so long they curled around his fingers.
"He looked like a hobo," one witness told The Washington Examiner. His frail wife suffered a broken collarbone when one of her "caregivers" ran her over with a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
At the time of Hilda Mason's death in 2007, debris and broken furniture littered every room of the couple's once-stately Shepherd Park home. The roof leaked and the house was infested with rodents and insects.
As attorneys helped themselves to the couple's assets, Episcopal Senior Ministries reported that "there appears to be no individual or group that is currently responsible for the cleaning/condition of the house."
Guardianship abuse is not limited to people with money, as Laura Francois-Eugene, a supervisor at the Department of Homeland Security, learned the hard way.
Her mother's only financial resources are her modest D.C. home and a small monthly Social Security check. But after a fall left the elderly woman temporarily paralyzed, Probate Judge Franklin Burgess appointed a conservator to handle her affairs despite the fact that her daughter had previously been named her legal guardian.
Francois-Eugene told The Washington Examiner she is forced to pay for her mother's food, dentures, medicine and clothing out of her own salary because the court-appointed conservator has been hoarding her mother's Social Security benefits.
The same thing is happening to another 91-year-old woman, a former D.C. Public Schools employee forced into a guardianship after Maryland lawyers characterized her daily walk as "wandering."
"Some lawyers took all my money," she told us, adding that she can't access her own pension or Social Security benefits, even to buy herself an ice cream cone.
Full Article and Source:
Judges, Lawyers Use Guardianships to Prey on Elderly
Note: Laura Francois-Eugene is a NASGA member.
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12 comments:
The media is continuing to run these stories, but what are our legislators doing? Nothing much!
This article tells it like it is! Thanks for posting.
And Laura, I am sorry for what happened to your Mother. It was criminal.
Many of these guardianships border on the criminal when perverse use is made of the law.
this is criminal and the judge approves the billing
Makes me sick to read what these innocent people went through. The title of this article is spot on!
I believe lawyers use guardianships to prey on the elderly. I don't believe most judges do. They just don't care enough to do anything about it.
It's no secret that the lawyers are controlling the courts, many judges go along to ensure everything runs smoothly and quickly - next case.
In some courts in our great nation the judges go along with the fraud and the wrongdoing for other reasons.
On that note, you might be interested in the November 3, 2011 article written by Danny Tate Nashville TN:
Probate Court: The Largest Business in the World
by Danny Tate
(and the deepest, darkest, dirtiest, yet wealthiest secret of our government)
Consider this, the probate court is the largest business in the world, for through its portals pass the entire wealth of the world, sooner or later.........
see: http://impeachrandykennedy.wordpress.com/
This is absolutely maddening! And it could happen to any of us, rich or poor. How can the court change a living will or trust when a client specifies a guardian? The justice system is broken and in many cases, crooked. Articles like this from the media seems to be our only hope of change.
This is what they're doing all over the country. Guardianship is supposed to CONSERVE; where's the conserving?
Wasn't the Orshansky case early 2000? This article is right. Nothing much has changed and it's because they don't want it to change.
In this economy, the lawyers are getting hungrier and we all know they prey on the weak.
My Mother and I were victimized by the Judge Maria M. Korvick, the Administrative Judge over the Probate-Guardianship Court in Miami, Florida. Mother was court-ordered into an unnecessary guardianship after I called DCF to investigate a series of abuses at the hands of the staff at a rehabilitation center were Mother had been temporarily staying. Judge Korvick assigned a professional guardian even though I asked and had hired an attorney to file the required guardianship forms,(but years later, failed to find the form docketed for the record) and appointed a professional guardian as guardian of the person, and my brother who had been a practicing attorney BUT was/still is in an ACTIVE Psychiatric Disability = not able to practice law- to become Mother's guardian of the property. According to Florida Statute, guardians MUST have an attorney to represent them, unless they are attorneys and choose to represent themselves. All of course, paid from Mother's "assets".
Mother was forced to take numerous psychotropic medications which keep her drooling and unable to walk, eat or speak; as I continued to complain, I was ordered supervised visitation with my mother for which I HAD TO PAY for, although there was never any wrong-doing finding, or any other legal mischief or procedure which would have granted such order; in addition I was given a visiting schedule, making it easier for the abuser to know when I was coming to see about my Mother's condition-( and isolate my Mother from everyone she knew, and certainly from me),NONE of these ORDERS were IN MY MOTHER's BEST INTEREST. Mother lost her sight under court supervision for medical mismanagement, and her "assets" - her home and personal belongings - were Court Ordered to be sold, to pay for "her" legal expenses...leaving her an indigent and under the guardianship of the Miami- Dade County Guardianship Program whose president at the time, was no other than the attorney representing my mentally ill brother acting as guardian of the property. As I continued to fight for my Mother, and having found a cancerous growth, to which I had called the attention of the court - and which growth I had documented in a way of pictures, and had been ignored -- I was finally APPOINTED MY MOTHER LEGAL GUARDIAN... (?) why not when she had her sight, her home and belongings? Once home, mother was able to not only to resume her regular eating by mouth, but ability to walk, in addition, I took her to 3 different psychiatrist who determined that Mother was in NOT way mentally incapacitated. Mother was interviewed in both English and Spanish by a local newspaper reporter, who was astounded by the case, but never gave light to the situation... Mother just passed/died at my home, in her bedroom with me- the "awful" daughter holding her hand.... has anyone investigated this judge, or my mother's case ??? NO!
I did have the pleasure of meeting Laura in person on my 2nd trip to Wash. DC advocating as part of NASGA and for my mother this year ... by the way, I do have a degree in psychology and worked as school teacher for over 25 years, in addition, I do have a Master's degree in education... if you think this can't be happening,.. think again... YOU may be next!
I am surprised by the comment made by Dylan. He doesn't think judges prey on the elderly. Judges ARE lawyers in robes! Before they became judges they were attorneys. They probably worked in Probate and participated in the fleecing of the elderly, disabled, and minor children who were placed under their guardianship.
I am the Laura referenced in the article. The judge who placed my mother in the illegal guardianship and the current Probate judge who keeps my mother in the court's chokehold are well aware of the theft of my mother's assets, the refusal of the court appointed conservator/guardian to pay my mother's bills and the theft of her Social Security benefits but the Probate judges have chosen to ignore my documented proof of theft and the law regarding the use of SSA benefits to pay compensation to the conservator/guardian.
My mother's current conservator/guardian, on her second visit to my mother's home, spent one hour and 18 plus minutes (how long she was in the bedroom before my mother and I arrived I do not know) in my brother's bedroom laughing and giggling until they realized my mother and I were in the home. I bought this improper behavior to the attention of the courts, the Guardianship Assistance Program, and Adult Protective Services and thus far this act of impropriety has been ignored by the court/judge and the two agencies. They protect their own!
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