World Elder Abuse Awareness Day - June 15

The National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA)—a component of the United States Administration on Aging—recently announced more information about the seventh annual “World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.” This year the event is marked for June 15th. That means that there is still time to learn more about the awareness occasion and to make plans to participate in some way. All of us have elder loved ones, and, hopefully, we will all reach our golden year ourselves. In that way, everyone has some stake in these issues and should work in whatever way they can to ensure that the quality of life of local seniors is considered.

The NCEA explains that the purpose of the event is to get “individuals, families, community groups, organizations, and businesses to ‘Take A Stand’ by participating in elder abuse awareness and prevention efforts.”

The White House is even getting in on the effort this year. On June 14th the White House will host a symposium as part of the education effort to share information on elder abuse and exploitation. The event is open to all those who wish to participate. The first half of the event will focus on prevention efforts. The second half will target the ways to respond to elder abuse to ensure the problem is stopped and the victims are given support. Those not in Washington D.C. can watch the event live and even pose questions to panelists via Facebook and Twitter.

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Preparations Underway for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day

Senator Lois Wolk Honored for Her Work to Protect CA Seniors

The Elder Financial Protection Network, the primary provider of elder financial abuse prevention programs in California, honored Senator Lois Wolk Thursday for her work to protect the state's seniors throughout her tenure in the Legislature.

The group's board of directors presented Wolk with the Donald N. Phelps Visionary Award at the 9th Annual "Call to Action 2012" in San Francisco, an event where law enforcement, consumer advocates, banking institutions, legal experts, and consumers come together to share best practices to prevent elder financial exploitation and fraud, including advances in community education and consumer protection.

"It is a great honor to be recognized by the Elder Financial Protection Network, which provides such vital services to help protect our state's seniors," said Wolk, D-Davis. "As our senior population continues to grow at a rapid pace, so too does the need to provide them with the information and tools they need to protect themselves. Perhaps the most important thing I've learned working on senior issues is that the best thing anyone can do to protect themselves is to stay informed and aware."

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Wolk Honored for Work to Protect CA's Seniors

WA: Volunteers Keep Watch Over Court-Appointed Guardians

Robert Bibb retired from the Snohomish Superior Court bench two decades ago, but he keeps coming back to the courthouse.

Since 2000, Bibb, 89, has volunteered to monitor guardians appointed to oversee legal and financial matters for people who are too sick, frail or confused to handle their affairs alone.

Bibb and about 12 other volunteers review reports, including determining whether guardians are providing an accounting of how money is being spent to support their wards.

The volunteers also field a lot of questions by guardians, often family members, who have taken on the responsibility of caring for a loved one's financial and legal matters.

"We basically police guardianships," Bibb said. "We make sure reports required by law are filed when they're supposed to and the proper forms are filled out. We also look over the reports for any suspicious things that might be detected by reviewing them."

The county's Guardianship Monitoring Program grew out of a long-standing national effort by the AARP to provide oversight to guardianships, often involving the elderly.

The organization provided a $5,000 grant in 2000 to kick start the program in Snohomish County.

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Volunteers Keep Watch Over Court-Appointed Guardians

Caregiver's Theft Case Offers Lessons in Protection

For a few hours a day over a period of three months, Paula Watkins left one of the most treasured people in her life -- her ailing husband -- in Tammi Rounds' care.

After battling brain cancer for years, Keith Watkins, a local lawyer, eventually needed round-the-clock care. In July, 2011, Mrs. Watkins used a local home health-care agency to hire Rounds to provide care during the part-time hours she was away at work.

Mrs. Watkins said it wasn't when she received a phone call from the fraud unit at her credit-card company that she first began to suspect anything was wrong but instead when she took her husband's gold chain -- one he wore daily with a cross -- to a jeweler for repairs and learned it was a cheap replica.

The last time Mrs. Watkins saw the woman whom she at one time trusted was when Rounds was handcuffed and led away to prison. It's a vision she hopes others won't have to experience.

The last time Mrs. Watkins saw the woman whom she at one time trusted was when Rounds was handcuffed and led away to prison. It's a vision she hopes others won't have to experience.

"If that chain hadn't broken, I'd never have made the connection," Mrs. Watkins said recently while recounting how she learned most of her jewelry had been stolen and sold in the months before her husband died in November.

"My heart goes out to my husband, to sit there and see this," she said. He was not able to communicate but could comprehend. "When I told him she wasn't coming back, he smiled and nodded."

Rounds was sentenced May 15 to 30 months in prison.

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Caregiver's Theft Case Offers Lessons in Protection

CMS Wants to Cut Antipsychotics in Nursing Homes

After numerous disclosures that antipsychotics have been aggressively promoted to nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is trumpeting a plan to reduce usage in nursing home residents by 15 percent by the end of this year. Why? CMS data show that, in 2010, more than 17 percent of nursing home patients had daily doses exceeding recommended levels.

“A CMS nursing home resident report found that almost 40 percent of nursing home patients with signs of dementia were receiving antipsychotic drugs at some point in 2010, even though there was no diagnosis of psychosis,” CMS Chief Medical Officer and Director of Clinical Standards and Quality Patrick Conway says in a statement that announced a partnership with nursing homes, advocacy groups, caregivers and government agencies to find a way to reduce usage.

To cope with the problem, CMS plans to offer a training series for nursing homes that emphasizes “person-centered care,” prevention of abuse and high-quality care for residents. CMS is also providing training focused on behavioral health to state and federal surveyors. The agency is also making data on each nursing home’s antipsychotic drug use available on the Nursing Home Compare web site starting in July, and will emphasize “non-pharmacological alternatives” for nursing home residents, including consistent staff assignments, increased exercise or time outdoors, monitoring and managing acute and chronic pain, and planning individualized activities.

Toby Edelman, senior policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, tells The Boston Globe that strong rules are in place to combat overmedication in nursing homes, but regulators too often fail to enforce them. She combed through databases nationwide to track how often nursing homes were penalized specifically for overusing antipsychotics during the past six years and could find just a handful of cases. “Even when instances are cited, nothing happens," she says.

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CMS Wants to Cut Antipsychotics in Nursing Homes

Nursing Home Antipsychotic Legislation Set Aside

The U.S. Senate did not approve legislation that would strengthen regulations for antipsychotic use in nursing homes, despite overwhelmingly passing a bill it was attached to on Thursday.

Last week, Sens. Herb Kohl (D-WI), Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) proposed a regulation that would have standardized protocols for obtaining informed consent before administering antipsychotics for off-label use. The legislation was proposed as an amendment to an existing Food and Drug Administration reauthorization bill (S. 3187), which was passed by the Senate in a 96-1 vote Thursday.

However, a spokesman for the Special Senate Committee on Aging told McKnight's that the nursing home regulation was not voted on and wasn't included in the manager's amendment.

He added that “the amendment was filed to help bring some needed attention to the widespread problem of the misuse of the antipsychotics among frail elders.” Going forward, he said Kohl and Grassley will “look at other legislative vehicles or stand-alone legislation.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had urged quick passage of the bill, without many amendments. Senators agreed to consider just 17 of them.

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Nursing Home Antipsychotic Legislation Set Aside

Nurse's License Revoked for Financial Exploitation of Nursing Home Resident

The license of a nurse from Staunton has been revoked by state officials for financial exploitation of a nursing-home resident in Maryville.

Documents from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation said licensed practical nurse Lisa DeVries “exhibited multiple instances of unethical and professional activities.”

While working at Maryville Manor, now known as Liberty Village, DeVries accepted a $500 check from a resident and deposited the check into her personal account in December 2009, according to state documents.

DeVries was fired by Maryville Manor two months later, but never reported the termination to the state, the documents stated.

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Area Medical Professionals Disciplined by the State

NJ: Assembly Wants AG to Investigate Abuse and Neglect of the Disabled

The Assembly approved a resolution today urging the Christie Administration to give the Attorney General the responsibility of investigating abuse and neglect of disabled people at state-licensed facilities.

Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen) sponsored the non-binding resolution (ACR147) at the request of families who testified at a hearing Monday that they have lost confidence in the Department of Human Services’ ability and impartiality to investigate the people who run group homes and facilities the department also pays and licenses.

Huttle said she is asking the Christie administration to make the change, rather than forcing the issue by passing a bill "to start a positive dialogue on abuse, neglect, and exploitation in the system. . . There are a lot of concerns about how allegations of abuse are addressed."

The resolution passed by a 50 to 23 vote with three abstentions, and now heads to the Senate for consideration.

During a hearing Monday of the Assembly Human Services Committee, a half-dozen parents testified about how the department's "special response unit" has failed to keep them informed when investigating whether their children have been abused. They also said they suspected private agencies and Human Services employees have a cozy relationship.

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Assembly Wants Attorney General to Investigate Abuse and Neglect of the Disabled

El Paso State Center Ex-Worker Alleges Abuse of Residents

A state-supported living center employee who complained about alleged abuses at the facility claims she was fired for speaking out.

Sylvia Burgos said she was fired after she filed a complaint with the state over conditions that she says could endanger residents of the El Paso State Supported Living Center at 6700 Delta.

"They fired me and I'm gone, but I'm worried about the residents who are still there and what might happen to them," said Burgos, a former direct-service provider who had assisted a special-needs resident who was taken to an emergency room with a perforated colon.

"I offered to take a polygraph and requested one to prove that I was telling the truth, but they terminated me instead," she said.

The center, which helps people with special needs and has 145 beds, referred questions about Burgos and her allegations about the center's employees to the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, or DADS, in Austin. The department oversees the El Paso center, which has 126 residents and provides 24-hour residential services, including comprehensive behavioral-treatment services and health-care services, including physician, nursing and dental services.

According to a May 22 report by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission/Office of Inspector General in El Paso, the office received a complaint on April 25 alleging that Burgos made a false report to a peace officer at the El Paso center. That finding was issued after Burgos filed her report against the state center.

Burgos' says her allegedly false statement became the focus of the investigation by Office of Inspector General Officer Efrain Sianez -- instead of her abuse allegations.

Other center staff members, who asked not to be named because they fear reprisals, said Burgos' firing will have a chilling effect on future reports of abuse by the staff.

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El Paso State Center Ex-Worker Alleges Abuse of Residents

WI Group Home Caretaker Charged With Stealing $24K From Patients

A Burlington woman is facing nine counts of felony theft after an investigation by the Burlington Police Department found that she stole more than $24,000 from three mentally disabled men who lived in her group home.

According to the criminal complaint, police first became aware that the defendant, Becky Ann Borucki, 56, operator of Burucki Group Home, was stealing from the residents, when they were contacted by the legal guardian of one of the residents of the home.

The guardian told police her brother’s bank had contacted her about his checking account. She said she then found numerous discrepancies on the account that all related back to Borucki.

Through bank records, the guardian and police discovered that approximately $8,629 had been removed from her brother’s banking account between Aug. 10, 2011, and Jan. 4 via unauthorized transactions, according to the complaint. The amount also included overdraft fees charged to her 50-year-old brother by the bank.

Officers then had the legal guardians of two other residents of the home check to see if any monies had been stolen from their family members.

Borucki has been charged with five counts of felony theft-movable property and three counts of felony personal ID theft. If convicted on all counts, she could face up to 58 years in prison and fines totalling $105,000.

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Group Home Caretaker Charged With Stealing $24,000 From Patients

Andrew Thomas Joins Forces with AZ Conservatorship Victims: "Citizens for Clean Courts"

Former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, who can no longer practice law, announced his support Thursday for a ballot measure to change Arizona's judicial selection process.

Thomas, disbarred in April, said his backing of Proposition 115 is just the beginning of his fight to reform government.

At a news conference on the state Senate lawn, Thomas announced the formation of a campaign committee, Citizens for Clean Courts, to support the proposed constitutional amendment. Among other things, the measure would give the governor a larger role in selecting state and county judges.

Joining him were family members of elderly Arizonans whose estates have been depleted by probate and fiduciary fees under Maricopa County Probate Court.

Scottsdale resident Patti Gomes said court-appointed lawyers and fiduciaries drained her 90-year-old mother's $1.4 million estate. Gomes and others said their families have been victimized by judges, attorneys and administrators in the probate system.

Thomas said he's not a victim, though he has repeatedly claimed the Arizona judiciary conspired to end his career.

"That is because we got too close to the truth and the judiciary took us out," Thomas said of himself and two former prosecutors.

The Legislature last year placed the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot. It was a compromise between judges, the Arizona State Bar, the Governor's Office and those who supported eliminating merit selection in favor of direct election of judges. The measure passed the Senate on a party-line vote, but won a handful of Democratic votes in the House.

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Andrew Thomas Backs Judicial Selection Ballot Measure

Justice Center for the Protection of People With Special Needs

For too long our state has been inconsistent in how it addressed incidents of abuse against people with special needs, lacking any real consistent standards for tracking and investigating complaints or punishing those who commit abuse and neglect.

Knowing that it is imperative that state government meet its obligation to protect and serve all New Yorkers, Governor Cuomo has proposed legislation to create the Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs which will give New York State the strongest standards and practices in the nation for protecting people with special needs and disabilities.

The Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs will transform how our state protects over one million New Yorkers under the care or jurisdiction of six state agencies.

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Justice Center for the Protection of People With Special Needs

Attorney Ken Ditkowsky: The Constitution vs. Whores of Justice

What is most amazing is the fact that the Courts should be so benign in their defense of the victims of Elder Abuse/Financial Exploitation of the Elder and so pro-active in their defense of the criminals who are appointed by it and who misuse their offices as guardians to exploit and abuse senior citizens (or assist others in their endeavor of abusing and exploiting grandma). What is also amazing is the fact that decent and normally caring people can sit on their hands and allow this tragic situation to continue. Two faced and disingenuous members of the political elite who ‘rape’ grandma and then boast about the fact that they are distressed that she might have her social security reduced by a dollar are expected to be miscreants. The Courts and Law Enforcement are expected to be vigorous in defense of liberty, justice, and the American way. It may all sound trite – but ****.

The Illinois ARDC prosecution of yours truly for the exercise of my First Amendment Rights has opened my eyes and generated the realization that the slogan “democracy is not a spectator sport” is not only true but a dire warning. The bulwark of America is her Bill of Rights and in particular the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Right protected by the Sixth Amendment to counsel is also important but I am not of record in any of the cases that I are mentioned in the ethics complaint filed by the ARDC against me. The rights of citizens to employ a lawyer who is not married to the ‘status quo’ or the current politics is only a tangent. So the fact that I stand accused of doing a FRCP 11 investigation and communicating with my clients and reporting serious misconduct on the part of some ‘august’ court appointed vultures is relevant only as it relates to whether or not the ARDC can engage in a prior restraint of my continued calls for an investigation and my advocating for the Right of a senior citizen not to be wrongfully deprived of his/her liberty property or human rights to further the avarice of some ‘whore of justice.’

As an American Citizen and a lawyer who takes the oath that I took in 1961 seriously, I will and intend to continue to call on Law Enforcement to Investigate the Mary Sykes case and all of those similar cases regardless of the personal consequences to me. Indeed, I call for an honest and comprehensive investigation of the Sykes, Tyler, Wyman and similar cases. I call for the investigation of Farenga, Stern, and Schmiedel and their conduct in relation to the Sykes case, their wrongful prosecution of a sanction motion against me knowing that the Court had no jurisdiction, their interference with the property rights of Gloria Sykes etc. This is America. Mary Sykes who just weeks before a petition was filed to determine her incompetent and eligible to be deprived of her liberty, her property, civil rights and human rights is reported to have passed a written examination administered by the Illinois Secretary of State in addition to filing a Petition for a Protective order against the very person who was appointed her plenary guardian. Thanks to efforts of the two guardian ad litem appointed in the Sykes case this petition was never addressed or heard in the Circuit Court.

If legal justification for my conduct is necessary, the rationale and justification is ‘set in stone. The New Times vs. Sullivan case and the Pentagon Papers cases affirm that the effort to silence me and/or intimidate me whether by the actions of Mr. Stern, Ms. Farenga or Mr. Schmiedel or a government agency is wrong. The ‘assault’ on the liberty, property and civil rights of Mary Sykes, Gloria Sykes, their family, their friends et al is not necessitated by National Security - the avarice of the plenary guardian and her co-conspirators does not meet the criterion set forth by the United States Supreme Court in the Pentagon Papers case.

The Gulag mentality that is robbing the senior citizens of the liberty, their property, civil rights and human rights reported on the blogs and on the inter-net (and virtually ignored in the press and by law enforcement) is foreign. Our heroes are not the guardian ad litem who aid and abet a plenary guardian who isolates a senior citizen and separates her from her family, her activities, her friends and her property. Today we live in the year 2012, however, we have allowed a small group of miscreants to create in seniors the fear, desperation, and hopelessness that millions of Europeans felt in 1936.

The Sykes case and all those cases in which senior citizens are either losing their liberty, property, civil rights, human rights need to be investigated and the miscreants given free room board and time to contemplate the error of their ways. A Free society cannot tolerate or condone the events that have been reported in the Sykes case and similar cases! Citizens have to speak out and avoid the 1936 scenario for grandma! Grandma’s protectors cannot be silenced or intimidated. We have law enforcement to protect us! It is time for them to start doing exactly that.

Ken Ditkowsky
www.ditkowskylawoffice.com

Alabama Lawyer Suspended

A Dothan attorney recently had his license to practice law suspended after he apparently misappropriated funds from a trust account.

Tony McLain, the general counsel for the Alabama State Bar Association, said the law license for Terry Bullard has been suspended for a period of 91 days, but it won’t become effective until June 1.

McLain said trust accounts are those that lawyers have to maintain for a client’s property or property of a third person.

“He misappropriated funds from a trust account, and that was improper under state bar,” McLain said.

McLain said the suspension came after the state bar association received a complaint. He did not recall when the complaint was made.

“Probably in the top 10 this would be around 6 or 7 of most often violated rules of professional conduct,” McLain said. “It’s not always theft. A lot of it sometimes is a dispute who the money belongs to and for what purpose was that lawyer holding that money.”

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License Suspended for Dothan Attorney

Linda Kincaid Reports: Assemblyman Jim Beall, Jr. Investigates Eder Abuse at Wildwood Canyon Villa

On May 16, 2012, Assemblyman Jim Beall, Jr. contacted Will Lightbourne, Director of California's Department of Social Services. Lightbourne oversees Community Care Licensing Division (CCLD), the agency that licenses residential care facilities for the elderly.

Beall asked Lightbourne the following questions.
•What are the legal timelines to investigate complaints?
•How does the department prioritize complaints?
•Standards used to substantiate complaints.
•What legal authority, aside from a restraining order, do Wildwood Canyon Villa administrators or a conservator have to restrict a family member’s visitation?

Beall’s letter follows nearly two years of complaints against Wildwood Canyon Villa in Yucaipa, CA. Family reported that Wildwood held resident 76-year-old Jean Swope against her will and isolated her from phone calls and visitors for fifteen months. Court records include many allegations of elder abuse and neglect.

Swope’s case falls under Beall’s purview as the Chair of the Human Services Committee. The case was brought to Beall’s attention many times since 2011.

Beall finally acted on Swope’s case after elder advocates brought a second and very similar case to Beall’s attention. Gisela Riordan, 84, is an elder abuse victim at Villa Fontana in Beall’s District 24 in San Jose, CA.

Villa Fontana has denied Gisela nearly all phone calls and visitation for over two years. Gisela has been allowed to see her son, Marcus Riordan, less than two hours in two years. She has been subject to profound neglect, losing a third of her body weight.

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Assemblyman Jim Beall, Jr. Investigates Eder Abuse at Wildwood Canyon Villa

Judge Appoints Lawyer to Witherspoon Case

A Nashville judge has appointed a lawyer to investigate what’s going on with actress Reese Witherspoon’s father who is accused of bigamy and possibly has dementia, according to documents released in a sealed court case.

Earlier this month, Witherspoon’s mother, Betty Witherspoon, said her husband of 42 years married another woman even though he remained wed to her.
A hearing in that case, which was scheduled for Thursday, has been indefinitely postponed. In the meantime, documents released from another Nashville court indicate that John Witherspoon was placed in a conservatorship at the request of the Academy Award-winning actress and her brother.

The actress appeared in a Nashville courtroom on May 11 with her father, a Nashville otolaryngologist, but a judge barred the media from covering the hearing.

The Tennessean newspaper and WSMV-TV have filed an emergency petition with the probate court asking that the judge to unseal the documents and open all future court hearings to the media.

The limited documents released in the probate case mostly involved filings from the media.

A hearing has been scheduled on June 25 that will decide whether the judge will unseal the files and open any future court hearings.

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Judge Appoints Lawyer to Investigate Reese Witherspoon's Father's Well-Being

MI Bill Would Increase Prison Time and Fines on Senior Swindle

Those planning to swindle money from Michigan's elderly would be most deterred if they faced mandatory minimum jail time and fines for the crime, Livingston County Sheriff Bob Bezotte said.

So far, the Legislature is taking the opposite approach by proposing increasing maximum sentences for scamming senior citizens.

A bill has been approved in the Senate, and awaits a final House vote, that would increase prison time and fines for those convicted of swindling money or property from senior citizens or fraudulently obtaining their signatures.

Bezotte called for mandatory minimum one-year county jail sentences or minimum 18-month state prison sentences for those convicted of defrauding seniors.

He said maximum sentences in cases of swindling seniors are rarely, if ever, handed down in Michigan.

On Wednesday, he warned seniors gathered at the Hartland Senior Center of such scams, most of which he said have ranged from $5,000 to $25,000 in the county in recent years.

"The sentences have got to fit the crime, and you've got to know if they're going to rip off a senior citizen, it's going to be this amount" of punishment, Bezotte said.

"Take some discretion away from the judges," he added.

Senate Bill 459 would create maximum penalties of 15 years in prison, a $15,000 fine, or both, for theft valued between $50,000 and $100,000.

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Heat is Rising on Senior Swindles; Bill Would Increase Prison Time, Fines