Friday, May 5, 2017

He Just Wants to Go Home

Roy Kotval just wants to go home.

But the 87-year-old Beloit man is a resident at Sanford Sheldon Senior Care, kept in a locked ward and, he said, being held against his will.

His friends, Jay Driesen of In­­wood and Ray Ehrman of Freeman, SD, agree and are willing to take care of him on a limited basis. They think Kotval is able to take care of himself with supervision at a duplex owned by Ehrman in Freeman.

“If I can’t go home, then I could go there,” Kotval said. “There is no valid reason for me to go there, but it is better than here.”

Still, there are questions. Kotval’s home is packed high with debris and residue, and there are concerns about his health if he returns there.

Kotval also said he relies on the as­­sistance of an extraterrestrial named Commander Ashtar who cured him of an injury following a vehicular crash. He was hospitalized earlier for an injury to a heel that was infected.

Is he capable of making valid choices for himself?

District Judge Carl Petersen is one of two judges who presided over the legal proceedings — three have been held — and ruled that while Driesen and Ehrman should be commended for wanting to help Kotval, he is in need of round-the-clock care and is determined

to be a flight risk from the nursing home. On April 12, the judge appointed Tyler Eason, director of the Office of Substitute Decision-Making, as the guardian of Kotval.

Kotval is not happy with the ruling, writing on a copy of the court document that many of the statements about him were falsehoods and lies.

“I was supposed to go home,” he said. “They put me in this place without my permission. They trumped up a pack of lies and put me in here. It is unorthodox and unauthorized.”

Kotval said he spends much of his time stewing over the fact that he cannot leave. He said he is “locked up like a criminal. This ain’t a normal life, being locked up like in a jail cell.”

Driesen is preparing another court document because he said Judge Petersen wrote a narrative rather than use the law to back his ruling and claims Petersen did not address many of the issues he and Ehrman brought up in court — mainly the issue as to whether or not Kotval was denied due process in the beginning.

If he was, Driesen said that means Kotval’s constitutional rights were violated and he should be free to go.

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2 comments:

Betty said...

Roy is typical of most people who just want to go home. There's something wrong with a system set up to separate people from their comforts.

Finny said...

Everyone should be at home if that's what they want. This man deserves what any judge or lawyer would want too: to be a home. Send him home!