Lawsuit alleges caregiver negligence resulted in multiple fractures, severe pain, and suffering during elderly woman's final weeks
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- A San Francisco court will soon be asked to determine the extent of the neglect and abuse that a family alleges an in-home care attendant inflicted upon an elderly woman, resulting in devastating injuries and contributing to her painful death.
What should have been a time of comfort, dignity, and compassionate care became a nightmare for 87-year-old June Cohen and her family.
The lawsuit, Matt Cohen v. Aviva In Home Care, was brought by a San Francisco Bay Area family who entrusted the care of their elderly mother to a professional in-home care provider. Instead of receiving the safety and protection she desperately needed, Mrs. Cohen allegedly suffered catastrophic injuries at the hands of the very caregiver hired to help her.
According to the lawsuit, on the night of August 10, 2026, an allegedly inexperienced home care attendant dropped Mrs. Cohen, aggravating a preexisting fracture and causing several additional fractures. The injuries left her suffering through the final weeks of her life in hospice care, where, according to the family's allegations, she endured excruciating pain before her death.
The complaint alleges that Aviva In Home Care violated its legal obligations under California's elder abuse laws, including provisions of the Welfare and Institutions Code, by failing to provide the level of care and protection owed to a vulnerable elderly woman.
For families across America, the case raises a deeply troubling question: When we place our aging parents in the hands of professional caregivers, how can we be certain they are safe?
As our population ages, millions of families face the difficult decision of entrusting their loved ones to outside caregivers. They do so believing these professionals will provide compassion, competence, and protection. But as the Cohen family's allegations illustrate, failures in elderly care can have heartbreaking and potentially fatal consequences.
The Cohen family is now seeking accountability through the courts, while their case serves as a sobering reminder of the importance of proper caregiver training, oversight, and the protection of our most vulnerable citizens.
A copy of the filed complaint is available to members of the media upon request.
Manatee County sheriff's detectives dismantled an organized elder fraud network that they say targeted older residents across Florida, leading to multiple arrests and a federal prison sentence.
April Parks was handed control over the lives of elderly and disabled Nevadans by the courts, and she used that power to rob them. On January 4, 2019, Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones sentenced the former professional guardian to 16 to 40 years in Nevada state prison in what prosecutors called the state’s largest elder exploitation case. The story is making the rounds again, and it deserves to, because the system that put Parks in charge of those people never fully answered for its part.
Parks owned A Private Professional Guardian, LLC, a business based in Boulder City. According to the Nevada Attorney General’s office, she and her co-defendants used the company to financially exploit the elderly wards a court had appointed them to protect. Her business partner, Mark Simmons, and her husband, Gary Neal Taylor, were sentenced the same day.
“How is that not harm?”
Victims packed the Las Vegas courtroom for a hearing that ran nearly four hours. Parks, shackled and seated, kept her head turned and never looked their way, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. When she spoke, she told the judge she accepted responsibility “but never intended harm,” that “things could have been done better,” and that she had a “great passion” for guardianship.
Judge Jones wasn’t buying it. “You told us you never meant any harm,” she told Parks, according to KTNV 13 Action News. “But after hearing these stories of people Scotch taping their shoes, people being charged for Christmas gifts, and nothing to eat, how is that not harm?” She called Parks’ conduct “absolutely shocking” and “downright offensive.”
The victims explained why. Herman “Bill” Mesloh, who is blind, said Parks first visited him at a rehabilitation center in late 2013, and that he was involuntarily isolated from his wife, Kathy, for six months. “There are some evil people in this world,” he said. “And April Parks is a predator of the worst kind.” Barbara Ann Neely said Parks cut her off from family and friends: “She was not a guardian to me. She did not protect me. As each day passed, I felt like I was in a grave, buried alive.”
Larry Braslow told the court that a decades-old family address book vanished while Parks was in charge of his mother, along with his father’s footlocker of military uniforms. Victims described losing their life savings and feeling like prisoners. And in one of the most disturbing details of the case, KTNV reported that a storage locker was found holding urns with the ashes of some of Parks’ clients who had died.
Karen Kelly, Clark County’s public guardian, read a long list of victims who spent their final years in “intense anxiety and anguish.” Her summary of Parks was brutal: “She didn’t see them as people. They were paychecks.”
The Norths
The case that drew national attention was that of Rudy and Rennie North, a retired Las Vegas couple. As The New Yorker reported in 2017, and the Vera Institute of Justice summarized, Parks showed up at their home in 2013 claiming a court order required them to move to an assisted-living facility. Her assistant threatened to call the police if they refused. They were gone in about 35 minutes, and their daughter, Julie, wasn’t told.
The temporary guardianship was made permanent after a cursory 10-minute hearing. Parks then sold much of the Norths’ property, including Renoir lithographs and Rudy’s car, and moved their savings into her own account. When Julie tried to help, Parks called the police and Julie was cited for trespassing. Only after a 2015 hearing found Parks had sold the couple’s belongings without proper approval, and a judge suspended her guardianship, were the Norths able to leave the facility and move in with their daughter.
At sentencing, Rennie North had cancer and was too sick to attend. Rudy and Julie were there. Rudy compared Parks to Adolf Hitler and told the court, “This lady should be banished.”
The sentences
Parks pleaded guilty in November 2018. She had originally faced more than 200 felony counts. According to the Attorney General’s office, the outcome broke down this way:
April Parks: pleaded guilty to two counts of elder exploitation, two counts of theft and one count of perjury in the main case; sentenced to 192 to 480 months, with a concurrent 72 to 180 months in a second case.
Mark Simmons: 84 to 216 months, plus a concurrent 48 to 120 months in the second case.
Gary Neal Taylor: 24 to 60 months, the term his plea agreement jointly recommended.
Restitution of $559,205.32.
The state had asked for even more: 307 to 768 months for Parks. Her attorney, Noel Palmer Simpson, pleaded guilty to one count of elder exploitation in the second case, which involved an elderly couple exploited through guardianship between December 2010 and May 2017; the court continued Simpson’s sentencing to a later date. Parks, Simmons and Taylor had been in custody since March 2017.
Then-Attorney General Adam Laxalt said the sentencing “sends a strong message to those looking to exploit our vulnerable elderly.” The case was investigated jointly by his office and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
The judges who signed off
Parks didn’t sneak into these people’s lives. She was invited in by the court. She often served as the surrogate decision-maker for 50 to 100 elderly and mentally incapacitated people at a time, the Review-Journal reported, with full control over their finances, estates and medical decisions. According to the Vera Institute’s summary of The New Yorker’s reporting, it was routine in Clark County for guardians to petition for temporary guardianship without notifying the person who was about to lose their rights.
That’s why the families left the courtroom unsatisfied. KTNV reported that they called the sentence a step in the right direction, but they wanted more change, especially more accountability for the judges who approve guardianship agreements. Nevada has changed its guardianship law in the years since the station began investigating the system, KTNV noted. But a prison sentence for one guardian doesn’t explain how a family court handed one woman the keys to so many lives with so little scrutiny.
Every family with an aging parent should read this case closely. Guardianship is meant to be a shield for people who can’t protect themselves. In Clark County, it became a legal way to take away their homes, their savings and their freedom, and the people who were supposed to check it waved it through.
April Parks is behind bars where she belongs, but the court system that rubber-stamped her guardianships owes those families an accounting of its own.
Editor’s note: This article covers a January 2019 sentencing that drew renewed attention in October 2026.
U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Pennsylvania
PITTSBURGH, Pa. - A resident of Sewickley, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced in federal court to two months of imprisonment, to be followed by two years of supervised release, on her conviction of bank fraud, United States Attorney Troy Rivetti announced today.
Senior United States District Judge Nora Barry Fischer imposed the sentence on Judith A. Hetzell, 64, on October 13, 2026, also ordering the defendant to pay $80,966 in restitution to her former employer.
According to information presented to the Court, between November 2023 and February 2025, Hetzell, the former business manager for a non-profit guardianship agency based in the Western District of Pennsylvania, fraudulently drafted checks against individuals’ bank accounts to which the agency had access as a provider of guardianship and other fiduciary services to the victims. The checks were drafted to cash and to Hetzell’s mother and deposited into two personal bank accounts that Hetzell controlled.
Prior to imposing the sentence, Judge Fischer stated that, while Hetzell had otherwise lived a law-abiding life, her criminal conduct was quite serious in that she stole funds from the accounts of vulnerable individuals who, for various physical and mental health reasons, required the services of a guardianship agency. Judge Fischer also observed that Hetzell’s conduct risked the viability of the agency for whom she worked.
First Assistant United States Attorney Carolyn J. Bloch prosecuted this case on behalf of the government.
United States Attorney Rivetti commended the United States Postal Inspection Service for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Hetzell.
BETHANY, Mo. — The Missouri State Highway Patrol says Lee Ann M. Miles, the Harrison County Clerk, has been arrested and charged after an investigation into theft and fraud allegations.
According to a release from MSHP, the Bethany Police Department contacted the highway patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control to investigate allegations of theft involving the Harrison County Clerk.
During the course of that investigation over the next several months, authorities said they discovered Lee Ann M. Miles, 46, had been entrusted or hired to oversee an elderly person's financial responsibilities.
Probable cause documents in the case state Miles was hired to pay rent, lawn care, house cleaning, medical and tax bills in addition to other tasks for an individual over the age of 60.
For her services, the victim agreed to pay Miles $300 per month.
After noticing discrepancies in her financial records, the victim requested her full bank account statements and discovered her bank account balances were very low.
Investigators discovered that from November 2023 through July 2026, Miles reportedly made more than 500 transactions from the victim's account into her own account.
Authorities noted transfers to Miles' accounts for payments to Ford Motor Credit, along with a storage unit, which the victim said was not hers. Transfers were found for other items like a Walt Disney World trip.
Detectives noted all the transfers to Miles' accounts were in familiar dollar amounts that the victim would recognize, such as what one of her other bills would cost. But sometimes those transfers were made multiple times a month, and even multiple times on the same day. After analyzing the transfers reportedly made by Miles and comparing them with the victim's actual bills, authorities said more than $125,000 could not be accounted for.
The victim also received notice that her quarterly taxes had not been paid. However, the victim told authorities Miles said they'd been taken care of.
Miles was charged with one count of stealing ($25,000 or more) and one count of financial exploitation of an elderly/disabled person.
When questioned by police, Miles told authorities she had originally requested payment of $25 per day from the victim for her services, but the victim said she couldn't afford that amount and instead offered $300 per month. Miles told police that she never had a written agreement with the victim, and the additional transfers were "backpay" to catch up on the amount the victim owed. Miles admitted she did not inform the victim of that increase.
The victim also said a 1099 form the victim filled out for tax purposes every year only reflected the $300 per month amount as compensation.
Miles told authorities she estimated that the victim owed her $118,000, a number she estimated from her memory. She said her computer that contained the Excel spreadsheet detailing what she was owed crashed. When authorities told Miles that she had transferred more than $200,000 to her account during that time, she said she may have made an error in her estimations.
Miles is currently being held at the Daviess/DeKalb Regional Jail without bond.
It’s long been the default for aging people in cognitive decline. State policymakers have been moving toward an alternate arrangement that gives people more control over their lives. There are some things lawmakers should keep in mind.
OPINION | Oct. 16, 2026 • James A. Lomastro
Ask a state court system how many older adults are under guardianship, and often no one knows. When the Government Accountability Office examined elder abuse by guardians, court officials in six states could not provide exact numbers. That matters because guardianship falls under state law, run by state probate and family courts. It decides whether an older resident keeps control of where she lives, how she spends her money and what treatment she accepts.
Guardianship, in which a judge assigns someone (usually family, sometimes a professional) to make decisions for another adult, has long been the default for cases of aging-related cognitive decline. A guardian controls finances, medical care and living arrangements. It is permanent, sweeping and often imposed without consent. In an era of a rapidly growing older population, its limitations demand attention.
There is an alternative. In what are known as “supported decision-making” agreements, the person continues to make her own decisions but chooses trusted supporters to help her understand options and communicate choices. Unlike guardianship, the person remains legally responsible and in control. In 2013, a Virginia court treated a young woman's use of supported decision-making as a reason to limit her parents' guardianship petition.
The case opened a door that states have been walking through ever since. Two years later, Texas became the first state to enact a statute recognizing such agreements. As of this September, at least 40 states and the District of Columbia had laws referring to supported decision-making, and those in at least 18 states required courts to consider less restrictive options before guardianship.
The laws vary widely in their approach. Florida, for example, requires guardianship petitions to describe efforts to use supported decision-making. Nevada requires a physician's assessment of alternatives. Model state legislation drafted by the Uniform Law Commission and supported by the American Bar Association offers a template for alternatives to be considered before guardianship is imposed.
Much momentum on the issue has centered on people of all ages with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Supported decision-making remains underused among older adults with cognitive decline — the population states will face most in the coming years. However state lawmakers approach the issue, there are some key provisions they and their states’ agencies and courts should keep in mind:
• Legislatures should give agreements teeth. A statute should require banks, hospitals and nursing homes to accept a supporter's presence and help, and it should require a statutory form, as Texas adopted, that gives all involved parties something standard to recognize.
• Legislatures should require written findings that less restrictive alternatives were tried or considered and found insufficient. Florida and Nevada put the burden on petitioners. States should demand this paper trail before any guardianship order is issued.
• Legislatures should guarantee counsel who argues for the person's wishes. When a respondent had an attorney, according to a Disability Rights Maine analysis, full guardianship orders fell from 76 percent to 56 percent and 33 percent of cases ended with no guardianship, compared with 21 percent of cases without representation.
• Legislatures should write safeguards into law. A supporter can exert undue influence as easily as a guardian can abuse authority. Texas's fiduciary duties and alternate-supporter provisions are a start.
• Medicaid and aging agencies should provide supporters where families are unavailable. States can fund trained community supporters, as Texas did with its 2019 pilot, reaching isolated older adults whom the model otherwise fails.
• Courts should make rights easy to get back. Guardianship should not be one-way. Periodic mandatory review means someone other than the person under the order must justify keeping it in place.
• And court administrators should count what happens. Report, by age, how many adults are under guardianship, how many orders were limited rather than absolute, how many were ended, and which alternatives were tried. Without that baseline, no state knows if anything works.
A state can test itself with three questions: How many older adults are under guardianship? What was tried first? Who argued for the person's wishes? Each is a reporting requirement a legislature can write. Together they ask the real question — not whether an older person is safe, but whose decision it is.
James A. Lomastro is a surveyor for the international Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, an advocacy associate with Dignity Alliance Massachusetts and a member of the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Nursing Home Administrators.
BISMARCK - The Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship (OGC) is officially open and fully staffed, marking the launch of a new state agency dedicated to supporting vulnerable adults and families.
"Publicly launching our agency is an important step in making our services more accessible to people across North Dakota," said OGC Executive Director Rachel Sinness. "Our goal is to ensure individuals under guardianship and conservatorship, along with those who support them, have clear and dependable information at their fingertips. We want North Dakotans to know who we are, what we do and how we can help."
OGC was created after the 2025 passage of Senate Bill 2029 during the 69th Legislative Assembly, which recognized the need for an independent entity dedicated to serving individuals under guardianships and conservatorships.
As part of its official public launch, OGC also introduced its new website, www.ogc.nd.gov, to provide information about the agency’s services and responsibilities, as well as guardianship and conservatorship ethics, best practices, funding, resources, education, training and other support for families.
"We are grateful to ND Protection & Advocacy, Vulnerable Adult Protective Services, Supreme Court administration and Human Resource Management Services for helping us build an agency that reflects our commitment to transparency, independence and compassionate service," Sinness said.
The agency provides Guardianship Establishment funding, Public Administrator Support Services (PASS) funding and general supervision of guardianship and conservatorship management. It also investigates misconduct and abuse involving disabled and aging adults currently under a guardianship or conservatorship order. This approach standardizes the process for funding reimbursement to guardians and conservators and provides families and individuals with centralized support, education and resources.
Clay County launches a regional task force to investigate suspected guardianship neglect and exploitation while protecting vulnerable adults and children.
Author: Jasamine Lee
CLAY COUNTY, Fla. — A new regional task force is bringing together Clay County court officials, law enforcement and criminal justice partners to investigate suspected fraud, neglect and exploitation involving people under guardianship.
Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook announced the Guardianship Task Force Tuesday with Clay County Clerk of Court and Comptroller Tara S. Green.
Hundreds of children and vulnerable adults receive services through court-appointed guardians in Clay County. Guardians may be family members, court-appointed professionals or state-approved members of the public. The Clerk’s Office audits guardianship files and, in some cases, requires annual financial accountings.
Green said most guardians properly care for those entrusted to them.
“When a Guardianship is mismanaged, or worse, conducted in an illegal or even criminal manner, the results can be devastating,” Green said.
Cook emphasized that the task force is targeting bad actors, not responsible guardians.
“This is not about Guardians who are doing their jobs the right way – we know the vast majority in our community take proper responsibility – but this is about bad actors,” Cook said.
Officials said auditors and detectives have encountered cases involving depleted bank accounts, stolen pensions, property sales, unpaid medical bills and inherited money being quickly spent by guardians. One case involved an elderly woman who was abandoned at a care center or hospital without her belongings after officials said a family member depleted her finances and sold her property.
“Over recent years, our auditors have seen it all, sadly,” Green said.
Cook said the task force grew from a need to better coordinate investigations that had previously been handled separately.
“We were doing our job, but it was very piecemeal,” Cook said. “So when we got together, we started putting these pieces of a puzzle together.”
The task force brings together multiple agencies and jurisdictions to share information, identify potential criminal activity and investigate allegations involving vulnerable victims.
“When someone is appointed as a Guardian, they are entrusted with something so important – the care, well-being and sometimes financial future of another person,” Cook said. “It’s a position of trust – and when it’s abused, we as law enforcement and public officials have a responsibility to act.”
Cook said the effort is regional because some cases cross county lines and additional partners are being added.
“This is a regional effort to identify and hold accountable those who are taking advantage of our most vulnerable people,” Cook said.
Officials identified three main priorities: educating prospective guardians about their responsibilities, encouraging people to report concerns, and preventing abuse, neglect and exploitation.
Cook urged families, neighbors and others to speak up even when they are unsure whether a crime has occurred.
“What we would tell people to do is pay attention to what’s happening, ask questions of the guardian, make them provide proof,” Cook said. “And it doesn’t matter, even if you’re not sure there’s a crime that’s occurring. Let our team take a look at it.”
People with information about suspected fraud, neglect or abuse involving a current or former guardianship can visit clayclerk.com or claysheriff.com and search for “Guardianship” for reporting information.
The task force will evaluate complaints through a team of experts and determine whether concerns involve inappropriate conduct, legal violations or potential criminal activity.
Cook said the effort could lead to significant investigations across multiple jurisdictions.
“I look forward to our next big press conference on this issue, because we have some pretty significant cases that go across multiple jurisdictions,” Cook said.
Cook ended with a warning to anyone exploiting someone under guardianship.
“While these are complex cases, we want to make sure everyone knows that we will be watching and if you’re taking advantage of someone you have guardianship over, you will be held accountable,” Cook said.
KERSHAW COUNTY, S.C. (WACH) — A 56-year-old Camden woman is accused of exploiting a vulnerable adult and fraud, according to the Office of the Attorney General.
Dionne L. Robinson is charged with exploitation of a vulnerable adult and financial transaction card fraud involving more than $500 in a six-month period.
She was arrested by the Attorney General’s Vulnerable Adults and Medicaid Provider Fraud unit and booked into the Kershaw County Detention Center on Oct. 12.
Authorities say Robinson used her position as a vulnerable adult’s power of attorney to illegally use the person’s money or assets.
Robinson is accused of using the victim’s debit card to obtain money, goods or services for her own benefit without the victim’s permission, according to authorities.
Authorities say at the time, the victim lived in a residential care facility and qualified as a vulnerable adult under state law.
The Attorney General’s Office will prosecute the case.
