The Schiavo case alerted America to abuse of power by the courts, and to the need for advance directives. But in today’s corrupt courts, even duly executed advance directives can be disregarded - when there is a lot of money to be made by the judge’s pals. The feeding frenzy has reached epidemic proportions around the country.
Over the years, a growing uncaring and unjust judicial system has helped convert guardianship/conservatorship from an appropriate law to one which, if misused, is damaging to the general public.
At present, it operates to ensnare the most vulnerable people in a larger and larger trawling net, now including those merely physically “incapacitated”! It has become a feeding trough for unethical lawyers and other “fiduciaries” appointed by the courts to protect, but many of whom become nothing more than predators.
Wards, instead of being protected by the system, are victimized by it, losing their freedom, property and their very lives, due to a lack of monitoring by the individual judges and court administrators, and further lack of oversight of the courts by state and federal legislatures.
Uncaring and corrupt judges misuse the law and engage in blatant due process, civil/human rights violations. Victims aren’t always given notice of hearings at which they will be judged, aren’t always allowed to attend, and often don’t have lawyers. If the court does appoint lawyers, often they are too closely affiliated with other professionals who make their living in these courts and cases and they don’t properly represent the victims’ interests. Corrupt judges do not apply the required evidentiary standards in making adjudications of incompetency.
Homes are sold to insiders at below market! Contents - family heirlooms, jewelry, photographs, etc., - disappear, either stolen outright or sold at auction. Estate assets are rapidly paid out to the fiduciaries in exorbitant “fees” and “commissions” until there is nothing left!
“Fiduciaries” are given power of life and death, burying their wards in nursing homes where they are kept chemically restrained with unnecessary and dangerous drugs; family members are denied any say in their care, and sometimes denied visitation, except under guard at their own expense!
Over the years, a growing uncaring and unjust judicial system has helped convert guardianship/conservatorship from an appropriate law to one which, if misused, is damaging to the general public.
At present, it operates to ensnare the most vulnerable people in a larger and larger trawling net, now including those merely physically “incapacitated”! It has become a feeding trough for unethical lawyers and other “fiduciaries” appointed by the courts to protect, but many of whom become nothing more than predators.
Wards, instead of being protected by the system, are victimized by it, losing their freedom, property and their very lives, due to a lack of monitoring by the individual judges and court administrators, and further lack of oversight of the courts by state and federal legislatures.
Uncaring and corrupt judges misuse the law and engage in blatant due process, civil/human rights violations. Victims aren’t always given notice of hearings at which they will be judged, aren’t always allowed to attend, and often don’t have lawyers. If the court does appoint lawyers, often they are too closely affiliated with other professionals who make their living in these courts and cases and they don’t properly represent the victims’ interests. Corrupt judges do not apply the required evidentiary standards in making adjudications of incompetency.
Homes are sold to insiders at below market! Contents - family heirlooms, jewelry, photographs, etc., - disappear, either stolen outright or sold at auction. Estate assets are rapidly paid out to the fiduciaries in exorbitant “fees” and “commissions” until there is nothing left!
“Fiduciaries” are given power of life and death, burying their wards in nursing homes where they are kept chemically restrained with unnecessary and dangerous drugs; family members are denied any say in their care, and sometimes denied visitation, except under guard at their own expense!
Written by a NASGA member.
2 comments:
This nation has to wake up. A prison sentence is awaiting the vulnerable elder and he or she will pay for it.....
My mother thought my sisters were putting her into the nursing facility for short term rehab to strengthen her weak legs. At the first one, she told me that she wanted to get out because people had nightmares and screamed at night, crying that they wanted to go home. At the second one she was moved to she said something that echoes in my mind to this day. She said: “I never would have had any children if I knew they could wind up in a place like this”. She contracted an infection there and was moved to a hospital where she was diagnosed with sepsis, a potentially fatal disease in the elderly , and an infection from a catheter. From there she went to another facility where she was chemically, psychologically and physically restrained. Although she had walked and talked on Christmas eve 2006 when my sister abducted her from her home of half a century, by January 24, 2007 she was so weak that she could not talk and was now permanently in a wheelchair.
I have not been allowed to see or talk to my mother since March of 2007. My sisters are holding her incommunicado in a tiny room in Christine’s house in Brooklyn where she is basically a prisoner. She has no money to call a cab, no phone to call out for help, and she is in a wheelchair. She couldnt escape if she wanted to. Calls to her home phone number here at the house do not ring through so that I might retrieve them. Instead, my sisters have redirected Mom’s calls to my sister Laura’s phone and she screens them. Her mail goes to Christine’s address.
There is not a night that goes by that I don't cry wondering how my poor mother must feel after being betrayed by her own daughters and being forced to live with them.
I so much want to see her and hug her and tell her that I did everything I could think of to get her home and that I will continue to work toward that goal until the day I die.
None of this would have happened if she didn’t have money.
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