In May 2009, Marie Long lost one of her hearing aids. She was 87 years old but still, I imagine the world sounded better in stereo.
Over the next month, her guardian, Sun Valley Group, would collect more than $5,500 from Marie to oversee her care but not a dime of that was spent on getting the elderly woman a new hearing aid. When asked about it, court records show a lawyer for Sun Valley noted that hearing aids are pricey and questioned whether Marie needed two, "given her cognitive deficiencies."
Really, the lawyer said that.
Marie Long fell under the protective eye of Maricopa County's probate court in 2005, after a stroke. Over the next four years, Sun Valley and a platoon of probate attorneys collected more than $550,000 in guardian and legal fees until last year, when the elderly widow's $1.3 million trust was tapped out.
Yet, attorneys for Marie and her sisters claim that she hadn't had an eye exam in two years and that the insurance on her missing hearing aid had been allowed to lapse. They are objecting to requests that a probate judge approve the final $100,000 that Sun Valley and its attorney collected for their final year of oversight in 2009, before Marie's funds ran dry.
Full Article and Source:
Guardian Balked at Aiding Widow While Draining Trust
See Also:
Sun Valley Group Has Nerve to Ask Judge to Sanction Marie Long's Attorneys
The guardian in control of the cash has money to pay her accomplices yet not enough to provide for the Ward's needs.
ReplyDeleteI have a similiar case in Volusia County Florida with a "professsional guardian" Jetta Getty. Getty wrote me derogatory e-mails because I permitted my mother to handle her own bottle of eye drops. She said, "mother could injest them." During this same period time Jetta Getty left hair spray, witch hazel, laundry soap, nail polish remover and other chemicals in mothers room. Mother knew enough not to "injest" those, in fact she laughed about it!
Jetta Getty also left my mother on numerous, documented occassions without toilet paper. Jetta did leave mother an assortment of 1/2 packages of incontinence products. I presume they were left over from previous victim's! It could appear to be an act encouraging the use of these products since mother had not been incontinent a day in her life!
A task force in Florida would be good news!
You're right on target, Holly. There's plenty of money -- a never ending cash flow for the perps, but the victim is denied his/her own money.
ReplyDeleteStandard operating procedure of so many guardians. The pattern is there but the judges just play along.
ReplyDeleteThank you once again, Laurie Roberts, for keeping with this story. And to NASGA for following too.
ReplyDeleteA task force is needed in Flordia for sure, Holly.
ReplyDeleteThere is a cancer in probate and it's spreading out of control!
ReplyDeleteThe perps wouldn't need hearing aids if the victims got together and raised ONE LOUD VOICE!
ReplyDelete