When:
Friday, August 26,2011
Where: Vail Marriott Mountain Resort
715 West Lionshead Circle
Vail CO 81657
In a sentence, Florida’s exploitation law (FSS 825.103) states that when someone maliciously takes the property of an “elderly person,” they are committing exploitation. That’s the essence of the law.
But there is also an important requirement: Within this law, an “elderly person” is defined as someone 60 years of age or older who is suffering from the infirmities of aging to the extent that their ability to adequately care for and protect themselves is impaired. The law states that the elderly person must suffer a physical or mental infirmity. Therefore, exploitation is based primarily on infirmities or disabilities and not deception.
This is why exploitation is not fraud and why it can be much more devastating and offensive.
Sources:
Third Annual Elder Law Retreat
Financial Abuse of the Elderly
17 comments:
Congratulations, Mr.Roubicek.
I have read Joe Roubicek's book and it's great. I'm glad to see him getting this recognition!
Group synergy: The combined effort of it's members equalling more than the sum of their efforts as individuals.
Good job NASGA and thanks for the comments. :) Joe Roubicek
Conservator/Guardianship laws are Unconstitutional and no amount of tweaking of these laws will make them acceptable. It is Unconstitutional to REMOVE the INALIENABLE Constitutional Rights of an American Citizen. This is why the Federal Courts won't address the guardianship cases; consistently sending these cases back to the same state court that perpetrated the unjust guardianship in the first place. And these Unconstitutional laws are being used not only for elders but also for things like divorce property partitions and to flat out steal a person's life savings. In Louisiana attorneys will tell you straight out that Interdictions (LA speak for a Guardianship) are done all the time...to get things done.
Mr. Roubicek,
I am on my way to buy your book. Bless your heart!
I have this book, and have read it. It is very insightful and I recommend it.
Joe will do a great job exposing the dirty dark secrets of those with criminal minds targeting the vulnerable and the elderly, easy targets.
If the victims survive, life after the crimes, they are forever changed very much damaged with no time to recover emotionally, physically or financially.
Society can't hide from this growing crime spree, we must care we are affected all of us directly or indirectly.
Proud to know you Joe!
Mr. Roubicek, please be sure to cover the unlawful imprisonment of the elderly in nursing homes when family members are willing to care for them at home. Thank you so much for your hard work. If you would like to share my story or parts of it please feel free. My mother's name is Dorothy Wilson from Massapequa and we are deperately seeking help to save her.
PART 1
Joe is a blessing to many and a wonderful addition to NASGA. Many thanks for his continued efforts to expose Florida abuse & theft! I have read Joe's book and also shared it with others. This most recent articles gives me a whole new thought process to consider when I think of what was done to my mother, Rita C. Denmark.
Mother was a life long resident of Pennsylvania living an active, healthy life with mild dementia but with a properly prepared estate.
In Nov. 2006 Rita’s doctor warned, “due to cognitive impairments, Rita can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous or designing persons” confirming confirmed the PA Adult Protection Agency's recommendation that Rita should have a guardian!
Taken advantage of indeed...
Rita traveled (with her daughter) to Florida in August 2007 to visit her son, William Denmark and was subsequently lured into Attorney Edward H. Beazley, Jr.‘s office of New Smyrna Beach FL where she signed a document stating that she moved to Florida. William Denmark/Beazley promptly hired a Pennsylvania Attorney Mark Hollenbeck to thwart the pending Pennsylvania guardianship proceedings and then hired a cohort, Attorney Kenneth Bohannon to represent Rita. Beazley then filed a guardianship proceeding to be heard in the Circuit Court in Volusia County, Florida by the Honorable Judge C. McFerrin Smith, III and then along comes Jetta Getty of Port Orange Florida, Professional Guardian and owner of “Young at Heart Elderly Services” with her attorney Robert S. Thurlow. Rita's daughter Holly’s attorney, Harry G. McConnell of Smith, Hood, and Perkins advised her that the quickest, easiest & least expensive approach would be to allow Jetta Getty to handle things stating that she was required to report to the court what had happened within 90 days at which time Rita would be returned to Pennsylvania. Getty confirmed this statement to family members. This proved to be contrary to Getty’s intentions. IN FACT, the family recently discovered that NOT ONE of the Officer‘s of THAT Court EVER told the Judge that he had a Pennsylvania resident seated before him!
Upon her appointment, Getty promptly cancelled Rita’s Pennsylvania prescription drug plan which increased Rita’s monthly expenses drastically. She also cancelled Rita’s Pennsylvania Worker’s Compensation Insurance and promptly changed Rita’s address from Pennsylvania to Florida. Since Jetta Getty and her legal teams involvement, Rita remains locked away in a Florida nursing home completely isolated against her will, and that of her families. Rita has been drugged/chemically restrained to "ensure her compliance" and quell her insistence that she go home. Her medication included “non-approved and dangerous to the elderly” anti-psychotic drugs. A prescription specifically requested by Jetta Getty.
PART 2
Getty and an accomplice came to Pennsylvania under the auspices of appraising the estate & with deceitful misrepresentation of authority, removed cash, irreplaceable family heirlooms and antiques from storage that subsequently never appeared on a list of Rita‘s assets. The looting included Rita’s wedding dress, ancestral photos and personal mementos.
In spite of Rita’s condition as of Feb. 2011 she was still very aware of how much has been taken from her. She was a stylish and impeccable dresser who is now ashamed of her appearance living as a pathetic looking, thin unkempt woman wearing dowdy clothes in a room with broken furniture.
In a period of 3 years her estate valued at nearly $500,000.00 has been plundered to the point that Rita is now a candidate for Medicaid and will soon be supported by the tax payers of Florida.
Floridians should be outraged!
A lifetime monthly income of $3,500.00 that was intended to provide pleasant Golden Years for Rita, is being placed in a Pooled Trust, to provide an income for the guardian and her legal team. The deliberate misrepresentation of Rita’s assets with Pawn Shop Appraisals only compounds the injustice Rita has suffered. Most recently the rings Rita was wearing valued at $7,000.00 and NOT previously listed on the guardians inventory were taken from her. Getty made a notation on the 2009-2010 inventory that “replacement rings” were purchased at Wal-Mart!
An estimated distribution of assets went as follows:
$180,000.00 in (unnecessary)rent)
$20,000 in drugs
$40,000 companion fees unnecessary)
$25,000 gift cards & gifts to ????
$100,000 in attorney fees
$60,000 Getty's fees & expenses
$425,000 TOTAL
Those are the documented facts… so tell me is that fraud or exploitation? hlpeffer@yahoo.com
On one hand it sounds like “extrinsic fraud” or “fraud upon the court” but on the other hand Rita was an “elderly person suffering from the infirmities of aging to the extent that her ability to adequately care for and PROTECT herself was definitely impaired.”
If anyone wants to look up the Bruce Clinesmith case in New Mexico under "benchandbarreform" or under Stuart Stein, the lawyer who fought for the rights of Bruce and his wife Ruth, you will be shocked. Stuart Stein lost his license to practice law simply because he tried to help this couple and do as they requested. This case alone is an eye opener.
This is wonderful and somethng I bet they're not used to: a real expert on financial exploitation who is also aware that guardianship abuse is financial exploitation.
Please speak to financial abuse from guardianship at the conference, Mr. Roubicek. Guardianship is supposed to conserve assets; not eat them up. "Legal" financial abuse is stil financial abuse!
What an opportunity! You deserve it, Mr. Roubicek. You're great.
I just wanted to update you Mr. Roubicek, on my mother's current situation. Today, at 2PM, my mother's guardian, Mary Giordano, from Franchina and Giordano in Garden City, NY, arrived at my mother's home in Massapequa, NY, where she has lived for the past 60years. With her was a case worker from the geriatric care manager's office, Lynne Vaughan. They told her she was going to the ER for some bleeding from recent surgery. She agreed to go along and asked the guardian to call her daughter. Mary said she would. She then took my mother to a nursing home in Freeport NY, where Mom is now imprisoned against her will. the judge who signed the order is Judge Joel Asarch of the Nassau County Supreme court. This was done despite the fact that I am willing and able to take care of Mom in my home. My home was even deemed safe by the court, yet Judge Asarch said I am not aware of what her medical needs really are. My mother in effect has become a slave, owned by Mary Giordano, with the blessing of the United States Courts. being
Hats off to you, Joe Roubicek!
Thanks all for your comments and sharing of your personal experiences with exploitation... more evidence that the crime touches so many. I hear and admire you too!
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