At a hearing last week before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, testimony suggested the case against Jeffrey M. Schend is far from unique."While the vast majority of court-appointed guardians are undoubtedly professional, well-meaning and law-abiding, there's mounting evidence that some guardians use their position of power for their own gain at the expense of the very people that they were supposed to be looking out for," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
The Senate's Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts on Sept. 22 called five witnesses who testified about abuses committed by court-appointed guardians and potential solutions to strengthen state-level guardianship systems. The subcommittee is a branch of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Klobuchar said she's working on legislation to encourage greater use of criminal background checks for potential guardians and electronic filing of account data to improve oversight.
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Federal Lawmakers Hear About Appleton Guardianship Abuse
It's correct that guardianship abuse is a growing threat to our nation's vulnerable, but what wasn't brought out in that hearing is that it's not guardians outright embezzling that's the major threat. Cleaning out estates is done by exorbitant billing, fraudulent billing, double billing, and needless legal "services."
ReplyDeleteThe thing is the federal legislators know about guardianship abuse already. Nothing new to them. And they do nothing about it.
ReplyDeleteTraining and certification is their usual business as usual answer. Why? Those who know the guardianship system is broken yet they do nothing they are enablers, allowing the broken system to continue without regultion without supervision with NO STATE OR FEDERAL AGENCY TO COMPLAIN.
ReplyDeleteAll of this is by design.
Their days of: See nothing, hear nothing, know nothing resulting in more years of do nothing are over.
many thanks to this reporter for his efforts to keep this case up front with bright light shining on the criminal activities that went unnoticed and undetected for how long? prime example who is watching the guardians?
ReplyDeleteSo if the guardian doesn't have a criminal record, how does that keep him/her from engaging in criminal activity going forward?
ReplyDeleteTo Charlie:
ReplyDeleteChurning litigation by maligning the family (without any evidence) is outrageous mis-conduct; and when a judge accepts unsworn attorney statements as evidence, he/she is engaging in misconduct as well.