DC Council Ignores Neglect, Exploitation of Seniors

On June 22, the Elder Abuse Prevention Committee of the DC Office on Aging will host a seminar at Catholic University on "The Financial Exploitation of Our Elder and Vulnerable Populations." Since the elderly and disabled are prime targets for scam artists and criminals, it's critical to raise public awareness of this growing problem.

Some of the worst exploitation of vulnerable D.C. residents, many of them elderly African American women, is being perpetrated by D.C. Superior Probate Court judges and professional vultures in the legal system, who exploit seniors using the very system meant to protect them.

At a March 7 hearing before the District Council's Committee on Human Services, Carolyn Nicholas, president of Advocates for Elder Justice and daughter of the late Council member Hilda Mason, testified that even her well-known mother and multi-millionaire stepfather were victims of neglect and financial exploitation by their court-approved conservators.

Adult Protective Services "continues to refuse to protect people who reportedly are being neglected, abused and/or financially exploited ... by court-appointed guardians and conservators," Nicholas testified. For example, three different attorneys charged Helen Caraway, a retired DC Public Schools food service worker, $250 an hour to "protect" her while the conservator pilfered $19,700 from her meager retirement savings.

APS recently refused to respond to calls from the police regarding the reported abuse of a French citizen living in D.C. Her daughter, a federal law enforcement officer, told The Examiner that she was prevented from seeing her own mother on her 91st birthday last Sunday. Meanwhile, the court-appointed conservator continues to bill her mother for "services" -- which apparently don't include repairing her long-broken dentures.

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DC Council Ignores Neglect, Exploitation of Seniors