ABC Action News I-Team: Al Katz Center Educates and Fights Against Abusive Professional Guardianships.

Last week, the I-Team was there when 99-year-old Willi Berchau was released from Florida's guardianship program after a three-year court battle.

The I-Team has learned that a local non-profit group has been established to assist other families in avoiding or getting out of court-ordered guardianship.

“It is vast and it is deep,” Beverly Newman said, when asked about how big of a problem was posed by Florida’s professional guardianship program.

“It is an industry with layers of individuals who are profiteering from elders,” she said.

Newman reached out to the I-Team after our investigation into Florida's professional guardianship program.

We've uncovered instances in which judges disregard written wishes of families, then gave control over their lives and finances to professional guardians.

Newman said the same thing happened to her.

“I walked into a land mine I did not imagine,” Newman said.

In 2009, Newman's father Al Katz became sick and was admitted to a Sarasota hospital.

Katz, a Holocaust survivor, was  a snowbird from Indiana.

Newman and her husband left Indianapolis and drove straight to Florida as soon as they heard Katz had become ill.

“We assumed, as his family and his caretakers for eight years, that we should be able to pick him up. No way,” said Newman.

Katz, instead, was appointed a professional guardian by the courts.

Records show the guardian sought and received a "no contact order" preventing Katz's family from taking him home.

“We had no ability to speak to him, visit him. So my father, of course, thought he was abandoned,” Newman said.

Full Article, Video, and Source:
Sarasota non-profit educates, fights against abusive professional guardianships

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