Widener is believed to have embezzled more than $14,000 from guardianship accounts using a variety of methods, according to previous testimony given during a December preliminary hearing held in Scotts Bluff County Court.
During the preliminary hearing, Craig Kubick, of the Nebraska State Auditor’s Office, testified he discovered a series of red flags when he reviewed the state’s Assistance to Aged, Blind and Disabled Program, a program administered by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Kubrick established that an investigation by the Nebraska State Auditor’s Office determined that Widener had embezzled more than $14,000 by using a variety of methods when she served as executive director of Safe Haven and acted as a guardian to state wards.
Kubrick testified that Widener had allegedly accepted funds on behalf of dead state wards, had double billed for services and had even used funds for wards to make personal payments to credit cards and for phone and television services to her home. He testified that the woman had also written checks from guardianship accounts for birthday and Christmas gifts to herself.
Widener’s case has served as an example of the need for reform of the guardianships overseen by the Nebraska courts. The Nebraska Legislature has proposed a bill to establish a state Office of Public Guardian. The bill would create an office to provide guardians to serve as conservators when a ward does not have a family member or other suitable person to oversee affairs.
During the annual State of the Judiciary address in January, Chief Justice Michael Heavican also promised changes in the way that the courts oversee guardianships. The courts are developing an internal audit system for guardianship to notify judges when a guardian has been removed from a case for cause, he said.
Widener is currently scheduled to be tried during the June jury term.
Full Article and Source:
County Attorney Amends Charges in Guardianship Embezzling Case
See Also:
Nebraska State Auditor: Guardian Fleeced State Wards
Full Article and Source:
County Attorney Amends Charges in Guardianship Embezzling Case
See Also:
Nebraska State Auditor: Guardian Fleeced State Wards
Not as much $$$ as many other fiduciaries will take, but she still has to do as much time as possible, as a lesson - to all.
ReplyDeleteAnd if it's anything like the "oversight" provided in Virginia by the Public Guardianship Program Coordinator, Janet James, Esquire, and Senior Policy Analyst Amy Marschean, Esquire, both attorneys with the Virginia Department for the Aging, save your breath and your funds.
ReplyDeleteThese two attorneys "investigate" complaints by shooting the messenger -- repeating false character assassination by the public guardianship programs under DARS "supervision," coaching members of "oversight" bodies like the Commonwealth Council on Aging and the Virginia Public Guardian and Conservator Advisory Board to ignore complaints from the public, taking ALL contact information for Board members and even for AGENCY STAFF off the DARS website, scrubbing VPGCAB minutes of any information adverse to the public guardianship programs under DARS "supervision," and even meeting with Gregory M. Pomije, Esquire, the attorney for Jewish Family Service of Tidewater, one of these out-of-control programs, and Colleen T. Dickerson, Esquire, the hand-picked, in-the-bag guardian ad litem "for" incapacitated people, at DARS offices to plot strategy during the General Assembly session.
Here's Janet James, covering up complaints about the notorious Scott Schuett (google Scott Schuett for the appalling details) with demonstrably false information about the number of JFS and Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia clients dumped into Schuett's five now-closed adult homes, with 379 victims:
"No DARS does not track the number of Public Guardianship Clients (individuals) that are in a specific licensed facility .... Even if we did track numbers for the 601 individuals served by the Public Program (which we do not), the number would be reflective only of a particular day in time, a snapshot, because there can be constant movement in residential placements (i.e. an individual's condition may improve or deteriorate necessitating a move or may otherwise be relocated based on funding streams/type of funds available; at other times, after a trip to the Emergency Room, the facility may refuse to take an individual back, etc.)."
In other words, by its own admission, DARS does not even know where these 601 clients reside, and cannot be bothered to find out!
Some supervision!
Some oversight!
If these two attorneys were fired tomorrow, the incapacitated people of Virginia would be much safer. The removal of these two attorneys would remove an obstruction to the safety and protection of incapacitated people.
Sad, but true.
Good, pile on the charges and hold her accountable!
ReplyDeleteShe breached the public's trust and deserves the longest sentence possible.
ReplyDelete