Guardianship Abuse Spreads to Pennsylvania Part 2

by  Michael Volpe

When F. Harvey Whitten was a medic in the Korean War, he held dying soldiers in his arm so they wouldn’t die alone, now at the behest of the Montgomery County (Pennsylvania) Orphans Court and its main players- Judge Stanley Ott and Diane Zabowski- Whitten is headed toward that very fate.

Harvey, a long term advertising executive, is worth millions if not tens of millions.  Harvey is also gay and was in a long term relationship with Robert Sprau.

In 2010,  Harvey Whitten had a stroke and was diagnosed with vascular dementia causing some of Whitten’s nieces and nephews to petitioned the court to have Harvey Whitten guardianized and the case wound up in front of Judge Stanley Ott, of the Orphan’s Court of Montgomery County. Like in the previous case involving Jannie Myers, Ott eschewed Whitten’s request for his own counsel and ordered Diane Zabowski to act as his counsel.

During a fact finding interview with Zabowski, Coz remembers that Zabowski was fixated for most of the duration of the interview on Harvey being gay and at one point remarked that the Whitten family was one of the most dysfunctional she’d known.

In fact, both Mary and Coz say their family is far from dysfunctional and the charge was absurd and provocative.

A long protracted family legal fight was avoided, when Harvey Whitten was declared incapacitated and Coz and Robert Sprau agreed to be the guardian and co-guardian on August 11, 2011. Harvey Whitten went to live with Sprau at his retirement home at the  Shannondell in Audobon Pennsylvania. The Shannondell is considered among the most magnificent retirement communities in the country. Univest Bank was made guardian of the estate and their employee Julianna Van Duyne-King was the point person because Judge Ott had worked with her before.

In 2012 Sprau developed an aggressive lung cancer and passed away on September 22, 2012, but not before handpicking the aides who would be with Harvey twenty four hours a day while he continued living in Shannondell.

Zabowski then lobbied to have Deborah Klock, a nurse, to replace Sprau as co-gaurdian on November 16, 2012.

Both Mary and Coz told RebelPundit that Klock exhibited problems right away. Mary Whitten especially has written numerous complaints against Klock in which she alleges: Klock impersonated a family member, made herself the emergency contact, and changed the medication with notifying the family.

The change in medications done behind the family’s back, say Mary and Coz, caused Harvey to have a psychotic break at the end of 2012. He began experiencing various ailments and outbursts went from Shannondell to three hospitals in January 2013, before winding up in the Meadows at the beginning of February 2013; the Meadows is a psychiatric unit for especially difficult cases also located within the Shannondell confines only unlike the rest of the place, this portion is much like something from One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest.

Full Article & Source:
Guardianship Abuse Spreads to Pennsylvania Part 2

See Also:
Guardianship Abuse Spreads to Pennsylvania

Boomers Beware of Guardianship Abuse

Harvey Whitten, Pennsylvania Victim