The Vegas Voice: "My Family's Nightmare"

My father’s guardianship nightmare began in 2009, a result of not being able to find dad after mom died; someone took advantage of him being in shock and grief after the sudden loss of his wife of 63 years. Mom had been ill-advised to become guardian of my father’s “person” due to his physical disabilities; my father was never incompetent. I called Guardianship Commissioner Norheim’s office for help. I knew nothing of the Family Court’s bad reputation at the time. Norheim’s office gave me Jared E. Shafer’s phone number. Shafer said I needed an attorney to help my father and sent me to Elyse Tyrell, who assured me that if Shafer were to be made temporary guardian he would get my father away from the person hiding him and in no time I could take my father back to California. Tyrell did not tell me she was Shafer’s attorney.

As soon as Shafer became guardian, Tyrell, who I had a legal agreement with, told me she did not work for me, she worked for “Jared” and to go find another attorney! This “temporary” guardianship turned into a permanent one and any objections I had were consistently dismissed by Norheim. Shafer and his attorneys made false statements about me to the court which Norheim accepted.

Thus began a long expensive battle to free my father of Shafer’s guardianship over person and estate. Shafer and his attorneys told the court that their extensive legal fees billed to my father were my fault for challenging his guardianship!

Several state statutes were violated during my father’s guardianship, in particular NRS Chapter 160, which restricts guardians to having no more than five wards and limits how much they can bill if they have even one veteran as a ward. Our attorneys pointed out these violations but Norheim approved all of Shafer’s actions.

Shafer did not provide an attorney for my father and prevented dad from attending his own hearings. When we finally brought dad to court Shafer and his attorney laughed at him and Norheim was reluctant to let him speak. My father stated in court that he wanted to go back to California but his testimony was ignored.

After that hearing my father asked my husband and I to take him back to California because he was fearful and wanted to be with us. Shafer immediately had the judge issue a bench warrant on me for contempt of court but he told everyone it was for kidnapping. He spent thousands of dad’s money trying to have the warrant transferred to California without success.

No family member should fall for the threats and false statements made by any guardian. The guardians are experts at intimidating families from taking action. I believe we were the first to save a parent from Shafer. Despite the losses we are happy we did what was necessary, resulting in my father spending his last years as a free man. His final years were happy; he enjoyed his family, his VFW Post and his friends. He never went anywhere without his WW2 Veteran cap and loved all the attention and “thank you for your service” comments.

Source:
The Vegas Voice:  

See Also:
NASGA:  Lupe Olvera, CA/NV Victim