Twin County elder abuse task force aims to help isolated seniors

Tannersville Village Mayor Lee McGunnigle announcing the ‘Safe at Home’ committee at the Mountain Top Library, June 14

TANNERSVILLE — Village Mayor Lee McGunnigle unveiled Greene County’s first Safe at Home task force Thursday to prevent elder abuse, spurred by painful cases of exploitation in his family.

The Safe at Home task force is a multi-disciplinary advocate group to prevent elder abuse by providing local resources, planning guides and prevention services. The program was created to be a liason between elder care services and community members and to fill in service gaps to allow residents to live and die with dignity, McGunnigle said Thursday at the committee unveiling presentation, which was held at the Mountain Top Library on Main Street.

The advisory council to the Columbia County Office of the Aging has developed Safe at Home over the past two years, said advisory council chair Joyce Thompson, 81.

“It’s a circle of services that represents the things people need to prepare as they age,” she said, such as installing bars in the bathrooms. “What would you do if you couldn’t go to the second floor? I’ve personally been through two falls in the last 15 months, and it becomes a crisis.”

The task force includes officer Ryan Schrader, with the Greene County Sheriff’s Department and Hunter police; Erica Bain, of Hunter Ambulance; the Rev. Karen Monk, with Kaaterskill United Methodist Church; attorney Kathryn Salensky; Ed Cloke, former Greene County district attorney from 1996 to 2000; Robin Dumont, village clerk; and deputy village clerk Kathy Van Valkenburg.
Task force members are in training and plan to compile a resource guide for residents.

“I’ve seen scams and elder abuse as a practicing attorney,” said Cloke, 75, of Catskill. “The task force is a matter of education and prevention.”

Greene County has one of the highest elder populations in the state, he said.

“I urge early planning, and cooperative, comprehensive planning with many, many people that you trust,” McGunnigle said. “If you don’t, when an emergency happens, the predator may show up.”

The mayor’s advocacy began with vulnerability and exploitation with two cases in his family, he said Thursday.

“We were not prepared, as a family, for mental illness and the special challenges that presented,” McGunnigle said, referring to his disabled sister-in-law, Susan G. Vosilla, who passed away at age 54.

“I believe it exposed us to exploitation,” he added.

In 2016, the McGunnigle family was embroiled in a case of alleged elder abuse and fraud involving Vosilla and one of the former owners of the Villa Vosilla boutique. The family alleges Vosilla died prematurely in 2010 after the neglect of Anthony Bucca, her attorney and guardian.

Bucca “assured Susan’s family that Susan was being well cared for with the $430,000 that comprised the bulk of Susan’s assets,” according to a petition filed on change.org by the McGunnigle family.

The family alleged “Bucca neglected to provide Susan necessary medical treatment, which was covered under her health insurance policy, while assuring Doria and her family that her sister Susan was well-cared for,” according to the petition

The issue is in litigation, McGunnigle said Thursday. He declined to comment on the pending case.

McGunnigle’s mother-in-law, Nattalina Vosilla, was financially exploited and lost $236,000 to a bank with the early onset of dementia, he said after the presentation.

“I didn’t have the resources to recognize what was going on,” McGunnigle said.

“We’ve become advocates due to the tragedy in our own family,” said Doria Vosilla, the mayor’s wife and Nattalina Vosilla’s daughter. “We’re working together with other advocates around the country to expose predators, and to educate, inform and prevent the exploitation of the vulnerable.

“It’s heartbreaking because every time someone tells me their story, I relive my own horror,” she added.

Isolated people in rural communities can be easy targets, said attorney Kathryn Salensky, founder of the mid-Hudson elder abuse prevention project George’s Justice, which is named for her father.

“The scams get more personal the more rural you are,” Salensky said after the presentation, noting cases in Greene and southern Columbia counties, including Gallatin. “In the mountaintop community, this kind of program is vital. My father lived on a 200-acre farm, was a recent widower — those kinds of things make you very tasty to a potential predator.”

Advocacy also presents an opportunity for business and employment, Thompson said, noting seniors need services including transportation and lawn care.

“I’ve been doing this work for over 20 years, working with Alzheimer’s, dementia and Parkinson’s patients,” Nichole Dstewart said while fighting back tears.

Dstewart is an in-home aid at Hearthsone Care in Catskill.

“I think the biggest issue is, it’s not fair they have to give up their homes,” she said. “These are people that have worked hard and contributed a lot to society.”

Many seniors won’t ask for or accept help for fear of ending up in a nursing home, said Columbia County Safe at Home member Michele Kraham, 59.

With family members living around the country, kids are often shocked to visit their parents and find they haven’t been honest about their living conditions, she said.

“It’s hard to lose your independence,” Kraham said. “In a city, you have mass transit, but in the country, you’re isolated and that’s where the whole exploitation piece comes in.”

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Twin County elder abuse task force aims to help isolated seniors