When Kira Ryskina works in Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, she usually sees her patients every day.
When it comes time for them to leave, some are too sick to go directly home or need rehabilitation in a nursing home. She tells them that another doctor will see them there.
But Ryskina, an internist and health policy researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, began to wonder how true that was. Her own experience working in nursing homes, plus feedback from patients and their families, told her that patients might not see doctors as quickly as many would expect.
Her curiosity led to a study published Monday in the journal Health Affairs that supported her theory that nursing home patients can’t be sure of seeing a doctor. Her team’s analysis of records for 2.4 million Medicare patients discharged from hospitals to nursing homes from January 2012 to October 2014 found that 10.4 percent never saw a doctor, nurse practitioner or physician assistant. Nearly 72 percent of patients were examined by a doctor or advanced practitioner within four days, but there was considerable variability among nursing homes. Smaller and rural nursing homes were the slowest. Ryskina saw little evidence that nursing homes were doing a good job of triaging patients to assure that the sickest ones were seen the most quickly.
Of the group that never saw a doctor, 28 percent were readmitted to a hospital and 14 percent died within 30 days of admission to the nursing home. Among patients who saw a doctor at least once, 14.3 percent were readmitted to a hospital and 7.2 percent died within that time period.
From a policy standpoint, these numbers are important because some modern payment systems, including Medicare's, hold hospitals accountable for what happens after their patients leave. There can be penalties if patients need to return to the hospital too quickly.
From a patient perspective, quick readmissions and excess deaths can be a sign that patients weren't ready to leave the hospital or needed more attentive care.
Ryskina said there is no official guideline for how quickly newly admitted patients should see a doctor, but she’d start by suggesting 48 hours. “I think we need some empirical data to support this,” she said. Medicare’s current rules specify that patients be seen within 30 days of admission, likely a holdover from days when many nursing home residents received “custodial” care, she said. The patients in her study were not long-term nursing home residents.
Physicians are rarely on site at nursing homes every day. Ensuring quicker assessments would be challenging for the facilities, Ryskina said. “I think reimbursement is a big barrier,” she said.
About 20 percent of hospital patients are discharged to nursing homes for further medical care. The rest go home or to hospice. Ryskina said it is often the most vulnerable patients who go to nursing homes, where they can receive physical therapy for joint replacements, intravenous antibiotics, or skilled wound care.
While she assumes that 100 percent of nursing home patients should be seen by a doctor, Ryskina said it is possible that some patients arrived on a weekend and were readmitted to the hospital so quickly that a doctor didn’t have a chance to examine them. However, the patients in the group that never saw a doctor had a median stay of 11 days. “I think it’s concerning,” she said.
Patients in rural nursing homes waited the longest on average to see a doctor: 8.1 days compared with 3.2 in other facilities.
Geographically, doctors saw patients the fastest — 2.2 days — in nursing homes in the Northeast. The average wait was 5.3 days in the Midwest. Patients in large facilities saw doctors faster than those in small ones.
Ryskina said growing numbers of doctors are specializing in nursing home care or in the needs of complex patients at risk for further hospitalization. Telemedicine could also improve access to physicians.
She said the University of Chicago is testing a model where the same physicians treat high-risk patients in both inpatient and outpatient settings. David Meltzer, a physician who is leading that effort, said the Comprehensive Care Program originally included following patients to nursing homes, but that was not “sustainable” because patients went to so many different facilities. Volumes were too small at any one place. His health system has considered developing closer relationships with specific post-acute facilities. “I do think such closer relationships of hospitals with post-acute facilities could potentially be quite valuable,” he said.
A Pembroke mother and her special-needs adult son were reunited last
May after a string of court dates and state guardianship hearings;
however, Leonia Sanders has now filed a lawsuit against 14 officials who
were involved in her son's court proceedings.
Leonia Sanders,
mother of 27-year-old Ronald Sanders, filed a complaint Feb. 13 with the
U.S. District Court in Paducah, alleging conspiracy, both individually
and collectively, among a host of area officials and mental health
employees to violate the civil and constitutional rights of Ronald
Sanders, for whom Leonia is also legal guardian, according to the
complaint.
The lawsuit lists 14 defendants who were to be served,
including the city of Pembroke and its Mayor Judy Peterson; former
Pembroke Police Chief Mark Reid; two Christian County Sheriff's Office
deputies Eddie Frye and Ricky Burgess; Pennyroyal Mental Health Center
and employees Reba Pleasant and Janet Tolliver; four Western State
Hospital employees Heather Holland, Lindee Monroe, Rebecca Perry and
Susan Redmond-Vaught; and Christian County Attorney's Office staff
Lincoln Foster and Maureen Leamy.
Phone
calls and an email to the Pembroke City Hall, as well as a voicemail to
Christian County Sheriff's Office were not returned. Western State
Hospital, Pennyroyal Mental Health and Christian County Attorney's
Office spokespersons declined to comment.
Sanders directed all
questions to her lawyer, Louisville attorney Chris Hoerter, who said he
believes there was wrongdoing and abuse of power in Sander's court and
mental health proceedings.
"The objective of the conspiracy was
simple," Hoerter said in a written statement to the New Era. "In spite
of targeting Ronald and luring him into false arrests, the police and
the Christian County prosecutors couldn't convict Ronald Sanders of a
crime, because he is incompetent to stand trial, which they knew. And
that frustrated them. Since they couldn't criminally confine him because
of his intellectual disability, they abused a civil proceeding -- that
they intentionally excluded Ronald and his mother from -- which resulted
in his illegal placement as a ward of the state into the custody of the
Cabinet (for Health and Family Services).
"It was audacious and
cruel, and beyond doubt a violation of Ronald Sanders' civil rights,"
the attorney continued. "Each co-conspirator was instrumental in their
own way in depriving Ronald of his rights as an American citizen. And we
will prove that. While some of the players were more sophisticated than
others in trying to conceal their conduct, no person is above the law."
How did this begin
In July 26, 2017, Ronald Sanders, 25 at the time, was arrested on charges of public intoxication.
According
to The Eagle Post archives, Sanders was visiting a friend at a home on
North Main Street in Pembroke when sheriff's deputies showed up to give
him a sobriety test. The deputies told the homeowner they had received a
call of a man trespassing at Bluegrass Apartments.
On a copy of
the 9-1-1 call, the chief identifies himself as "Reid" then tells
dispatch he received a call about a black male wandering around the
apartments with a boom box on his shoulder and a brown paper bag.
"He's
usually doesn't cause much trouble," the chief said on the call. "He
just sings and wanders around, but she said he's been drinking today."
Reid
then identifies Ronald Sanders and said they would probably find him
wandering in the area. Deputies found him at his friend's house.
According
to the sheriff's report, Ronald Sanders blew 0.04 on the preliminary
breath test and was arrested. He was held overnight and released to his
mother the next day.
Leonia Sanders believed his arrest was unlawful and filed a complaint against the Christian County Sheriff's Office.
What happened next
On
Oct. 23, 2017, Ronald Sanders was charged with third-degree criminal
trespassing. According to a memo in that court file, Chief Reid, the
complaining witness, states Ronald was seen trespassing at a woman's
house on Rosetown Road.
"Subject has been warned, by me, against
trespass on this property," the memo reads. "Victim called this a.m. to
advise the suspect was knocking on her front window wanting in. She did
not respond, she just called the police."
Leonia said the woman
had been picking Ronald up occasionally and bringing him to her home,
but Leonia asked her to leave Ronald alone, sensing their relationship
was inappropriate. Leonia said she told Reid how she felt about it.
"Chief
Reid told her to stay off my property and told Ronald to stay off of
her property," Leonia told the New Era last year. "But you're talking to
someone with a 51 IQ, he doesn't understand."
Ronald was arrested
a third time Feb. 13, 2018, at what he and his mother thought would be a
comprehensive evaluation with his Pennyroyal Mental Health case worker.
Instead, sheriff's deputies arrived to serve a judge's order to take
Ronald to an institution in Madisonville because of a missed court date.
Ronald
ran from deputies into traffic on Fort Campbell Boulevard and was
arrested. Video of the encounter showed Leonia Sanders hysterically
screaming and asking why he was being taken away.
According to his
court file, a letter from the courts returned undelivered; however, the
address it was sent to differed from the correct address his other
court documents were sent to. Leonia believes it was sent to the wrong
address on purpose.
"I've never missed a court date," she said in
2018. "Anyone will tell you, I'm always on top of things when it comes
to my son. I had been getting everything else, so they knew our
address."
Court date after court date
Following
Ronald Sander's arrest, he was admitted to Western State Hospital for a
mental health evaluation and then placed in a home in Madisonville.
All
of his criminal charges from July 2017 to February 2018 were dismissed
in March 2018 with probable cause, on the suggestion of assistant county
attorney at the time Lindsey Adams.
Adams suggested the court
drop the charges after the judge-ordered psychiatric examination,
stating that their priority became getting Sanders "the help that he
needs."
A competency and guardianship hearing was set for a few
days later; however, the court proceeding was delayed several times and
moved to Madisonville where Ronald Sanders was living at the time.
Prior
to the April 2018 hearing, Ronald said "I just want to go home"
multiple times before being told he couldn't talk to the media by his
state-appointed guardians.
Surrounded by a host of civil rights
activists, Leonia Sanders was at the Madisonville hearing pleading to
Hopkins District Judge David Massamore to allow her son to come home.
The
case was delayed once again when the judge scolded state case workers
for doing "sloppy work" because an interdisciplinary mental health
evaluation was incomplete in Ronald Sanders' file.
"The
report in the record was a medical report, but it had no name on it and
there was no way to confirm it was a real person," the judge said in
the April 2018 hearing. "I have no clue who filled out the report. It
has to be authenticatable."
The judge tasked Rebecca Perry,
supervisor for the Western branch of Guardianship Field Services, with
getting the correct medical report.
Leonia Sanders also told the
judge she had filed a complaint against Reba Pleasant, crisis
coordinator for the Pennyroyal Center whom she believed Ronald was
staying with in Madisonville. Allegedly, Ronald told his mother the
coordinator kissed him, but those claims were never substantiated.
When called about the lawsuit Monday, Pleasant personally declined to comment.
Ronald returns home
In
a closed proceeding under KRS 387.770, a jury decided unanimously in
May 2018 that Ronald is wholly disabled with regard to his financial
affairs and partially disabled in his personal affairs.
Later that
month, Leonia Sanders and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services
had to prove who would be the better guardian for Ronald.
The
judge decided May 29, 2018, that Ronald Sanders could go home to his
mother. Judge Massamore advised Leonia Sanders to work closely with the
Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
"We have a safety net in place. Use it," said Massamore in 2018, urging that Leonia Sanders not "make them the enemy."
Filing a lawsuit
Hoerter,
a criminal defense attorney in Louisville, said he's never seen a case
like this, but he believes it was "hi-tech kidnapping."
"Ronald
and his mother were excluded by design from the guardianship hearing
that stripped him of his civil rights," the attorney said. "Every
American has a constitutional right to a hearing when the government
wants to deprive them of life or liberty. That didn't happen here. Even
though the guardianship was illegal because of the constitutional
violation, for months afterward, the Cabinet and Pennyroyal fought tooth
and nail against Leonia from even visiting her son."
The lawsuit
complaint alleges, "the defendants did not want him in their community,
but they could not criminally confine him, so they conspired to abuse a
civil proceeding in order to put Ronald Sanders into custody."
"The
defendants' conduct violated the Plaintiffs' constitutional rights to
due process and to be free from excessive force and unreasonable
seizures, and as a direct and proximate result of the defendants'
conduct, the Plaintiffs suffered physical injury, extreme emotional
distress, and mental anguish, for which they seek to recover actual,
compensatory, and punitive damages."
Hoerter said he decided to
represent the Sanders because of "Leonia's courage, and her unwavering
dedication to her son," and he looks forward to presenting before a
judge.
Currently, motions for default against the Cabinet defendants are pending.
A Madison man has been sentenced to six years in prison and five
years’ probation for bilking an elderly Wallingford woman out of more
than a half-million dollars by claiming to have leukemia.
James J. Cicarella, 36, was sentenced Tuesday by New
Haven Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford, according to online court
records. Cicarella was sentenced after entering a no contest plea to
first-degree larceny charges stemming his August 2016 arrest by Madison
police.
Cicarella led an elderly Wallingford woman to believe she was giving him money to cover medical insurance and health care, police said in an affidavit filed in support of the arrest warrant application.
He actually used the money to buy jewelry, electronics and a house as well as furniture and a Cadillac Escalade.
The woman initially sued Cicarella after Wallingford police declined to investigate her complaint, calling it a civil matter. But her lawyer later contacted Madison police after he learned additional information under oath during the civil litigation, the affidavit said.
Among other things, in testimony in the civil case, Cicarella admitted that he wasn’t sick and didn’t use the funds for the purposes stated at the time, according to the affidavit. Madison police pursued the case.
Cicarella was charged with defrauding the woman of $578,466 in 2013 and 2014. Town records show Cicarella bought his two-story home on Yankee Peddler Path in December 2013 for $349,000.
Our guest this evening is Ron Shegda, a well known advocate in Pennsylvania who has devoted his time to exposing the depravity of the social services and guardianship systems operating not only in Pennsylvania, but across the country. Ron is also sponsoring the “Grace Packer” Anti CPS bill in the Pennsylvania legislature. The bill is based upon the life and horrible death of an adoptee named Grace Packer who was murdered and dismembered by her adoptive parents. Grace packer was born Susan Hunsicker and was taken from her mother after she suffered a brain injury.
Ron wrote “Easy Essays For Disbanding Social Services”, an excellent treatise on how and why these agencies need to be disbanded. Far from being protective services, child or adult protection agencies would be better described as predator services. These agencies prey on the vulnerable, upon families and the disabled for no other reason than cash incentives created through targeted funding to encourage the predators. They are buying, selling and trading us…the people.
Please join us as we expose more of the trafficking of other human beings taking place each and every day right here in the US….land of the free and home of the prey.
FROM OUR APRIL 1, 2019 PRINTED EDITION:
by Lonnie Brennan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “They killed him,” Marvin Siegel’s daughter Lisa Siegel Belanger wrote in a text.
She followed up to explain that six years of round-the-clock captivity
in his own home and in various medical facilities, together with forced
drugging and morphine, lack of proper care and the ability for his
family to interact with him and help with decisions, accelerated her
father’s death.
As we previously reported in this paper through a multi-part series
of articles, including a personal account by Lisa, six years ago her
father was taken from his Boxford, Mass. home via ambulance at the
direction of a visiting nurse, and was shortly thereafter placed in a
psychiatric facility, forced on drugs, and then, while in the facility,
signed over control of his estate to what Lisa detailed as predatory
lawyers. That list of “predators” is long, and despite many trips to
court to fight them, the lawyers continued to prevail.
Yes, Sometimes It IS All About the Money
At the time of his taking, Mr. Siegel’s known assets exceeded $6
million. During the past six years, attorneys drew off more than $4
million in what they termed as caring for the senior. A large chunk of
that money was spent on round-the-clock home health care. But the
numbers included more, much more.
Indeed, a review of the finances showed certain attorneys drawing
tens of thousands of dollars and more, quarterly from the estate, with
some racking up more than $200,000 in billing, and at attorney rates
over a wide range, including some at more than $450 per hour.
For their fees they answered e-mails from one another, paid Mr.
Siegel’s bills, ensured that he had his trash removed, the utilities
bills paid, grass mowed, repairs made, and all the normal things to keep
a household going.
With the signing over of his estate, Mr. Siegel lost all control and
was appointed a guardian and other lawyers who managed his affairs. He
was force-drugged without his knowledge to keep him complacent, and he
began a long, slow decline, according to multiple court documents and
written and oral testimony and writings by some of his family members.
Having to Beg to See Her Dad, Having to Beg for Information
With the exception of the money involved, Marvin’s case mirrored
others: An individual is taken, isolated from most family interaction,
medicated, and his/her assets are liquidated.
What is left are family members who have lost all control. In this
case, Lisa had to beg permission to see her dad. She had to beg
permission to access any information about him (how he was doing, where
he is – what hospital and why), and despite repeated, documented e-mail
exchanges with the guardian, including Attorney Brian Bixby, she was
always left begging for permission and most often not provided basic
information.
Now, think of this: Your father is a retired attorney; he has his
will and all his estate documents well taken care of, and in the
nightmare blink of an eye, everything is locked down by the courts and
controlled by strangers. One of those strangers was an attorney whom
Lisa and her father hired to defend him against the forced guardianship.
That lawyer, Attorney Marsha V. Kazarosian, initially worked on
Marvin’s behalf, stating for the courts that he was not suffering from
dementia and could manage his own affairs, then rapidly switched teams,
even refusing to accept Marvin’s firing of her, as documented in Lisa’s
filings with the court, which also included secured e-mails from
Kazarosian.
While we all like to think that the side of good will always win out in the end, occasionally time runs out. But is it the end?
Marvin’s objections and that of two of his three daughters were
constantly outgunned, as lawyers used Marvin’s money against him,
drawing off his accounts to pay their own fees to maintain control of
his money. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. We have obtained
multiple records confirming this practice and will print or post these
on the Internet as time allows.
Curiously, Marvin’s third daughter appeared to not bring objections
against her father’s taking and the lawyers’ expenditures throughout the
ordeal. Recent, court-required accountings have revealed that this
daughter received multiple, five-figure “gifts” from Marvin’s estate,
courtesy of the court-appointed attorneys. Lisa has requested to know
why, but as of press time, no answer has been forthcoming.
But Where from Here?
While the Boston Broadside can provide an overview of the case and
point readers to our past printed and Web-posted stories, we have barely
scratched the surface. Many volumes, folders, recordings, videos,
transcripts, e-mails, and other documents we continue to collect show
one thing quite clearly: The daughters were provided incomplete,
inconsistent, and often disturbing accounts of their father’s health.
This included what Lisa termed ice-cold and conflicting updates from
various lawyers and elder-service representatives, who one day would
push hospice care in an abrupt e-mail and then a day or two later
comment how Marvin had made a miraculous recovery, seemingly acting as
if the clock had turned back a year or more.
Similarly, Lisa noted that it seemed like on the eve of nearly every
court date she had to appear, her father was abruptly checked into a
hospital for observation. Lisa said, “I think they just want to mess
with me. This, and for some reason, he would be perfectly fine on a
Friday, then on a Monday morning they would transport him to the
hospital and he would spend one or more days there, then be discharged. I
kept asking about what kind of care he was getting on weekends, that it
must be a problem. But no, no answers.”
The guardians once had total control; now they have none. The sisters
must find out what happens next, how the estate will be settled, how
any wounds can be healed. How they can find closure. How their families
can function moving forward, and if there will be any justice for their
father.
ENID, Okla. — A new law went into effect last week allowing for
court-appointed volunteers to serve as guardians for disabled veterans
in managing their finances.
Senate Bill 931, which creates the Veterans Volunteer Guardianship Act, was signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt.
The
bill was authored by state Sen. Paul Rosino, R-Oklahoma City, a retired
Navy master chief petty officer with 25 years of service, according to
his Senate webpage.
SB
931 allows for volunteer guardians to be appointed by Oklahoma courts
to represent veterans who are incapacitated or partially incapacitated
to act as fiduciaries for their financial affairs.
"Many of
Oklahoma’s disabled veterans do not have anyone to help them make
critical decisions concerning their finances, health and other personal
affairs," according to an Oklahoma Senate press release. "Now these
heroes will have court-appointed, trained volunteers available to assist
them thanks to legislation signed into law Thursday."
“Sadly,
many of Oklahoma’s disabled heroes are falling victim to financial scams
or are making dangerous health decisions because they don’t have anyone
to depend on for help,” said Rosino in the press release. “This program
will provide trained volunteers who will be appointed by the courts to
meet the special needs of each veteran."
Under the new law,
veteran-specific guardians will be appointed under the existing
provisions of the Oklahoma Guardianship and Conservatorship Act.
Guardianships may be general or limited to the specific needs of the
veteran. Each guardian will be required to have a bond if managing a
veteran’s property.
The measure was requested by the Oklahoma Department of Veterans
Affairs (ODVA) to meet the needs of incapacitated veterans. According to
the Oklahoma Senate press release, approximately 10 percent of
Oklahoma’s fully or partially incapacitated veterans do not have family
members or friends to serve as their guardians.
“With
passage of Senate Bill 931, we now have a tool to help the neediest 10
percent of Oklahoma veterans,” said Joel Kintsel, ODVA deputy director.
“Senator Rosino’s bill opens the way to better health care and life
decisions for veterans who have no one else to help them.”
The new law applies to disabled veterans both inside and out of the state’s seven veterans centers.
Craig
Vance, a chapter service officer at Northwest Oklahoma Disabled
American Veterans in Enid and former DAV Oklahoma state commander, said
he's cautiously optimistic about the Veterans Volunteer Guardianship
Act.
"I'm for anything that makes it easier for veterans to live
their lives as normal as possible," Vance said, "and sometimes that
requires that other person to manage the purse strings."
The
Veterans Volunteer Guardianship Act was passed under an emergency
provision, and went into effect when it was signed last Thursday.
MELBOURNE, Fla. (WSVN) — A Florida woman has been arrested after she
was accused of molesting an elderly patient at a nursing home.
According to Melbourne Police, officers arrested Guettie Belizaire, in reference to a complaint of sexual battery from December.
Police said that managerial staff explained that Belizaire was found naked inside a patient’s room.
The victim, who suffered from medical ailments, told officers he had been sexually battered by her.
Detectives said Belizaire was missing for over an hour and a half in
the facility. Due to her absence, personnel started searching for her,
and she was found getting dressed in the victim’s bathroom.
The incident was then reported to management, who then reported it to police.
Detectives said Belizaire denied ever being in the room with the victim.
The victim was taken to a medical center where a rape kit was
conducted. Investigators said evidence from the kit confirmed the
victim’s claim.
Belizaire has since been charged with lewd and lascivious molestation of an elderly person and abuse of an elderly person.
HOUSTON - U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal remanded plaintiff
Sherry Johnston's breach of fiduciary duty claim against court appointed
guardian David Dexel to the 253rd Judicial District of Liberty County,
all while letting Harris County Probate Judge Christine Butts off the
hook.
“Unlike the claim against Judge Butts, the claim against Dexel
raises unsettled issues of Texas law,” wrote Judge Rosenthal on Mar. 14
in a 40-page ruling from the bench of the U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of Texas in Houston.
Johnston sued Judge Butts and Dexel in 2016, alleging that her
elderly mother Willie Jo Mills suffered broken bones and a rapid,
preventable decline, which contributed to malnutrition and her death
when she was a ward of the state residing in a care center under
guardianship, according to a press release.
“Because the action would be remanded, not dismissed, Johnston’s
claims are not at risk of being time-barred,” noted Judge Rosenthal in
her Memorandum and Opinion.
A ward of the state who has a court appointed guardian is typically
a younger adult with physical or developmental disabilities. However,
the Texas probate guardianship program along with the probate
guardianship programs in other states are being confronted with
allegations of neglect and malfeasance as they increasingly constrict
the elderly who are experiencing cognitive decline.
The cries of elder abuse around probate guardianship programs
gained national attention last year when U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of
Maine introduced the Guardianship Accountability Act on Nov. 28, 2018.
As previously reported by the SE Texas Record, once appointed by a
probate judge, guardians are empowered to sedate the elderly individual
with physician-prescribed psychotropic drugs, to deny choice of meals,
choice of health insurance, medical care and even visits with friends,
disability advocates, adult children and other concerned loved ones by
imposing visitation costs and residency in locked care centers.
The Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C. is currently
evaluating the proposed Guardianship Accountability Act, which could,
per the release, "impact 98 million Americans nationwide that are
expected to reach age 65 and older by 2060.”
Johnston’s breach of fiduciary duty claim alleges that the
court-appointed Dexel billed her mother Ms. Mills at his attorney rate
of $300 an hour for non-legal services instead of billing at a
guardian’s rate of $100 per hour.
“Dexel often charged his attorney rate to arrange payments to and
from Mills’ trust, a service which does not appear legal in nature,”
wrote Judge Rosenthal in her decision. “Because the court has found at
least one factual dispute material to deciding if Dexel breached a
fiduciary duty owing to Mills, summary judgment cannot be granted for
Dexel on this record.”
Before her death, Ms. Johnston’s mother, Mills, was among the
estimated 48,468 Texans conscripted to live under the thumb of a
court-appointed guardian in 254 counties, according to Office of Court
Administration data.
“The defense presents unsettled Texas- law questions that touch on
family relationships, estate management, the Texas probate system, and
the care of some of the most vulnerable members of our community,” Judge
Rosenthal stated. “They are questions that the Texas courts are better
positioned to answer.”
A local attorney has been charged, accused of embezzling from an incapacitated woman.
Genesee
County sheriff Robert Pickell said that attorney Joseph Baessler has
been arraigned on one felony count of embezzlement from a vulnerable
adult.
This comes after Pickell claims Baessler took money to pay for business and personal expenses.
"Well it's always despicable when someone takes advantage of elderly person," Pickell said.
But Pickell said that's exactly what a Burton-area lawyer did to a client when he was entrusted to protect her.
Pickell
said that Baessler was appointed conservator to a 64-year-old woman in
1984 after a car accident left her incapacitated. She received a
closed-head injury so severe she still requires 24/7 care, according to
the sheriff.
"Rather than helping her and being a support person, he turned out to be a monster," Pickell said.
Pickell
said the Elder Abuse Task Force found that while acting as the victim’s
fiduciary, Baessler billed for time and services he did not perform in
the amount of $87,962.27 dating back to 2010.
Further investigation revealed Baessler used the victim’s
money “to pay his legal secretary and make payments on his mortgage and
condominium fees. The victim’s money was also used to pay for various
personal expenses,” Pickell alleged.
Pickell said the probate
court got suspicious and had an audit performed on Baessler. Their
findings led to the attorney's arrest.
If convicted, Baessler could serve up to 15-years behind bars, and be forced to pay damages up to three times the amount stolen.
Baessler was arraigned in court on Tuesday, April 9 and is free on bond. He is due back in court later this month.
A 54-year-old Saginaw man allegedly transferred his great-aunt's
Gladwin house and vintage Mustang to himself along with reportedly
embezzling more than $200,000 from the 90-year-old woman.
Ricky Bradford Willson, who was his great-aunt's durable
power of attorney for 18 months, remains out of jail on a $40,000
personal recognizance bond pending an upcoming hearing in Genesee County
7th Circuit Court.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is prosecuting the case,
said instead of Willson looking out for his aunt, he transferred
$120,000 in cash from his aunt's bank account into his, signed a quit
claim deed transferring her house in Gladwin to himself, and transferred
the title of her classic 1967 Ford Mustang convertible to himself. This
earned Willson four felony charges.
Willson is charged with embezzlement of $100,000 or more
(for the $120,000 cash transfer), if found guilty he faces 20 years
and/or a fine up to $50,000 or three times the amount embezzled
(whichever is greater); embezzlement of $100,000 or more (for the
property transfer), if found guilty he faces; 20 years and/or a fine up
to $50,000 or three times the amount embezzled (whichever is greater);
intent to pass false title (vehicle transfer) if found guilty he faces
10 years and/or $5,000 fine; embezzlement by an agent or trustee of
$1,000 or more and less than $20,000 (vehicle transfer) if found guilty
he faces five years and/or $10,000 or three times the amount embezzled
(whichever is greater).
The alleged incidents occurred in November 2015.
Judge Christopher Odette of the 67th District Court,
bound Willson over to the court for trial. This came one day after
Nessel joined forces with the Michigan Supreme Court, members of the
legislative and executive branches of government and advocacy groups to
announce Michigan's Elder Abuse Task Force.
"This is a classic example of financial elder abuse: a
trusted relative who took advantage of his aunt," Nessel said via a
press release. "He literally took everything from her: her car, her
house and her savings account. However, his actions were discovered
because she knew things were amiss. The locks had been changed on her
house in Gladwin, her classic Mustang convertible was missing, and her
savings account was gone.
"She spoke up," Nessel said.
However, Nessel said that not every elderly person has
the capacity to speak up when things go awry. Which is why the Elder
Abuse Task Force was established -- to increase awareness of elder abuse
and to find and implement the best practices across the state so that
the elderly are protected.
Willson's case is expected to be heard by 7th Circuit Court Judge Richard B. Yuille, although no court date has been set.
Michigan residents can anonymously report any signs or
concerns about elder abuse to the Michigan Department of Attorney
General by calling 800-24-ABUSE 800-242-2873 or online at
mi.gov/elderabuse.
A six-month investigation by KHN and PBS NewsHour
finds that older Americans are quietly killing themselves in nursing
homes, assisted living centers and adult care homes.
When Larry Anders moved into the Bay at Burlington nursing home in
late 2017, he wasn’t supposed to be there long. At 77, the stoic
Wisconsin machinist had just endured the death of his wife of 51 years
and a grim new diagnosis: throat cancer, stage 4.
His son and daughter expected him to stay two weeks, tops, before
going home to begin chemotherapy. From the start, they were alarmed by
the lack of care at the center, where, they said, staff seemed
indifferent, if not incompetent — failing to check on him promptly,
handing pills to a man who couldn’t swallow.
Anders never mentioned suicide to his children, who camped out day and night by his bedside to monitor his care.
But two days after Christmas, alone in his nursing home room, Anders killed himself. He didn’t leave a note.
The act stunned his family. His daughter, Lorie Juno, 50, was so
distressed that, a year later, she still refused to learn the details of
her father’s death. The official cause was asphyxiation.
“It’s sad he was feeling in such a desperate place in the end,” Juno said.
In a nation where suicide continues to climb, claiming more than 47,000 lives in 2017, such deaths among older adults — including the 2.2 million
who live in long-term care settings — are often overlooked. A six-month
investigation by Kaiser Health News and PBS NewsHour finds that older
Americans are quietly killing themselves in nursing homes, assisted
living centers and adult care homes.
Poor documentation makes it difficult to tell exactly how often such
deaths occur. But a KHN analysis of new data from the University of
Michigan suggests that hundreds of suicides by older adults each year —
nearly one per day — are related to long-term care. Thousands more
people may be at risk in those settings, where up to a third of
residents report suicidal thoughts, research shows.
Each suicide results from a unique blend of factors, of course. But
the fact that frail older Americans are managing to kill themselves in
what are supposed to be safe, supervised havens raises questions about
whether these facilities pay enough attention to risk factors like
mental health, physical decline and disconnectedness — and events such
as losing a spouse or leaving one’s home. More controversial is whether
older adults in those settings should be able to take their lives
through what some fiercely defend as “rational suicide.”
Tracking suicides in long-term care is difficult. No federal
regulations require reporting of such deaths and most states either
don’t count — or won’t divulge — how many people end their own lives in
those settings.
Briana Mezuk, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, found in 2015
that the rate of suicide in older adults in nursing homes in Virginia
was nearly the same as the rate in the general population, despite the
greater supervision the facilities provide.
In research they presented at the 2018 Gerontological Society of
America annual meeting, Mezuk’s team looked at nearly 50,000 suicides
among people 55 and older in the National Violent Death Reporting System
(NVDRS) from 2003 to 2015 in 27 states. They found that 2.2% of those
suicides were related to long-term care. The people who died were either
people living in or transitioning to long-term care, or caregivers of
people in those circumstances.
Briana Mezuk(Courtesy of University of Michigan School of Public Health)
KHN extrapolated the finding to the entire U.S., where 16,500
suicides were reported among people 55 and older in 2017, according to
federal figures. That suggests that at least 364 suicides a year occur
among people living in or moving to long-term care settings, or among
their caregivers. The numbers are likely higher, Mezuk said, since the
NVDRS data did not include such states as California and Florida, which
have large populations of elders living in long-term care sites.
But representatives of the long-term care industry point out that by any measure, such suicides are rare.
The deaths are “horrifically tragic” when they occur, said Dr. David
Gifford, of the American Health Care Association. But, he added, the
facilities offer “a very supervised environment,” and settings that
receive Medicare or Medicaid funding are required to assess and monitor
patients for suicidal behavior.
“I think the industry is pretty attuned to it and paying attention to
it,” Gifford said, noting that mental health issues among older adults
in general must be addressed. “I don’t see this data as pointing to a
problem in the facilities.”
KHN examined over 500 attempted and completed suicides in long-term
care settings from 2012 to 2017 by analyzing thousands of death records,
medical examiner reports, state inspections, court cases and incident
reports.
Even in supervised settings, records show, older people find ways to
end their own lives. Many used guns, sometimes in places where firearms
weren’t allowed or should have been securely stored. Others hanged
themselves, jumped from windows, overdosed on pills or suffocated
themselves with plastic bags. (The analysis did not examine medical
aid-in-dying, a rare and restricted method by which people who are
terminally ill and mentally competent can get a doctor’s prescription
for lethal drugs. That is legal only in seven states and the District of Columbia.)
Descriptions KHN unearthed in public records shed light on residents’
despair: Some told nursing home staff they were depressed or lonely;
some felt that their families had abandoned them or that they had
nothing to live for. Others said they had just lived long enough: “I am
too old to still be living,” one patient told staff. In some cases,
state inspectors found nursing homes to blame for failing to heed
suicidal warning signs or evicting patients who tried to kill
themselves.
A better understanding is crucial: Experts agree that late-life suicide is an under-recognized problem that is poised to grow.
By 2030, all baby boomers will be older than 65 and 1 in 5 U.S. residents will be of retirement age, according to census data. Of those who reach 65, two-thirds can expect to need some type of long-term care. And, for poorly understood reasons, that generation has had higher rates
of suicide at every stage, said Dr. Yeates Conwell, director of the
Office for Aging Research and Health Services at the University of
Rochester.
“The rise in rates in people in middle age is going to be carried with them into older adulthood,” he said.
Long-term care settings could be a critical place to intervene to
avert suicide — and to help people find meaning, purpose and quality of
life, Mezuk argued: “There’s so much more that can be done. It would be
hard for us to be doing less.”
‘In A Desperate Place’
In Wisconsin, Larry Anders’ children chose to speak publicly because they felt the nursing home failed their father.
Anders, a taciturn Army veteran, lived a low-key retirement in
Waukesha, outside of Milwaukee. He grew asparagus, watched “Wheel of
Fortune” with his wife, Lorna, in matching blue recliners and played the
slot machines at a Chinese restaurant.
Following the November 2017 death of his wife, and his throat cancer
diagnosis, he initially refused treatment, but then agreed to give it a
try.
Anders landed at the Bay at Burlington, 40 minutes from his home, the
closest facility his Medicare Advantage plan would cover. The first
day, Lorie Juno grew worried when no one came to greet her father after
the ambulance crew wheeled him to his room. The room had no hand
sanitizer and the sink had no hot water.
In his week in the Burlington, Wis., center, Anders wrestled with
anxiety and insomnia. Anders, who rarely complained, called his daughter
in a panic around 2 a.m. one day, saying that he couldn’t sleep and
that “they don’t know what the hell they’re doing here,” according to
Juno. When she called, staff assured her that Anders had just had a
“snack,” which she knew wasn’t true because he ate only through a
feeding tube.
His children scrambled to transfer him elsewhere, but they ran out of
time. On Dec. 27, Mike Anders, 48, woke up in an armchair next to his
father’s bed after spending the night. He left for his job as a
machinist between 5 and 6 a.m. At 6:40 a.m., Larry Anders was found dead
in his room.
“I firmly believe that had he had better care, it would’ve been a different ending,” Mike Anders said.
Research shows events like losing a spouse and a new cancer diagnosis put people at higher risk of suicide, but close monitoring requires resources that many facilities don’t have.
“It’s sad he was feeling in such a desperate place in the end,” says
Lorie Juno of her father, Larry Anders.(Darren Hauck for KHN)
Larry Anders, a machinist and an Army veteran, enjoyed growing
asparagus and playing slot machines.(Darren Hauck for KHN)
“I firmly believe that had he had better care, it would’ve
been a
different ending,” says Mike Anders of his father, Larry Anders. (Darren Hauck for KHN)
Nursing homes already struggle
to provide enough staffing for basic care. Assisted living centers that
promote independence and autonomy can miss warning signs of suicide
risk, experts warn.
In the weeks before and after Anders’ death, state inspectors found a
litany of problems at the facility, including staffing shortages. When
inspectors found a patient lying on the floor, they couldn’t locate any
staff in the unit to help.
Champion Care, the New York firm that runs the Bay at Burlington and
other Wisconsin nursing homes, noted that neither police nor state
health officials found staff at fault in Anders’ death.
Merely having a suicide on-site does not mean a nursing home broke
federal rules. But in some suicides KHN reviewed, nursing homes were
penalized for failing to meet requirements for federally funded
facilities, such as maintaining residents’ well-being, preventing
avoidable accidents and telling a patient’s doctor and family if they
are at risk of harm.
For example:
An 81-year-old architect fatally shot himself while his roommate was
nearby in their shared room in a Massachusetts nursing home in 2016.
The facility was fined $66,705.
A 95-year-old World War II pilot hanged himself in an Ohio nursing
home in 2016, six months after a previous attempt in the same location.
The facility was fined $42,575.
An 82-year-old former aircraft mechanic, who had a history of
suicidal ideation, suffocated himself with a plastic bag in a
Connecticut nursing home in 2015. The facility was fined $1,020.
Prevention needs to start long before these deaths occur, with
thorough screenings upon entry to the facilities and ongoing monitoring,
Conwell said. The main risk factors for senior suicide are what he
calls “the four D’s”: depression, debility, access to deadly means and
disconnectedness.
“Pretty much all of the factors that we associate with completed
suicide risk are going to be concentrated in long-term care,” Conwell
said.
Most seniors who choose to end their lives don’t talk about it in advance, and they often die on the first attempt, he said.
‘I Choose This “Shortcut”’
That was the case for the Rev. Milton P. Andrews Jr., a former
Seattle pastor, who “gave no hint” he wanted to end his life six years
ago at a Wesley Homes retirement center in nearby Des Moines, Wash.
Neither his son, Paul Andrews, nor the staff at the center had any
suspicions, they said.
“My father was an infinitely deliberate person,” said Paul Andrews,
69, a retired Seattle journalist. “There’s no way once he decided his
own fate that he was going to give a clue about it, since that would
have defeated the whole plan.”
At 90, the Methodist minister and human rights activist had a long
history of making what he saw as unpopular but morally necessary
decisions. He drew controversy in the pulpit in the 1950s for inviting
African Americans into his Seattle sanctuary. He opposed the Vietnam War
and was arrested for protesting nuclear armament. His daughter was once
called a “pinko” because Andrews demanded equal time on a local radio
station to rebut a conservative broadcaster.
In 2013, facing a possible second bout of congestive heart failure
and the decline of his beloved wife, Ruth, who had dementia, Andrews
made his final decision. On Valentine’s Day, he took a handful of
sleeping pills, pulled a plastic bag over his head and died.
Milton Andrews wrote a goodbye note on the cover of his laptop computer in bold, black marker.
“Fare-well! I am ready to die! I choose this ‘shortcut,’” it read in
part. “I love you all, and do not wish a long, protracted death — with
my loved ones waiting for me to die.”
Retired
Seattle minister Milt Andrews, 90, ended his life on
Valentine’s Day
2013 at his assisted living center, leaving behind
a note written in
black marker on the cover of his laptop computer. (Dan DeLong for KHN)
Christine Tremain, a spokeswoman for Wesley Homes, said Andrews’
death has been the only suicide reported in her 18 years at the center.
“Elder suicide is an issue that we take seriously and work to prevent
through the formal and informal support systems that we have in place,”
she said.
At first, Paul Andrews said he was shocked, devastated and even angry about his dad’s death. Now, he just misses him.
“I always feel like he was gone too soon, even though I don’t think he felt like that at all,” he said.
Andrews has come to believe that elderly people should be able to decide when they’re ready to die.
“I think it’s a human right,” he said. “If you go out when you’re
still functioning and still have the ability to choose, that may be the
best way to do it and not leave it to other people to decide.”
Paul
Andrews was shocked when his father, the Rev. Milton P.
Andrews Jr.,
died by suicide at a Seattle-area assisted living
center in 2013. He has
since come to believe that elderly people
should be able to decide when
they’re ready to die. (Dan DeLong for KHN)
That’s a view shared by Dena Davis, 72, a bioethics professor at
Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Suicide “could be a rational choice
for anyone of any age if they feel that the benefits of their continued
life are no longer worth it,” she said.
“The older you get, the more of your life you’ve already lived —
hopefully, enjoyed — the less of it there is to look forward to,” said
Davis, who has publicly discussed her desire to end her own life rather
than die of dementia, as her mother did.
But Conwell, a leading geriatric psychiatrist, finds the idea of
rational suicide by older Americans “really troublesome.” “We have this
ageist society, and it’s awfully easy to hand over the message that
they’re all doing us a favor,” he said.
‘So Preventable’
When older adults struggle with mental illness, families often turn to long-term care to keep them safe.
A jovial social worker who loved to dance, Ellen Karpas fell into a
catatonic depression after losing her job at age 74 and was diagnosed
with bipolar disorder. Concerned that she was “dwindling away” at home,
losing weight and skipping medications, her children persuaded her to
move to an assisted living facility in Minneapolis in 2017.
Karpas enjoyed watching the sunset from the large, fourth-story
window of her room at Ebenezer Loren on Park. But she had trouble
adjusting to the sterile environment, according to son Timothy Schultz,
52.
“I do not want to live here for the rest of my life,” she told him.
Ellen
Karpas (second from left) and four of her five children attend a St.
Patrick’s Day parade in 2016. The following year, the 79-year-old died
by suicide at an assisted living facility in Minneapolis.(Courtesy of Timothy Schultz)
On Oct. 4, 2017, less than a month after she moved in, Karpas was
unusually irritable during a visit, her daughter, Sandy Pahlen, 54,
recalled. Pahlen and her husband left the room briefly. When they
returned, Karpas was gone. Pahlen looked out an open window and saw her
mother on the ground below.
Karpas, 79, was declared dead at the scene.
Schultz said he thinks the death was premeditated, because his mother
took off her eyeglasses and pulled a stool next to the window. Escaping
was easy: She just had to retract a screen that rolled up like a roller
blind and open the window with a hand crank.
Pahlen said she believes medication mismanagement — the staff’s
failure to give Karpas her regular mood stabilizer pills — contributed
to her suicide. But a state health department investigation found
staffers were not at fault in the death. Eric Schubert, a spokesman for
Fairview Health Services, which owns the facility, called Karpas’ death
“very tragic” but said he could not comment further because the family
has hired a lawyer. Their lawyer, Joel Smith, said the family plans to
sue the facility and may pursue state legislation to make windows
suicide-proof at similar places.
“Where do I even begin to heal from something that is so painful,
because it was so preventable?” said Raven Baker, Karpas’ 26-year-old
granddaughter.
Nationwide, about half of people who die by suicide had a known
mental health condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. Mental health is a significant concern in U.S. nursing
homes: Nearly half of residents are diagnosed with depression, according
to a 2013 CDC report.
That often leads caregivers, families and patients themselves to
believe that depression is inevitable, so they dismiss or ignore signs
of suicide risk, said Conwell.
“Older adulthood is not a time when it’s normal to feel depressed.
It’s not a time when it’s normal to feel as if your life has no
meaning,” he said. “If those things are coming across, that should send
up a red flag.”
Solutions
Roland K. Tiedemann was 89 when he took his life on Jan. 22, 2018, at a
Wenatchee, Wash., assisted living center. The action shocked his
daughter, Jane Davis, and left a void in the life of her daughter, Jayna, shown here at age 7½ in December 2014.(Courtesy of Jane Davis)
Still, not everyone with depression is suicidal, and some who are
suicidal don’t appear depressed, said Julie Rickard, a psychologist in
Wenatchee, Wash., who founded a regional suicide prevention coalition in
2012. She’s launching one of the nation’s few pilot projects to train
staff and engage fellow residents to address suicides in long-term care.
In the past 18 months, three suicides occurred at assisted living
centers in the rural central Washington community of 50,000 people. That
included Roland K. Tiedemann, 89, who jumped from the fourth-story
window of a local center on Jan. 22, 2018.
“He was very methodical. He had it planned out,” Rickard said. “Had
the staff been trained, they would have been able to prevent it. Because
none of them had been trained, they missed all the signs.”
Tiedemann, known as “Dutch,” lived there with his wife, Mary, who has
dementia. The couple had nearly exhausted resources to pay for their
care and faced moving to a new center, said their daughter, Jane Davis,
45, of Steamboat Springs, Colo. Transitions into or out of long-term
care can be a key time for suicide risk, data shows.
After Tiedemann’s death, Davis moved her mother to a different
facility in a nearby city. Mary Tiedemann, whose dementia is worse,
doesn’t understand that her husband died, Davis said. “At first I would
tell her. And I was telling her over and over,” she said. “Now I just
tell her he’s hiking.”
At the facility where Tiedemann died, Rickard met with the residents, including many who reported thoughts of suicide.
Julie Rickard (Frank Carlson, PBS NewsHour)
“The room was filled with people who wanted to die,” she said. “These
people came to me to say: ‘Tell me why I should still live.’”
Know What To Do
Families of people living in or transitioning to long-term care
receive little advice about signs of suicide risk – or ways to prevent
it. Here are steps to keep your loved one safe, based on interviews with
suicide prevention researchers.
Know what’s normal. Depression and thoughts of
suicide are not an inevitable part of aging or of living in long-term
care. Consider treatment for depression if the person experiences
trouble sleeping, muscle aches, headache, changes in appetite or weight,
restlessness or agitation.
Don’t be afraid to ask about it. Asking someone
about suicidal thoughts is unlikely to cause them to act on them. Start
the conversation. Ask about the facilities, the activities, the food.
Ask what would help them look forward to waking up or want to be alive.
If you have concerns, speak up. Let staff members
know if your loved one talks about wanting to die, or about actual plans
to end their lives. Work with the team collaboratively to discuss
solutions.
Ask about suicide protocols. Facilities should have a
plan for assessing, monitoring and preventing suicide risk. What’s the
protocol if someone is actively or passively suicidal? Fifteen-minute
checks? Close observation? Hospitalization? What’s the readmission
policy?
Plan for safety. If suicide is a concern, restrict
access to lethal means, including weapons, medications, chemicals, cords
and plastic bags. Ensure that windows, stairwells and exits are secure.
Most suicide prevention funding targets young or middle-aged people,
in part because those groups have so many years ahead of them. But it’s
also because of ageist attitudes that suggest such investments and
interventions are not as necessary for older adults, said Jerry Reed, a nationally recognized suicide expert with the nonprofit Education Development Center.
“Life at 80 is just as possible as life at 18,” Reed said. “Our
suicide prevention strategies need to evolve. If they don’t, we’re going
to be losing people we don’t need to lose.”
Even when there are clear indications of risk, there’s no consensus
on the most effective way to respond. The most common responses —
checking patients every 15 minutes, close observation, referring
patients to psychiatric hospitals — may not be effective and may even be
harmful, research shows.
But intervening can make a difference, said Eleanor Feldman Barbera, a
New York psychologist who works in long-term care settings.
She recalled a 98-year-old woman who entered a local nursing home
last year after suffering several falls. The transition from the home
she shared with her elderly brother was difficult. When the woman
developed a urinary tract infection, her condition worsened. Anxious and
depressed, she told an aide she wanted to hurt herself with a knife.
She was referred for psychological services and improved. Weeks later,
after a transfer to a new unit, she was found in her room with the cord
of a call bell around her neck.
After a brief hospitalization, she returned to the nursing home and
was surrounded by increased care: a referral to a psychiatrist, extra
oversight by aides and social workers, regular calls from her brother.
During weekly counseling sessions, the woman now reports she feels
better. Barbera considers it a victory.
“She enjoys the music. She hangs out with peers. She watches what’s
going on,” Barbera said. “She’s 99 now — and she’s looking toward 100.”
If you or someone you know has talked about contemplating
suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at
1-800-273-8255, or use the online Lifeline Crisis Chat, both available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
People 60 and older can call the Institute on Aging’s 24-hour, toll-free Friendship Line at 800-971-0016. IOA also makes ongoing outreach calls to lonely older adults.
The South Florida lawyers on the Florida Bar’s monthly discipline report
include a convicted fraudster, both name partners of one law firm and
an attorney who seems to have trouble putting things in writing.
Though the last two discipline reports from the Florida Bar included a
relatively light combined total of 19 attorneys combined, the stories
behind the disbarments and suspensions have a little more weight.
There’s at least over $1 million in
“misappropriated funds,” some of which went to Heat tickets. Lawyers
victimized by fraud and lawyers who participated in fraud. And attorneys
who took the money and, if not ran, disappeared, at least
professionally.
So, below in Part 1 are the alphabetical first 10 of the 19. The remaining nine will be in Part 2, which will post Monday.
▪ Golden
Beach attorney Jeremy Alters, admitted 1997 out of UM School of Law,
jumped in the deep end of trouble over improper transfers from Alters,
Boldt, Brown, Rash and Culmo’s trust account to the operating account.
The Bar alleged that forty-nine such
transfers occurred, totaling approximately $2,051,474.32, between
September 2009 and December 2010. The Court approved the Bar’s Petition
for Emergency Suspension and suspended Alters from the practice of law
on December 28, 2011.
The Referee found that Alters
should be reinstated because there was “no basis to conclude that Alters
had made or authorized the improper transfers, and that no clients had
been injured by the improper transfers.”
When the Florida Supreme Court
reinstated Alters in January 2012, the Bar filed another complaint
alleging Alters violated six Bar rules regarding the transfers. The
Referee opined that Alters not be further sanctioned, but that he pay
the Bar’s administrative costs ($1,250) while the Bar pays Alters’ legal
defense costs ($143,913.35).
The Bar challenged everything in the Referee’s Report but the ink and asked the State Supreme Court to disbar Alters.
The Court found the Referee
improperly excluded evidence that Alters lied about his personal tax
status and called the Referee’s Report “inadequate.” Not only did the
Court find the Referee came to “only the most basic conclusions from the
summarized testimony, and oftentimes has failed to make any findings
regarding undisputed evidence in the case,” but noted the findings of
fact were only four pages of the 71-page report.
“It is inconceivable that the
facts of such a complicated case, which has taken years to litigate and
the record of which spans thousands of pages, could be reduced to four
pages.”
The Court ultimately found that Alters misappropriated client funds and “must be disbarred.”
The Bar’s auditor testified at the final hearing
before the Referee that in addition to funds slid straight to Alters, he
used trust fund money to cover firm expenses and overdrafts and
personal expenses. Among those personal expenses: Miami Heat tickets.
▪ Orlando’s
Elizabeth Anderson, a Stetson Law School graduate admitted in 2003,
Stetson, has been suspended since Nov. 7 for trust account shortages of
$160,000, most of which were in two accounts.
A bar audit found a shortage of
$37,000 in the trust account at Seaside Bank that The Anderson Law
Group used for matters involving Stoneybrook West Master Association.
“During her sworn statement on
August 1, 2018, respondent admitted to the shortage in her Seaside trust
account and stated that she would not have been able to pay the
balances she owed to Stoneybrook without obtaining either the loan from
her parents or using funds from her retirement account.”
The Bar’s audit also revealed
that there was a shortage of at least $122,330.62 in another trust
account at Fairwinds Credit Union.
From
this account, the Bar says in its Petition for Emergency Suspension,
she used settlement funds for a client to office rent, rent, herself,
American Express, and Florida Lawyers Mutual.
▪ John
Borland of Ocala started his suspension Dec. 28, but seems like he
suspended his law career well before that. The Bar says Borland
abandoned his law practice, client files, fell behind in his Bar fees
and continuing legal education credits and then ignored Bar inquiries
about all this. The Florida Coastal School of Law had been a Bar member
since 2006.
John Borland
The Florida Bar
▪ Aldo
Busot of Coral Gables has been disbarred. In handling a suit to collect
a promissory note, Busot neglected his duties, missed deadlines and
kept his client ignorant of the case’s progression. She learned he filed
for voluntary dismissal from a friend. Busot was suspended for three
years on April 19.
When Busot didn’t submit an affidavit with the
clients, tribunals and opposing lawyers notified of his suspension and
the names and addresses of people and businesses that got a copy of his
suspension order, the Cal Berkeley School of Law graduate was found in
contempt and disbarred. He’d been a member since 1987.
▪ West
Palm Beach attorney Richard Carey, a Bar member since 2009 out of the
University of Pittsburgh’s law school, served a 10-day suspension in
December. According to Carey’s guilty plea, non-lawyers at his Pinnacle
Land and Title handled a real estate sale that involved a fraudulent
court order. Carey said he was on vacation at the time. He tried to
rectify matters upon hearing of the problem and eventually reached a
settlement with the harmed party.
▪ Miami’s
Robert Dixon’s 90-day suspension in May for mishandling his trust
account and suffering a shortage in trust funds required he produce
trust account records from July 2015 to the present. The University of
Florida School of Law graduate, a Bar member since 2006, needed to do
this by June 24. Dixon came across with records June 25 that the Bar’s
auditor found a day late and several dollars short of accuracy — checks
that had cleared listed as outstanding, deposits that had cleared listed
as not having cleared. For this failure, Dixon received a public
reprimand.
▪ John
Eagen of Tallahassee, a Florida State law school man and Bar member
since 1990, served a 30-days suspension that ended Jan. 7. Eagen
continued to represent a defendant in Volusia County in January 2017
despite being ineligible to practice law. This got revealed after he
failed to show up for a scheduled hearing and didn’t tell the judge of
his status, even as the judge asked repeatedly over the phone, “Is there
anything else you want to tell me?”
Eagen was ineligible because he was delinquent
paying $2,500 restitution from a previous Bar discipline case involving
how he charged a client.
