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| George Pappas and his daughter, Mary Hilliard, in a photo taken in the 1950s and preserved in a family photo album. Maria Sterlini/Special to the Record-Eagle |
BAD AXE — It was June 2021 and by the way she describes it, every bone in Maria Sterlini’s body told her the solution to a family emergency seemed obvious.
Five years earlier, a Huron County probate court judge deemed Sterlini’s cousin, Mary Hilliard, 68, incapacitated because of a mental health diagnosis. In 2016, the judge appointed Hilliard’s elderly mother, Rita Sniecikowski, as guardian.
But then last summer Sniecikowski, 83, was hospitalized, throwing Hilliard’s life into disarray. Hilliard’s family lost control of her care — and have since felt isolated from her.
Sterlini said she wanted to keep her family together, yet at times it seemed to her as if those in positions of authority did just the opposite.
A public guardian and staff with Adult Protective Services supported Hilliard’s emergency placement in an adult foster care home, while Sterlini and another close relative said they thought Hilliard should live with family.
This case came to light last August when Record-Eagle reporters began examining probate court records in 10 Michigan counties, as part of an ongoing probe of the state’s guardianship system.
Reporters learned, among other findings, problems can arise when family members, a judge, and social service agency staff all contend they are acting in the best interests of a vulnerable person, but disagree on what those best interests are.
Hilliard became a resident of Lauren Osantoski’s AFC in Bad Axe on June 9, 2021, and has had scant contact with some members of her family since.
“This doesn’t make sense to me,” Sterlini said. “I don’t understand why the family wasn’t included in this decision. We never wanted her in a foster care home.”
Sterlini said she and Hilliard’s father, George Pappas, of Harbor Springs, can count on one hand the number of times they’ve spoken with Hilliard in the past year.
The public guardian contends the frequency of communication is what Hilliard wants, while Sterlini and Pappas expressed concern the AFC’s phone policy, trauma experienced by Hilliard when her mother was hospitalized or stonewalling by caretakers could be responsible.
Calls to the foster care home by a reporter seeking to speak with Hilliard went to voicemail and were not returned. Osantoski, owner of the AFC home, did not return calls seeking comment. County officials confirmed the facility does not allow individual cellphones, providing instead access to a house phone.
Ashley Kidd, a case worker with Huron County’s Public Guardian office, which now oversees Hilliard’s case, said limited contact is what Hilliard has so far preferred.
“Mary does have all of their phone numbers and she is allowed to call if she wants to,” Kidd said. “She doesn’t always want that communication, at least not right at the moment.”
Pappas, 96, who owns a car and drives short distances but cannot make the 460-mile trip from Harbor Springs to Bad Axe and back, said he last spoke with his daughter in mid-April.
Sterlini and Pappas said they tried to make a conference call to Hilliard on April 24, Greek Easter, a holiday of special significance for the family, who are members of the Greek Orthodox Church. The call went to voicemail and wasn’t returned, Sterlini said.
Pappas is himself no stranger to the control a third-party court-appointment can exert over a person’s life. In 2021, an Emmet County Probate Court judge appointed him a conservator, the decision went awry and continues to be the subject of extensive reporting by the Record-Eagle.
“I feel like Mary has been stolen from us by all these people,” Pappas said, of staff with social service agencies and the probate court. “I can’t even get with her anymore on the telephone.”
Worth saving
Maria “Dolly” Sterlini, 74, lives 130 miles south of Bad Axe in Canton. When Hilliard’s mother was hospitalized, Sterlini, who lives alone, said she’d hoped Hilliard could come live with her.
Sterlini and Hilliard have always been close, Sterlini said, growing up as they did just blocks from one another in a Detroit suburb. Hilliard is artistically talented, Sterlini said, recalling summer afternoons the two spent together, painting and drawing.
“Mary is the most beautiful, heartfelt person you ever want to know,” Sterlini said. “There’s never been a cross word between us. She’s like my little sister. And she’s worth saving.”
Hilliard is one of more than 130,000 adults in Michigan who a probate judge has determined requires help managing their medical, housing or financial affairs and as a result have a court-ordered guardian, conservator or both.
When Huron County Probate Court Judge David Clabeusch appointed Hilliard’s mother as her guardian, he also appointed the county’s Public Guardian, Stephen Allen, as her co-guardian and later, her conservator. Jacilyn Geiger took over in the role when Allen retired in 2020.
Guardians make medical and housing decisions, conservators handle finances, which in Hilliard’s case included $643 in monthly social security disability benefits, records show, and $76 a month from Veterans Affairs.
A court-appointed attorney met with Hilliard on July 6, 2016, court records show, and reported back to the court that Hilliard did not drive, cook or grocery shop, but had easily recited her age, birthday and address.
The attorney said in her report that Hilliard questioned whether her mental health diagnosis was still accurate.
Sterlini said she also has questions about Hilliard’s diagnosis and treatment; annual guardian reports filed in 2017 and 2018 by Sniecikowski state Hilliard saw a psychiatrist twice annually for treatment and prescription medication refills.
Doubly Victimized
Pappas said he feels like his family has been doubly victimized by a system that has long failed to care for the state’s most vulnerable residents.
Decades of reform attempts by governors, attorneys general and legislators have so far failed to alter the Michigan judiciary, which controls guardianship and conservatorship in the state’s probate courts.
But it is family members and other “persons of interest” — and not the court — who bear the responsibility of making sure appointed guardians and conservators protect the people they are assigned to serve.
Pappas and Sterlini are listed as “persons of interest” in Hilliard’s case, records show, and after APS placed Hilliard in the AFC home, Sterlini fought Hilliard’s guardianship in court.
On Aug. 6, 2021, Sterlini filed a petition in Huron County Probate Court, seeking to have herself appointed Hilliard’s guardian. The court appointed a guardian ad litem who met with Hilliard and reported back to the court, but never met with or mentioned Sterlini, records show, even though Sterlini was the petitioner.
Hilliard attended the Aug. 10, 2021 petition hearing, where Judge Clabuesch asked her where she preferred to live, at the Osantoski home or with Sterlini — who the family knows as “Dolly.”
In hundreds of pages of documents the Record-Eagle reviewed for this story, the transcript of this hearing is the only time Hilliard’s voice was evident.
“The Osantoski home is a — what’s, what is it?” Hilliard asked the judge.
“Right there, where you are,” the judge said.
“Oh, oh, oh, oh. Lauren’s,” Hilliard said.
“Lauren’s,” the judge confirmed. “Do you —”
“I, I, I think I’ll go with Dolly,” Hilliard said.
The judge asked again whether Hilliard wanted to live with Dolly and the transcript shows Hilliard said living with Dolly would alleviate pressure on her mother.
When the judge responded that he didn’t want to know about Hilliard’s mother, he wanted to know which place was best for her, Hilliard said she couldn’t make up her mind.
“All right. That’s fine,” the judge said. “That’s a sign of somebody being incapacitated.”
Sterlini’s petition was denied, court records show, the public guardian retained its appointment as co-guardian and conservator and Hilliard stayed at the AFC home.
Sniecikowski, after being hospitalized, did not return to the apartment she shared with her daughter and, records show, now lives in a nursing home. In October the court removed her as Hilliard’s co-guardian.
A Difficult Spot
In Michigan there are a handful of counties, like Huron, in the state’s thumb, which fund public guardian offices and employ staff to accept probate court appointments. Their jobs are difficult and, records show, frequently underfunded.
A county public guardian is different from a public administrator, which most counties in Michigan have. Public administrators are attorneys who handle estates when there are no heirs on record. The state also has an overall public administrator, Katharyn Barron, who acts as “person of interest” for vulnerable people who’ve been appointed a guardian or conservator, and have no family of record.
“As a county-funded office, we don’t turn down any cases,” Kidd, employed by the county’s public guardian office since 2017, explained. “We are having a growing number of people who are on our caseload and now live outside the county as there’s a lack of appropriate housing available in our area.”
Vulnerable adults the public guardian office is appointed to serve all once lived in Huron County, Kidd said, and many still do, though others are placed in facilities as far away as Rose City (117 miles), Grand Rapids (204 miles), Berrien County (260 miles) and Detroit (113 miles).
A fact Sterlini said makes placement of Hilliard into a sought-after spot in the county, instead of with family, all the more inexplicable.
The county’s public guardian office has a full-time staff of four, Kidd said, who are responsible for the well-being of about 270 people. Kidd confirmed she and others in the office have had repeated communications with Sterlini and Pappas.
“Dolly does have the right to petition the court if she feels there is a more appropriate placement or a guardianship alternative of her being the guardian,” Kidd said, of Hilliard’s case. “I get where Dolly is coming from. We empathize that she wants her family close to her. Unfortunately, it just hasn’t ever gone that way due to Mary’s wishes.”
Kidd said the staff all know Hilliard and see her frequently. Osantoski’s AFC is near the public guardian’s office and Kidd said a dozen other people the office serves as guardian or conservator also live there.
Osantoski’s AFC is one of the only facilities in the area that accepts emergency placements like Hilliard’s, whose situation was first investigated by Adult Protective Services after Sniecikowski expressed concern for her daughter to a hospital social worker.
That doesn’t explain why Sterlini and Pappas weren’t informed, or why faulty information stating Hilliard was in danger of becoming homeless, was included in an APS log documenting the complaint.
Records show Sterlini began communicating with the public guardian’s office in 2019, asking to be kept informed about Hilliard’s care. Pappas said he wasn’t initially informed his daughter was placed in an AFC home, either.
Instead, when Pappas learned his ex-wife was hospitalized and he couldn’t reach his daughter, he called police.
Records show officers from Bad Axe Police Department visited Osantoski’s AFC for a welfare check and found Hilliard safe, happy and in good health. The involvement of law enforcement, however, prompted another alarming entry in the APS complaint log.
This entry, dated June 23, 2021, referenced a call to APS from Osantoski.
“Lauren stated Mary’s dad called her on Friday night,” the entry states. “No one knew she had a father. He called police and had them come out to check on Mary ‘cause Lauren would not release any information.”
If Pappas wanted to speak with his daughter, the APS log states, he had to go through the public guardian.
Kidd said the public guardian’s office is in a difficult spot – Sterlini and Pappas would like Hilliard to live with family, while by law public guardian staff must respect Hilliard’s wishes and according to Kidd, that means staying at Osantoski’s.
“She would do OK in a home setting with family or whatnot, if that was something she desired,” Kidd said, of Hilliard. “She’s been very happy where she’s at. She has not expressed wanting to go anywhere else.”
Pappas previously expressed concern about the care Hilliard is receiving there, and while state records with the Bureau of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs show the facility is in compliance, there have also been regulatory violations.
Since October of 2019 the facility has been the subject of six special investigations by LARA licensing consultants – none have substantiated allegations or recommended the facility’s license be reviewed.
“The residents are going to be afraid to tell you the truth for fear of what will happen to them when you leave,” stated one complainant, whose name LARA redacted.
Adult foster care homes in Michigan are required to be licensed by LARA, and many of these facilities draw all or a large portion of their residents from placements by social service organizations, like APS or community mental health.
Previous reporting by the Record-Eagle has found it is common for residents of AFC homes to be appointed guardians, conservators or both. AFC home residents are often elderly, developmentally disabled, mentally ill or struggle with memory issues.
Pappas said last year he was unable to speak with his daughter on Father’s Day, and is hopeful when he calls on June 19, the result will be different.
Pappas kept a tally of his attempts to talk with his daughter, jotting down on a yellow legal pad repeated denials and excuses, including, “we’re eating lunch,” or “It’s Sunday.”
Phone calls are the only way Pappas can communicate with his daughter, he said, since he is unable to drive to the AFC home and, while he sends cards and letters, she doesn’t write back.
“That is something that we have addressed with the home,” Kidd said, reiterating Hilliard has phone numbers of family members and can make outgoing calls if she wants.
Sterlini has continued to communicate with the public guardian’s office. For example, in October she emailed the office to ask whether Hilliard received the hot pink hat, scarf and gloves Sterlini sent to her for the winter.
Last year, during one of several visits a Record-Eagle reporter made to Pappas’ apartment in Harbor Springs, Pappas put the handset for his landline on speakerphone, called Osantoski’s AFC, gave his name and asked to speak with his daughter.
The staff member who answered the phone said Pappas had to call Hilliard’s guardian.
When Pappas asked for the name of the guardian and their phone number, the call was disconnected.
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