Far too frequently individuals and their family members find
themselves in a situation where they need the authority to step into the
shoes of a friend, family or loved one to make critical healthcare and
financial decisions on their behalf. Without this authority,
individuals can find themselves in precarious situations where they are
unable to advocate on behalf of a family member or pay bills or other
expenses essential for that individual’s well-being. A proper estate
plan that implements Healthcare and Financial Powers of Attorney can
alleviate this stress; however, often an individual fails to establish
an estate plan, or lacked the testamentary capacity necessary to execute
a Power of Attorney in the first place. In those situations, a
Guardianship may be the proper tool to enable another to act.
What is a Guardianship under Pennsylvania Law
A Guardianship is a means by which a substitute decision-maker can
act on behalf of an adult who lacks capacity to make some decisions.
Only a court, after a legal proceeding, may judge an individual to be
incapacitated and appoint a guardian for him or her. The Guardian then
assumes the care and protection of the person for whom they are
appointed as Guardian. The person over whom a Guardian is appointed is
referred to as a “Ward,” or incapacitated person. After their
appointment, the Guardian takes all legal decisions on behalf of the
person and the property of the Ward. This includes decisions concerning
the Ward’s support, health and education, among other critical
decisions. The Guardian is generally mandated to consult with the Ward
regarding these decisions and assist the Ward to develop self-reliance
and independence to the greatest extent possible. Yet because of the
broad authority given to a Guardian, questions often arise regarding
what decisions can and should be made by the Ward themselves. One
particular question that comes up often every two to four years is
whether the Ward is legally able to register and vote in primaries and
general elections. The short answer is a lawyerly one: it depends.
Voting Rights under Guardianships
Whether or not a Ward is able to vote will depend on the state where
the individual resides. Many states such as Arizona, Louisiana, South
Carolina, and Virginia have enacted statutes that outright forbid
someone appointed a Guardian from voting. Other states like Florida,
California and Oklahoma have laws expressly requiring the Judge
appointing the Guardian to decide at the hearing whether the alleged
incapacitated person can communicate and participate in the voting
process. Notably four states preclude “idiots” from voting. Depending
on your political views that prohibition may or may not be working.
In Pennsylvania, there is no statutory disqualification that prevents
a Ward from voting. Accordingly, there is a presumption that the
incapacitated person has the right to vote unless the Court Order
appointing the Guardian expressly takes that right away. Assuming the
Ward can communicate and wants to exercise their franchise, it is
important to include language in the Guardian Order expressly stating
the Guardianship shall not affect or terminate an incapacitated person’s
ability to vote. With that language established, voting registration
offices and polling places will be able to work with the Guardian and
enable you to exercise one of the most important rights in American
democracy.
Superior Court Judge Michael J. Kassel was first appointed to the court in 2001. He serves in Camden County. (Photo courtesy of the Administrative Office of the Courts)
A Camden County Superior Court judge is in hot water over a temporary assignment in the vicinage’s family division.
The Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct filed a formal complaint Tuesday
against Judge Michael J. Kassel, saying he violated court rules and
impinged on the judiciary’s integrity by failing to familiarize himself
with family law, complaining about his temporary assignment, and
repeatedly telling parties he lacked the expertise to adjudicate their
cases.
Kassel, who has been a judge for 20 years, was assigned to Camden
County’s family division once a week for roughly two months, from April
to June 2021.
During his brief stint in family court, Kassel repeatedly complained
to parties about his temporary assignment and said he “knew very little
about the applicable laws” because he last served in the division 18
years ago, according to the complaint. Kassel has handled civil cases
for most of his judicial career.
“Frankly, you could get a guy off the street that’s more experienced
than me with this stuff,” he said in one family court case, according to
the complaint.
On another occasion, the complaint said, Kassel asked attorneys to
treat him “like I’m a ninth grader in high school.” In another, he
requested “both sides walk me through the case like they were walking a
fairly well-educated first-year law student,” warning them against
assuming he knew anything about the law or their case.
Kassel also failed to recuse himself from a case involving an
attorney who defended him on an 11-year-old drunk driving charge that
ultimately was dismissed, and he also disparaged a court rule allowing
defendants in summary family cases to forgo filing court documents if
they appear in-person at a hearing, according to the complaint.
Complaints filed by the committee rarely result in judges being
suspended or terminated. Most often, judges are issued a reprimand or a
censure.
Judge shortage prompts reassignments
Kassel was assigned temporarily to the family division because of a shortage of judges there.
New Jersey’s judiciary has been grappling with a staggering number of vacancies.
By May, 75 seats on the Superior Court will be vacant, Judge Glenn
Grant, the Courts’ administrative director, told the Assembly Budget
Committee earlier this month. Another 22 retirements are expected by the
end of the year.
Those shortages, coupled with a pandemic-fueled slowdown in court
proceedings that is just starting to abate, have forced the judiciary to
temporarily reassign judges to the criminal and family divisions to
more quickly clear priority caseloads.
Kassel’s case appears to be the first reassignment to result in disciplinary proceedings.
There are just three vacancies in Camden County Superior Court, and
Gov. Phil Murphy has three nominations to the county’s bench awaiting
approval from the Senate.
The chamber’s Judiciary Committee, which must approve gubernatorial
nominees before they reach a floor vote, is expected to reconvene in
May.
The Month of May celebrates older Americans and their contributions
to our country and communities. In 2019 Michigan started the state’s
first Elder Abuse Task Force in order to protect some of the state’s
most vulnerable population. Yesterday a virtual symposium was hosted by
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to provide resources to
the public to aid in protecting elderly family and friends. Attorney
General Dana Nessel opened the symposium with a short introduction to
the problems that face older residents of the state.
“So here in Michigan the numbers are staggering. 73,000 older
adults are victims of elder abuse each and every year. And that is
completely unacceptable. The Elder Abuse Task Force tackle the
challenges faced by older adults at every angle; law enforcement,
healthcare, mental health, social services and financial issues. And we
an protect and help older adults by providing information about the
resources available through the many Michigan organizations who are a
part of the Task Force.” – Dana Nessel, Michigan Attorney General
The Elder Abuse Task Force has over 100 members and 55 plus
participating organizations, who are all fighting against elder abuse.
The symposium covered a wide variety of topics around signs of physical,
emotional and financial abuse. Yesterday’s event was meant for the
public, and the full symposium will be posted to the task force’s
website in the coming weeks. On June 9th the Elder Abuse Task Force will hold another symposium directed toward professionals who work with the elderly.
Call 855-444-3911 to report suspected abuse. Below you will find
links to the Elder Abuse Task Force’s website, along with information
about elder rights, incident report form, and video’s about the task
force and a registration link for the June 9th Symposium.
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta Delivers Remarks at the Elder Justice Decision-Making Capacity Symposium
Washington, DC
~
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery
Thank you, Andy, for that warm welcome and for all of your work as
the Department of Justice’s National Elder Justice Coordinator. I also
want to thank the Elder Justice Initiative, the Justice Department’s
Office of Legal Education, the Civil Division’s Office of Training and
our many federal partners, especially the Department of Health and Human
Services, who helped to plan this remarkable symposium.
I want to thank our participants and panelists, and I am delighted to
welcome all of you to the department’s first-ever Elder Justice
Decision-Making Capacity Symposium.
The Department of Justice is committed to using all of its tools to
ensure that older Americans receive the support and protections they
deserve. Every year, millions of older Americans are abused, neglected
and financially exploited, often by those who are entrusted to care for
them. The department has aggressively pursued justice for elders in a
wide variety of fields – from nursing homes that provide grossly
substandard care, to guardians and others who abuse their positions of
trust and to multinational fraud schemes that target older adults. The
department has also formed strong collaborative relationships with state
and local law enforcement and provides trainings and webinars on elder
abuse and financial exploitation to hundreds of civil attorneys,
prosecutors, judges, investigators and other elder justice professionals
in multiple disciplines, to ensure that they can appropriately respond
to the specific needs of older adults.
This symposium addresses a foundational part of our work to protect
our nation’s older adults: ensuring that they have access to justice and
that they are treated with dignity and fairness. Advocates,
prosecutors, law enforcement officers, judges, clinicians and others
have repeatedly reported that too often, older adults are being denied a
full measure of justice, in part because of mistaken assumptions or
inadequate assessments of their capacity to make decisions for
themselves.
These assessments can have deep and lasting impacts on the lives of
older adults. In the criminal context, these assessments may be critical
in ensuring that justice is obtained for older adult victims and,
through restitution in certain cases, that they are made financially
whole again. For example, an older adult may be a critical witness to a
crime that will not be prosecuted if she is deemed incompetent to
testify. Perpetrators who target older adult victims may seek to
manipulate them, and a victim’s decision-making capacity may affect
their interactions with their abusers. Assessing the victim’s
decision-making capacity can help law enforcement tailor investigations
to identify those cases that may, initially, appear to be cases
involving a consenting adult, when in fact the victim did not – or could
not – consent.
In civil cases, assessments about the need for a guardianship or
conservatorship may govern an older adult’s ability to make core life
decisions – where she can live, what medical decisions she can make, how
she can spend her hard-earned money and with whom she can develop
friendships and find companionship and love.
Those of us who work in the legal system need to have a deeper
understanding of how to address the specific needs of older adults and
how to appropriately assess an individual’s decision-making capacity in a
given case. As we work to combat elder fraud and abuse, we must equip
ourselves with the knowledge and tools to ensure that we protect their
rights and pursue justice when they have been victimized.
That is why I am truly excited that you all have joined us for this
symposium. Over the next three days, we will be engaging in a robust
conversation about how we can best serve and protect older adults in
this country. Participants span the spectrum of experts – including
professors, clinicians, researchers, judges, prosecutors, law
enforcement officers, aging services and social services professionals,
administrative officials and many others. Although you come from many
different fields, we are all here because we share a deep commitment to
supporting and protecting older adults.
Your diversity of experiences is critical: it is through the
cross-sectional expertise that you all bring that we will be able to
have a fuller understanding of how to safeguard the rights of older
adults. We need clinicians to help legal professionals, judges and adult
protective services officials understand what capacity assessments can
and cannot tell us about an older person’s abilities, and we must ensure
that the tools used to assess decision-making capacity are valid and
reliable.
Clinicians and elder justice professionals also need to share common
understandings about their respective roles in the legal system, and I
hope we can learn how to enhance communication between and among
clinicians and elder justice professionals.
Finally, this symposium will explore how misconceptions about aging
and decision-making capacity impact our civil and criminal legal
systems. We need to confront and dispel negative stereotypes about the
cognitive and decision-making capabilities of older adults. Even when a
person has been diagnosed with a cognitive disability, we must
understand how to reliably assess their actual decision-making capacity
and how that capacity impacts the outcomes of a specific case or
prosecution.
This symposium is just the beginning of the work we must do to ensure
that all of us – judges, prosecutors, advocates, academics,
researchers, guardians, adult protective services, aging services,
social services professionals, elder justice professionals, doctors and
clinicians, law enforcement officers and government officials – have a
greater understanding of how aging and decision-making capacity impacts
older adults so that the civil and criminal legal systems honor the
rights of older adults, provide them with the greatest autonomy possible
and protect those who have been abused, neglected or subjected to
financial exploitation.
Thank you for sharing your vision, expertise and leadership as we
forge forward together in pursuit of justice for our country’s older
adults.
ALTOONA — A disbarred financial
adviser who ran a wealth management firm in Altoona has agreed to plead
guilty to two criminal fraud charges brought against him by the federal
government.
Michael F.
Shillin, 32, signed an agreement in late April to plead guilty to one
count each of wire fraud and bank fraud, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office
will dismiss nine other wire fraud charges contained in the same
indictment.
Shillin’s next
scheduled appearance is to formally enter his plea in U.S. District
Court for the Western District of Wisconsin on May 23 at a courtroom in
Madison.
The
wire fraud charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison,
three years of extended release and a $250,000 fine. The maximum penalty
for bank fraud is 30 years in prison, five years of supervised release
and a $1 million fine.
Shillin also will be required to pay
restitution to his victims. That means he must pay back $462,000 in
loans to Northwestern Bank of Chippewa Falls, but the amount he’ll have
to return to his clients has not yet been determined.
Shillin
was indicted in late October on the federal charges, but then allowed
to be on release while his case was pending. Judge Stephen L. Crocker
revoked Shillin’s release on April 14 after the defendant had been
caught taking an unauthorized tropical vacation with his girlfriend to
the U.S. Virgin Islands in early April.
The
plea agreement explains how the government’s case relied on former
clients and their documentation to establish that Shillin had lied to
them about their investments.
“Shillin
kept his clients artificially happy so they would refer other clients,
keep money invested for longer, and invest more money,” stated the
agreement written by Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Corey. Shillin’s
firm charged its clients a yearly fee equal to a percentage of the money
it managed for them.
One instance cited in the government’s
case is a married couple that Shillin managed money for. He told them
he’d bought shares of SpaceX for them and they were making a large
profit. However, Shillin never did buy those shares, and SpaceX
continues to be a private company that does not sell stocks to the
general public. The plea agreement cited text messages and emails from
fall 2019 and spring 2020 between the couple and Shillin to corroborate
the allegations.
Shillin also
is accused of defrauding clients by misrepresenting the costs and
benefits of insurance policies he convinced them to buy. For example,
Shillin advised a couple to switch their State Farm life insurance
policies to ones at John Hancock with better long-term care benefits.
However, when one of those clients called John Hancock in October 2020
about the policy, the company said the policy number provided by Shillin
was invalid. The client then discovered the money provided to Shillin
to buy the life insurance policy was still sitting in an investment
account at Shillin Wealth Management.
Shillin also made fraudulent tax
documents that led clients to believe they were eligible for tax breaks
they were not entitled to, the plea agreement stated. Based on 1099
forms from Shillin, a couple expected to only pay $1,628 in federal
taxes. But when learning they didn’t qualify for tax breaks Shillin
promised, the couple re-filed and found they owed $27,512 in federal
taxes.
Between August 2020 and
September 2020, Shillin took out a total of $462,000 in loans from
Northwestern Bank with the explanation it was to cover his firm’s
payroll. To show he had collateral for the loans, Shillin provided a
statement showing $1.25 million in an account owned by Shillin Wealth
Management. However, that statement was actually for an account
belonging to a couple advised by Shillin, not the financial firm itself,
according to the plea agreement.
In
addition to the federal criminal charges against him, Shillin also
filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in November. The bank and multiple former
clients are among the creditors listed in Shillin’s bankruptcy
petition. That case is still pending in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for
the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
According
to a Financial Industry Regulatory Agency database, Shillin began his
career as a broker in July 2011 at Edward Jones in Chippewa Falls before
changing firms to Raymond James Financial Services in August 2014. That
second firm fired Shillin in mid-2018 for failing to follow the
company’s procedures involving client fees, so then he opened his own
firm. Shillin Wealth Management was in business in Altoona’s River
Prairie development from mid-2018 until it closed at the end of 2020
while he was under investigation.
Shillin Wealth Management managed 2,992
accounts with nearly $135.5 million in assets in them before the firm
went defunct in December 2020, according to a financial report provided
to the court.
In January, the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission barred Shillin from being a
financial adviser, following similar bans imposed by Wisconsin
regulators and FINRA.
A
Metairie woman was arrested after stealing money from the elderly,
according to the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff's Office.
The
sheriff said Tammy Davis, 54, is accused of impersonating an Ochsner
staff member and fraudulently taking money from elderly victims.
The investigation began in March 2022. The victims told the sheriff
that a woman dressed in medical scrubs, later identified as Davis,
approached them at local grocery stores and began a conversation,
telling them she worked for their doctor and asking the victims if they
recognized her from their doctor's office.
The sheriff said she
then lied to the victims, telling them her car had broken down in the
parking lot of the stores, and she needed money to pay the wrecker
service standing by.
The victims gave the payment they believed was for the wrecker service.
Davis
then told the victims she would contact them and pay them back when she
returned to work at the doctor’s office, according to the sheriff.
A warrant was issued for Davis’ arrest.
She was booked with two counts of theft- less than $1,000, and two counts of exploitation of the infirmed, a felony.
After her arrest she was taken to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.
The sheriff said Davis has a history of illegal drug charges as well as exploitation of the infirmed, bank fraud, and theft.
A member of the San Diego Police homeless outreach team speaks to a
homeless resident staying in the Midway District on Sept. 28, 2021. /
Photo by Adriana Heldiz
Two San Diego City Councilmembers want to create a unit in the City
Attorney’s Office focused on placing homeless residents who are unable
to care for themselves in treatment and housing.
City Councilmembers Jennifer Campbell and Marni von Wilpert on Tuesday announced
they want to allocate $500,000 for City Attorney Mara Elliott’s office
to fund a treatment coordinator to assess individuals’ needs and two
deputy city attorneys to coordinate with county officials who oversee
conservatorships, make referrals and file petitions in court.
The councilmembers’ budget proposal coincides with a wave of statewide discussion about behavioral health reforms including a controversial pitch by Gov. Gavin Newsom
aiming to make it easier to order people with serious mental illnesses
to seek treatment. It also coincides with increased activity already
playing out on Elliott’s watch.
The San Diego County’s Public Conservator’s Office
has long led the charge when it comes to recommending conservatorships
and overseeing treatment and other decisions for people considered to be
a danger to themselves or others, or to be deemed “gravely disabled.”
But since 2020, Elliott’s office has said city attorneys have
formally made roughly a dozen referrals to the county to urge officials
to pursue probate conservatorships for people the city decided couldn’t
care for themselves. And von Wilpert said Tuesday that Elliott’s office
is now reviewing about 20 additional cases.
Laramie County District Attorney Leigh Anne Manlove continues to fight a disciplinary recommendation that she be disbarred.
CHEYENNE – The Laramie County
District Attorney has formally objected to a disciplinary panel’s
recommendation to the Wyoming Supreme Court that she be disbarred. She
argued that, except in one instance, the panel did not have the “clear
and convincing evidence” required to show she violated professional
conduct rules for attorneys in the state.
In
a document filed with the state’s high court Tuesday, DA Leigh Anne
Manlove and her attorney, Stephen Melchior, asserted that, even if the
court did decide she violated rules, appropriate sanctions under
American Bar Association standards would be things like “private
reprimand” and “public censure.” Manlove rejected an argument that
disbarment would not remove her from her elected position as DA, calling
it “illogical.”
“Suspending or revoking the (Laramie
County District Attorney’s) license to practice law while they are in
office would effectively remove them from their elected position by
disabling their legal authority to act as the (district attorney),” the
response said.
The
state Supreme Court oversees the Wyoming State Bar and its Board of
Professional Responsibility, from which a three-person disciplinary
hearing panel was chosen. The BPR is the hearing body for attorney
discipline in the state.
The court will ultimately decide what consequences Manlove will face. This process may take several months.
Bar Counsel Mark Gifford declined to comment on Manlove’s response.
Formal
charges filed by the Office of Bar Counsel last year with the State Bar
alleged Manlove had mishandled the prosecution of cases and
inappropriately dismissed certain cases, and that she created a hostile
work environment.
Following the
conclusion of the hearing, the panel announced Feb. 11 that it would
recommend Manlove be disbarred, or lose her ability to practice law in
Wyoming, for violating six rules of professional conduct. It filed its
formal recommendation with the Supreme Court on March 11.
The report also recommended Manlove be required to pay an administrative fee of $3,000.
In her response, Manlove rebuked the
choice by the BPR and Office of Bar Counsel to hold the eight-day
hearing at “the lovely and luxurious” Little America Hotel & Resort
in Cheyenne, accusing the BPR and OBC of “sparing no expense” on meals
and beverages.
“The Office of
Bar Counsel’s willingness to expend (State Bar) resources in this way is
outrageous, and no doubt done with full confidence and expectation that
Manlove would be reimbursing (the Bar) in the end,” the response said.
The
state Supreme Court has discretion over whether Manlove is responsible
for reimbursing the Bar more than $91,000 in total for costs associated
with the hearing and investigation.
The
largest portion by far was $64,635.75 for lodging, meals, meeting space
and use of audio/visual equipment. The Wyoming Room, the ballroom in
which the disciplinary hearing was held, cost $1,200 each day – except
for the two Fridays the ballroom was used, when the price increased to
$2,600.
Manlove noted the
“extraordinary” toll the almost year-and-a-half proceedings took on her
life, and that the more than $91,000 requested for reimbursement doesn’t
include more than a year of legal defense fees and costs.
Disregard of witnesses
Manlove
also said the BPR panel “markedly discounted the testimony of Manlove
and her witnesses,” and “gave full credence to to (Special Bar Counsel
Weston W. Reeves’) witnesses but expressed distrust of Manlove and her
legal assistant, Lisa Riggs.”
The
DA rejected the panel finding she was “combative” and “defiant” during
the hearing, as Manlove had been “under attack for more than a year by
the time the hearing took place and was there to defend herself,” the
response said.
Manlove added
that she had taken responsibility, long before any formal charges, for
failing to produce evidence in a timely manner in a 2019 case involving
the defendant Rodney Law. She said this is the only allegation for which
the panel has clear and convincing evidence.
“Manlove also apologized and took responsibility for her perceived harsh treatment of certain employees,” the response said.
She
also reiterated arguments made in previous responses and during the
hearing that she did not act improperly in her attempts to deal with
proposed budget cuts by the state, or in her discretion to fire or hire
certain attorneys and other staff members at the beginning of her
tenure.She also asserted thatThe DA said
there was no evidence to support the assertion that she’d directed
cases to be dismissed because she wasn’t prepared to go to trial.
The
panel discounted testimony by employees who did not support the
allegation that Manlove fostered a chaotic or toxic work environment,
the response said, while finding testimony that supported that
allegation credible.
Contemporaneous
notes by former office manager Amanda Santee were “improperly
admitted,” following an objection by Melchior, Manlove’s attorney, that
they only consisted of hearsay statements, according to the response.Manlove
reiterated an assertion she testified to, that “she has multiple
reasons to believe she is/has been the target of person animus of Mark
Gifford, Bar Counsel.”
Contrary
to the panel’s findings, there was “ample testimony” that a former
deputy DA, Caitlin Harper, “had an interest in seeing Ms. Manlove
removed from office” so she herself could take the position. Harper was
the only person who spoke to a few Laramie County judges about alleged
dysfunction in the DA’s office, save for a comment by former attorney
Cameron Geeting that the office was “hostile and not working for me,”
according to the response.
Gifford then seemed to solicit the
assistance of Harper and other either former or soon-to-be-former
employees to gather information on Manlove.
Manlove
wrote that, rather than bring concerns she’d heard from Harper to her
directly, Laramie County District Judge Catherine Rogers and other
judges decided to write a letter to Gifford. He used the letter,
“prepared (by the seven Laramie County judges) with the encouragement
and guidance of Mr. Gifford” as the basis of a petition filed a day
after with the Supreme Court to immediately suspend Manlove, the
response said. The court denied that petition.
TEXARKANA, Texas -- A woman accused of stealing more than $17,000
while working as a caretaker for a woman in her 90s pleaded not guilty
Tuesday to exploitation of the elderly.
Tiffani Lucille Barker, 37, was taken into custody on an unrelated
felony theft charge at the end of her hearing before 102nd District
Judge Jeff Addison. Barker expressed surprise when Addison told her she
was being taken in on a warrant.
Assistant Public Defender Deborah Moore entered a plea of not guilty on
Barker's behalf to a charge of exploitation of the elderly. Barker was
free on a $40,000 bond in the exploitation case until her arrest in
court Tuesday.
Barker allegedly made numerous cash withdrawals from multiple
accounts before the suspected theft was reported to Texarkana, Texas,
police in July 2020, according to a probable cause affidavit. Barker was
arrested on the exploitation charge in November 2021.
Barker's phone number was allegedly attached to a Discover card the
elderly woman's family knew nothing about. Items purchased with the card
online were allegedly delivered to Barker's address, and the bill was
allegedly paid from one of the elderly woman's bank accounts.
Assistant District Attorney Bradley Akins said the full amount of
restitution allegedly owed the elderly victim may have increased since
the case was initially investigated.
Barker is currently serving a 10-year term of felony probation in
Miller County, Arkansas, for theft of property. According to records in
that case, Barker stole more than $13,000 from a Texarkana, Arkansas,
couple. Barker's probation in Miller County began April 2, 2019.
If convicted in Bowie County of exploitation of an elderly person, Barker faces two to 10 years in prison.
The medical director for more than a dozen hospice providers in Mississippi supplied them with a steady stream of patients over the course of a decade, federal prosecutors said.
There was just one problem: Many of those patients weren’t dying.
Dr. Scott Nelson, a licensed physician from Cleveland, Mississippi, is accused of funneling patients to various hospices to help the owners defraud Medicare and Medicaid out of at least $15 million. A federal jury found him guilty of health care fraud after a two-week trial in the Northern District of Mississippi, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release on Tuesday, April 5.
Defense attorneys representing Nelson did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on April 6.
“Just to enrich himself, Dr. Nelson fraudulently prescribed hospice care for a steady stream of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries who he knew were not dying, ignoring the fact that under this end-of-life status they would not be eligible for curative services,” Special Agent in Charge Tamala E. Miles said in the release.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said the alleged scheme violated patients’ trust, adding they shouldn’t “have to worry about being pawns in a get-rich-quick scheme.”
Nelson was indicted in 2017 alongside three owners of the hospices for which he was the medical director. The four of them were accused of concocting and executing the alleged fraud scheme from at least 2005 until 2015.
According to the indictment, Nelson’s job was to certify patients for hospice at one of several facilities in the Mississippi Delta. The owners of those facilities are then accused of submitting fraudulent claims for reimbursement of services to Medicare and Medicaid on behalf of those patients.
Prosecutors said the hospice owners often brought three or four patients at a time to Nelson’s office in Cleveland, located about 120 miles northwest of Jackson, Mississippi.
“In almost all cases, the patients had no idea they were being placed on hospice and multiple patients testified at trial that Dr. Nelson did not explain hospice to them and did not tell them he was referring them to hospice care,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Nelson signed medical records on their behalf that allowed the hospice owners to bill Medicare and Medicaid for unnecessary medical care, prosecutors said.
The hospice owners received more than $15 million from the government based on his bogus patient referrals, according to the Justice Department. Prosecutors said Nelson was paid $442,000 in medical director fees from at least 14 hospice providers between 2009 and 2014.
All three of the hospice owners named with Nelson in the indictment pleaded guilty before his case went to trial on March 21.
Court filings show Nelson submitted a plea deal in 2019 that a judge later rejected.
According to the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure, Nelson’s medical license is still active. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 27.
The state Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to disbar former state
senator and longtime attorney Shannon Robinson for spending settlement
money intended for a client’s “horribly injured” daughter on his
personal expenses, such as keeping his Albuquerque law practice afloat.
Shannon Robinson
Despite a plea from lawyer Shannon Robinson for “mercy,” the court
adopted the recommendation of a disciplinary board hearing panel to
impose what Chief Justice Shannon Bacon described as “the ultimate
penalty of disbarment.”
Robinson, 74, had two prior disciplinary offenses over his 48-year
legal career in New Mexico, but those weren’t mentioned Tuesday during
oral arguments prior to the court ruling. He served 20 years in the
state Senate representing District 17 in Albuquerque as a Democrat
before losing a reelection bid in 2009.
Robinson contended he wasn’t dishonest when he spent about $43,000
from a client’s legal settlement reached in 2016. The client was caring
for her daughter who he said on Tuesday was “horribly injured” in a
motorcycle accident.
He attributed the lapse to poor record keeping and his attorney
Charles Vigil told the justices that he tried to repay $35,000 four
years later but his client wouldn’t take it. The client by that time had
hired another attorney to file a malpractice case against Robinson.
Robinson was also faulted by disciplinary board assistant counsel
Jane Gagne on Tuesday for waiting until disciplinary charges were filed
against him to try to repay a portion of what he owed.
Gagne also told the court he exhibited a lack of cooperation in responding to requests for information about the missing money.
Bacon questioned how Robinson could not have had a “dishonest motive.”
And she noted the “harm” of Robinson depriving his client and her
family of the “funds that haven’t been available to care for the child.”
“Where’s that money now,” Bacon asked, to which Robinson’s attorney Vigil responded, “I don’t know the answer.”
Robinson, in addressing the court, didn’t reply to the question. He
said he had “tremendous regret” and “tremendous remorse that I used the
funds to keep my practice alive.”
“I ask for your mercy,” he added.
He said he represented the family of the accident victim for “many,
many, many years and I did a lot of things for them besides
(representing them) in this accident.”
Robinson has explained his lack of communication about his accounting
of the settlement money in part to being “too sick to get out of bed
and having a hard time reading in late 2019 and early 2020,” Gagne told
the court, adding that Robinson provided no medical evidence of his
illness.
Court records state that one of Robinson’s prior disciplinary
offenses involved a lawsuit he filed that had no basis. In the other, he
received a formal reprimand for failing to promptly notify medical
providers of settlements in four of his personal injury cases, the court
record shows.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A man is behind bars after scamming an elderly woman out of thousands of dollars.
On
Nov. 5, an 81-year-old woman agreed to pay Cleveland Bobo, 35, to cut
down two small trees at her home in the 2200 block of Tidmington Drive
for $7,100.
The
victim said Bobo told her she could only pay by credit card but that he
did not have the ability to accept credit cards, an affidavit said.
On the
same day, Bobo had his friend and business associate charge the victim’s
MasterCard to the friend’s Square business account in the amount of
over $7,000, reports said.
According
to the affidavit, after the work was been done, on Nov. 9, Bobo and the
friend returned to the victim’s home and told her that the transaction
did not go through.
Bobo and the friend then scammed $6,500 from the victim, officials said.
The
friend had his sister walk the victim through opening a charge account
with PayPal. The victim withdrew $1000 from her bank and then sent
$5,500 to the sister’s cash app, an affidavit said.
The
sister gave a statement on body-worn camera and stated that she
remembered the transaction. She helped her brother set up the Square
account and business name, court records show.
She
said that on Nov. 9, she received the money from the victim on her cash
app and divided the money between Bobo and her brother, the affidavit
said.
Bobo is charged with theft of property and financial exploitation of an elderly or vulnerable person.
The suspect’s bond was set for $40,000 and there is no court date information.
Elder abuse prevention advocates are cheering the conviction of a
Colorado Springs conservator accused of stealing from her wards. And
lawmakers hear emotional testimony from loved ones with guardians.
by Jennifer Brown
It was a call about an unpaid bill from her mother’s doctor that led Barb Dowski to begin unraveling the deception.
Dowski
tried to question her mother’s court-appointed conservator, who was in
charge of paying those medical bills and the rest of Barbara Moore’s
finances, but got no answers. So she headed down a paper trail on her
own, and what she discovered hit her like a punch in the stomach.
In
the span of five years, her mother’s court-appointed conservator had
written 26 checks to herself from Moore’s bank account, totaling
$118,000.
Dowski’s sleuthing led to a Colorado Springs police investigation
that lasted more than three years and uncovered 19 victims, all at-risk
adults assigned to the same El Paso County conservator, Andria Beauvais.
In all, Beauvais was accused of stealing more than $400,000. When she
was sentenced in Colorado Springs in April, the courtroom was filled
with her former wards — a person who was severely burned in a car
accident, another with Alzheimer’s who couldn’t sign her own name, and a
woman with developmental disabilities.
Beauvais’
conviction, even with a plea deal that left her with no prison time and
a reduction from 16 counts of theft to just one, was considered a
victory for advocates trying to prevent elder abuse and protect wards
from their guardians. Despite dozens of horror stories, including
several told in the El Paso County courtroom and before a state Capitol
committee considering guardianship reform, only a handful of convictions
are on the books statewide. Prior to the Beauvais case, the last
conviction of a legal guardian or conservator in Colorado was in 2013,
according to a national advocacy group.
It’s a long-discussed
problem — whether Colorado has enough guardrails in its system to
protect some of the state’s most vulnerable residents. Thanks to
Beauvais’ conviction as well as two bills at the state legislature, the
issue is once again getting close scrutiny.
Conservator’s reports were fraudulent
Dowski’s
first clue came when the doctor’s office told her that her mother, who
was 89 years old and had Alzheimer’s disease, was no longer enrolled in
Medicare. At first, Dowski thought her mother’s conservator was inept at
her job. Then she reviewed 10 years of the conservator’s financial
reports and realized it was worse than a paperwork slip-up.
Dowski
soon noticed a pattern. In the middle of each month, there was an extra
check, like a duplicate payment for one of Moore’s bills. A second
$7,500 monthly payment to the memory care center where Moore lived. Or
an extra dentist bill.
Dowski eventually found out from her mother’s credit union that
Beauvais had written the extra checks to herself. On average, she had
stolen $20,000 per year for six years from Moore’s accounts, Dowski
said.
Moore sought a conservatorship, a type of guardianship,
when she was 80 and soon after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
disease. She didn’t want her daughter and two sons to have to deal with
her affairs, Dowski said.
Moore had raised the children alone
after their father, a pilot, died in Vietnam in 1967. Left with a large
mortgage payment on a new home, Moore returned to work at age 43,
teaching third graders in Colorado Springs, and could not afford to
retire until age 70. Soon after retirement, she started showing signs of
memory loss.
It was 2008 when an attorney advised Moore to set
up a conservatorship, telling her it was a “very safe system” and that
the conservator would have to provide annual accounting to the court,
Dowski recalled.
Barbara Moore worked as a teacher and raised three
children alone after
her husband died in Vietnam.
Before she died last month, she was the
victim of
theft by her court-appointed conservator.
(Provided by Barb
Dowski)
“That would be funny if it weren’t so sad given today’s circumstances,” she said.
Beauvais, according to court testimony, bought a house in 2014, a car
and Disney vacations. A judge sentenced her to probation, saying she
should work to pay off her debts, even though many relatives of the
victims asked the judge to put her in prison.
Dowski said she is
most disturbed that the thefts went on for years and might have
continued had she not spent multiple hours each day for months
researching her mother’s financial records.
“She stole from
victims who had less than she did,” Dowski said. “They were supposed to
be protected by the court. It’s staggering how there are all these
people statewide that are protected under the Colorado courts and when
it really comes down to it, the court is not protecting them. Why even
have this system?
“To me, it’s open season on at-risk persons.”
Dowski’s
mother, 94, was too frail to go to court for the sentencing of
Beauvais, and her memory had deteriorated to the point where she
couldn’t understand the proceedings. Dowski was there, begging the judge
to put Beauvais behind bars.
Six days later, Dowski’s mother died.
Beauvais’
attorney did not respond to a request for comment, nor did two
guardianship organizations — the Colorado Guardianship Association and
the Guardianship Alliance of Colorado.
Robert Campbell, a
detective in the financial crimes unit at the Colorado Springs Police
Department, investigated the case against Beauvais on and off for more
than three years, poring over thousands of pages of bank statements
going back to 2013. Beauvais originally was charged with 16 counts of
theft, and could have faced up to 12 years in prison. But through a deal
with prosecutors, she pleaded guilty to one count of theft and was
sentenced to probation.
The dome of the Colorado Capitol on July 26, 2019. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)
Campbell
said he wasn’t involved in the plea deal, but said he was not surprised
by the reduced sentence because of the trend nationally toward lighter
sentences, including for financial crimes. “I know the victims and their
families were wanting a stronger sentence, so it was not easy to see
their reactions and their disappointment,” he said.
The case was
the only one against a conservator or guardian that Campbell has ever
investigated. Much more common are cases in which a conservator is
reporting suspected fraud or theft by a family member of an at-risk
adult, he said.
Still, the Beauvais case raised concern about
Colorado’s system, Campbell said. “I saw that there are probably changes
that can be made to help prevent this type of theft, especially on this
magnitude, from happening,” he said. In particular, he suggested
policymakers consider more strict regulations about what conservators
must file in court, including receipts and copies of the front and back
of checks.
Colorado lawmakers look toward reform
About
20,000 Colorado residents are under adult guardianship, according to
the Center for Estate Administration Reform, or CEAR, a national
advocacy group. Rick Black, executive director of the group, called the
Beauvais conviction “nothing short of a miracle.”
The small
victory, he said, comes after more than a decade and “thousands of
victories for the predators who use Colorado’s probate court system as a
weapon to exploit.” Most of the allegations against guardians are not
investigated, Black said, noting that several of the alleged victims of
Beauvais, who worked at Elliott & Zebarth, were never interviewed by
investigators who worked the case.
The Beauvais case has played out alongside separate conversations about guardianship at the state Capitol this year.
Lawmakers approved a plan to expand a public guardianship program,
over the loud protests of a bipartisan group of lawmakers and the
mother of a boy with disabilities who said the two-year-old program
doesn’t have enough oversight.
The public program, funded by
taxpayers, is for destitute people who are unable to make their own
legal and health decisions and have no family or friends to step in as
guardians. It has operated as a pilot program the past two years in
Denver County, but the legislature voted to expand it to southwest and
southeast Colorado beginning in July.
The private guardianship
program in Colorado, the system used by Dowski’s mother, employs paid
guardians to manage the finances of people who need help, often those
who are elderly.
Rep. Kim Ransom, a Republican from Douglas County, is leading the charge among lawmakers to improve the guardianship system.
Ransom
attempted to pass a bill that would have required guardians and
conservators to follow a new list of requirements, including that they
notify family members within seven days if a “protected person” dies,
moves or is admitted to a hospital for emergency care.
Kim Ransom speaks at the GOP state assembly on Saturday, April 9, 2022, in Colorado Springs. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)
The legislation
was rewritten to set up a task force to review the guardianship system
in Colorado after criticism from the Colorado Bar Association, which
agreed that the system needs improvement but said the bill was poorly
written. The hearing included a spate of intense testimony, including
from adult children and siblings of wards who said their loved ones were
taken advantage of by their guardians. The House human services
committee often had to cut off testimony as relatives cried and yelled
about what they had gone through, including not being told their loved
ones had died or been moved.
Lawmakers want the working group to
report back on recommended reforms by the end of the year. Meanwhile,
Dowski is seeking help from the governor’s office and members of
Congress, asking for an overhaul of the system.
EVANSVILLE, Ind. — The Indiana Supreme Court has
disbarred from practicing law an Evansville attorney convicted of check
deception.
Jared Michel Thomas
can no longer practice in Indiana as a result. He had already been
temporarily suspended pending the outcome of the attorney discipline
action.
Thomas had practiced as a criminal defense attorney and in areas, such as family law.
He was charged with felony check deception in July 2021. In September, he pleaded guilty to the charge as a Class A misdemeanor.
Warrick
County Circuit Court Judge Greg Granger, acting as special judge in the
case, sentenced Thomas to 6 months of unsupervised probation, which
he completed in March, court records state.
According to the Supreme Court, during a
three-week period in 2020, Thomas wrote several checks from his trust
account to his operating account and vice-versa as part of a check
kiting scheme that ultimately left his trust account overdrawn.
He
took $6,000 owed to a client in a marriage dissolution case and instead
deposited it into his overdrawn account. This reduced the negative
balance but still left the account overdrawn, the court disciplinary
action said.
The $6,000 was never paid to the client. Instead, it served to reduce the bank's financial loss when the account was closed.
The
Supreme Court also said both sides in the disciplinary action agreed
that the court's Disciplinary Commission is "investigating several
additional matters" involving Thomas. In one of those, according to the
Supreme Court, Thomas admitted creating a fraudulent sentence
modification document and forging a judge's signature on it.
Joe Storey, a Henderson resident, told the Courier
& Press that he paid Thomas $2,500 in early 2021 to represent him
in a family law case in Warrick County. Storey said after that he was
informed that Thomas had been suspended.
"We
never had a hearing. In December, they called me in and asked me to sign
a document acknowledging they were informing me of his suspension,"
Storey said. "I told them I wanted my money back."
Storey
said he subsequently missed a court hearing because notice of it was
sent to Thomas' office and he was never informed. He has been unable to
afford a new attorney.
"I don't have the money to hire another one. I'm a disabled veteran. I
pay child support and to care for my kids. A portion of my savings went
to hire him," he said. "I don't have the money to hire a new lawyer
until my money is returned."
About 75 percent of lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 24, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. But the average delay between onset and intervention is 8 to 10 years, meaning people could go years before getting help. By Jim Donaldson
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a plan to create a civil court system to compel treatment for people suffering from serious untreated mental illness, saying it’s time for the state to “take some damn responsibility to implement our ideals.” Newsom presented his proposal — the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court, or CARE Court — as a way to help unhoused residents with conditions that cause psychosis. The policy is moving through the Legislature in the form of two bills — Assembly Bill 2830 from Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, and Senate Bill 1338 from Sen. Susan Eggman, D-Stockton, and Sen. Thomas Umberg, D-Santa Ana.
The bill is getting push-back from disability rights advocates, who say CARE Court forces treatment on mentally ill people with little regard for their civil rights. They also argue it wastes money that would be better spent on public education, early intervention and programming that doesn’t involve coercion. “We are neglected throughout the whole process, up until the point our condition is so severe that we can’t control it and we start doing things like breaking the law,” said John Vanover, legislative committee chair for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance of California. “And at that point, now, the governor wants to step in and make us criminals. So fundamentally, this idea is broken, just from that.”
How would CARE Court work? CARE Court would effectively create a new wing of the civil court system in all 58 of California’s counties that would allow a judge to order a mental “care plan” for those dealing with severe untreated mental illness. The program would apply to everyone who meets the criteria, but Newsom has repeatedly referenced it as a tool to help the homeless population. A person qualifies for CARE Court if they’re at least 18, diagnosed with “schizophrenia spectrum or other psychotic disorder,” are not receiving treatment, and lack “medical decision-making capacity,” according to SB 1338. California was home to nearly 162,000 homeless people in 2020, according to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data. Nearly 38,000 people from that population — about 23% — were considered “severely mentally ill.”
CARE Court is meant to target the 10,000 to 12,000 people dealing with schizophrenia and psychosis who may qualify for the program, said Jason Elliott, a senior counselor to Newsom. The CARE Court program would enable a host of people — including family members, first responders and behavioral health professionals — to petition the court to create care plans for those who meet the criteria, according to SB 1338. County behavioral health departments would be responsible for carrying out the care plans. Those who don’t comply with their plans could be subject to California’s existing system of involuntary hospital stays and conservatorships.
President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan at the Capitol in Sacramento. Mitch Toll Sacramento Bee file
Such programs have been in place since the 1960s, following the state’s shift away from mental health hospitals and toward community-oriented care.
Since California dismantled the hospital system, the state has primarily made use of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act and Laura’s Law to care for people who suffer from severe mental illnesses. LPS — which then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed in 1967 — ended the practice of long-term involuntary commitments to mental health institutions. However, it does allow involuntary hospital stays for those deemed a danger to themselves or others. The most well-known of these hospitalizations is the 5150 hold — nicknamed for the section of legal code in which it appears — which requires someone to receive treatment for 72 hours. LPS also created the conservatorship system, through which other people take responsibility for a gravely ill individual’s medical care and personal assets. Laura’s Law, passed in 2002, created an assisted outpatient treatment program that can be court-ordered after a person who’s mentally ill has repeatedly been hospitalized or arrested. (Click to continue reading)
Elder law attorney Kerry Peck joins
John Williams to talk about being appointed by the Illinois Supreme
Court to chair a new commission on elder law. Kerry discusses some of
the issues the new commission will tackle and the biggest concerns they
need to address. Kerry also answers all of your elder law questions.
Nigerian National Extradited for Defrauding Elderly Victims and Money Laundering
LEXINGTON, Ky. - A
Nigerian national, Adedunmola Gbadegesin, has been extradited to the
United States, on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and
conspiring to commit money laundering, stemming from the financial
exploitation of elderly victims in the United States.
According to a recently unsealed Court documents, a federal grand
jury in Lexington returned an indictment charging Adedunmola Gbadegesin,
33, of Lagos, Nigeria, alongside two others, Olatunbosun Oluwakayode
Ajayi, 34, of Atlanta Georgia, and Otunuya Ineh Eqwem Livingstone, 45,
of Houston Texas, with conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The indictment alleges that Gbadegesin and his co-conspirators
collaborated to create fake online dating profiles, to post to online
dating websites. As part of the alleged conspiracy, the co-conspirators
would engage in online chats, emails, and telephone calls with
unwitting victims, who were located in the United States, including one
in Lexington. The indictment alleges that as part of the conspiracy,
the co-conspirators would convince the victims to send money to the
nonexistent romantic partners or give them access to their financial
accounts, so the co-conspirators could initiate money transfers
themselves.
The indictment also alleges that Gbadegesin hired others in the U.S.
to receive funds from victims and to launder those funds, so the funds
could be returned back to Gbadegesin in Nigeria. Those United
States-based money launderers included Ineh Eqwem, Ajayi, and Ismaila
Fafunmi.
Fafunmi pleaded guilty to his role in the money laundering scheme;
and in August 2021, he received 51 months in prison. Ineh Eqwem and
Ajayi have also pleaded guilty for their roles in the money laundering
scheme; they were sentenced to 24 months and 12 months, respectively.
Gbadgesin was arrested by Nigerian authorities on Sept. 22, 2021, in
Lagos, Nigeria at the request of the United States. At the time of his
arrest, Gbadgesein had been residing in Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria
approved his extradition on March 21, 2021, and he was transferred into
U.S. custody on April 26, 2022.
Carlton S. Shier, IV, United States Attorney for the Eastern District
of Kentucky, and Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge, FBI, Louisville
Field Office, jointly announced the indictment.
The investigation preceding the indictment was conducted by the FBI.
The indictment was presented to the grand jury by Assistant U.S.
Attorney Kate Dieruf. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of
International Affairs, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of
Nigeria, the Nigerian Attorney General’s Office, the Central Authority
Unity, and the FBI Louisville Field Office assisted with the extradition
of Gbadgesein.
Gbadegesin has his first appearance in Court on May 2, 2022 at 11:30
a.m. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $500,000.
However, any sentence following a conviction would be imposed by the
Court, after its consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the
federal sentencing statutes.
This case is being prosecuted as part of the Department of Justice’s
efforts to identify and prosecute those persons who facilitate elder
financial exploitation.
The Department of Justice’s Elder Justice Mission, being carried out
through the Kentucky Elder Justice Task Force, is to seek justice for
victims of elder financial exploitation. Anyone that knows someone, who
may be a victim of an elder financial exploitation, is encouraged to
contact law enforcement.
Any indictment is an accusation only. A defendant is
presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which government
must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Mug shot of Angela Carrillo, 18, the woman accused of attacking an elderly man in Merced (Photo: MPD)
MERCED, Calif. — A woman was arrested after police say she attacked an elderly man on Tuesday morning in Merced.
Police responded to the area of W. 27th St. and H St. shortly after 9
a.m. When they arrived, they found an elderly man covered in blood with
injuries to his head and face.
Detectives say the man was walking
along the Bear Greek path when Angela Carrillo, 18, struck the man in
the head with a rock and attempted to throw that rock at the victim but
missed.
Carrillo, officers say attacked the man for an unknown reason. She was
booked into the Merced County Jail for assault with a deadly weapon and
elderly abuse.
