Joseph Boles, Jr. appointed himself beneficiary or trustee of multiple families' wills and trusts without written consent.
Author: Atyia Collins
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court
suspended prominent St. Augustine attorney and former city mayor Joe
Boles after he admitted to misconduct and conflict of interest following
an investigation by the Florida Bar.
The 90-day suspension comes after a judge determined Boles showed "a
pattern of misconduct" in violating Bar rules governing conflicts of
interest. The Bar filed its complaint against Boles last November after
receiving two complaints from Boles' clients and discovering a third
concerning case while investigating.
Boles, who specializes in estate planning and elder law, serves as
the president and chairman of the St. Johns County Council on Aging. He
served as St. Augustine mayor from 2006 to 2014, and as a City
Commissioner for two years before that.
According to court records in the case, Boles designated himself as a
surrogate designated beneficiary or backup successor trustee without
getting written consent from his clients.
The original complaint names three victims.
In the first victim's case, the complaint says Boles was hired in
2020 to create a trust for a woman with aggressive cancer. The woman's
designated successor trustee said Boles appointed himself as backup
successor trustee against both women's wishes. Boles denied this and
told Bar investigators he did so with the client's permission. But Bar
investigators determined he failed to obtain written consent to do so,
as required.
In a second case, a woman said she met with Boles in 2015 for his
offer of free will preparation and then again in 2021 to modify her will
and request a trust. She alleges that after reviewing the documents,
she discovered that Boles was named as trustee of the trust, and Boles'
law partner (and stepson) was named backup successor.
The complaint says "[Boles] unilaterally appointed himself as the
personal representative in her will, appointed, himself as her
healthcare surrogate, and appointed himself as [the client's] preneed
guardian in the event of her future incapacity."
The client ultimately hired a different attorney to assist her with
revoking the trust and drafting new estate planning document.
Boles said he had the client's permission, but acknowledged he
"failed to obtain the written informed consent ... to appoint himself,"
as required by law.
During its investigation into the two complaints, the Bar also
discovered a third case in which Boles named himself as a surrogate
designated beneficiary in the will.
The complaint says Boles; "drafted and filed affidavits for the
beneficiaries designated in the will ... in which they gave up all of
their rights and responsibilities in the estate and designated
respondent as the surrogate beneficiary."
Boles told investigators he was asked to do so by his clients, but
investigators found he failed to advise them to seek independent legal
counsel before signing the waivers. Ultimately, Boles handled this case
on a pro bono basis and distributed the proceeds of the sale of the home
to the beneficiaries.
In recommending discipline in the case, the designated "referee," 4th
Circuit Judge Meredith Charbula said she took into account several
mitigating factors, including Boles' "absence of a prior disciplinary
record; timely good faith effort to make restitution or to rectify the
consequences of the misconduct; full and free disclosure to the bar or
cooperative attitude toward the proceedings; character or reputation;
and remorse."
The judge also found no evidence that Boles wrongfully appropriated any money or assets to his own use.
As part of the suspension, Boles is prohibited from accepting new
business until he is reinstated. He will also pay disciplinary costs of
$2,565. He will be automatically reinstated after the suspension is
completed.
(MOUNT VERNON, Ohio) — A former Knox County sheriff’s deputy pleaded
guilty today on six felony charges related to theft from an elderly
woman with Alzheimer’s disease, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost
announced today.
“Today’s guilty plea holds the criminals accountable for their
financial abuse,” Yost said. “The theft charge alone in this case
carries a potential sentence of up to 11 years in prison and a $50,000
fine – a punishment that should serve as a deterrent to anyone thinking
about ripping off a senior citizen.”
Daniel Bobo of Gambier pleaded guilty to theft, a first-degree
felony; three counts of telecommunications fraud, third- and
fourth-degree felonies; and two counts of misuse of credit cards, a
second-degree felony.
Bobo is a former deputy sergeant with the Knox County Sheriff’s office. He resigned on Sept. 3, 2021, following an indictment in the case.
Bobo’s wife, Elisabeth Bobo, pleaded guilty on April 18 to one count
of misuse of credit cards, a fourth-degree felony, and one count of
telecommunication fraud, a fifth-degree felony.
Both Daniel and Elisabeth Bobo will be sentenced on June 22 and are expected to pay restitution upon sentencing.
The Bobos befriended Kay and Richard Hoppe and helped the elderly
couple move into a Mount Vernon nursing home. After Richard Hoppe died
in 2018, the Bobos used a power of attorney granted by the Hoppes to
Danial Bobo to access credit cards in the Hoppe’s name and bank accounts
that contained the Hoppe’s assets. The Bobos used more than $500,000
for their own personal expenses. Suffering from dementia attributed to
Alzheimer’s disease, Kay Hoppe passed away in 2020 at the age of 78 and
Danial Bobo was named the executor of the estate.
The attorney general’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI)
investigated the case, and the Special Prosecutions Section of Yost’s
office is prosecuting the case.
May is Older Americans Month, designed to recognize the achievements
of our older Ohioans. It is also a reminder to be vigilant in protecting
elders against fraud and abuse.
The Elder Justice Unit –
a collaborative effort of the attorney general’s Crime Victim Services,
Consumer Protection, Health Care Fraud and Social Prosecutions sections
and BCI – works to educate Ohioans about the warning signs and risks of
financial exploitation. Elderly people, especially, are vulnerable to
such crime.
Contact: Tony Mangan,Communications Director, 605-773-6878
Ramona Woman Sentenced for Grand Theft
PIERRE,
S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley has announced that
Melba Jean Bickett of Ramona, S.D. has been sentenced to two years in
the South Dakota Women’s Prison after pleading guilty to one count of
Grand Theft. Both years were suspended on the condition that Bickett
serve 60 days in the Lake County Jail and perform 40 hours of Community
Service.
Between
Jan.1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2013, while working as a teller for First
American State Bank, Bickett took $153,000 from her father’s bank
account and moved the money into her bank account or her son’s bank
account. All the transactions were done without her father’s permission.
Bickett
was sentenced Monday in Kingsbury County Court. She also was ordered to
pay back the entire $153,000 to her father’s estate.
The
case was investigated by the Lake County Sheriff’s office, the
Kingsbury County Sheriff’s office, and the South Dakota Division of
Criminal Investigation. The case was prosecuted by the South Dakota
Attorney General’s Office and its Elder Abuse and Financial Exploitation
Unit.
Danielle Curtiss of Long Beach sought a mental health
conservatorship for her son, who has schizophrenia, for two years. Photo
by Thomas R. Cordova.
Danielle Curtiss, exhausted and angry, was consumed with a question: why should it be so hard for a mother to help her son?
At 18, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. During the next two
years, he was either hospitalized or placed on involuntary psychiatric
holds some 20 times. He repeatedly threatened to kill himself. “I don’t
want to live anymore,” he would say.
Over the years, Curtiss says she filed at least a dozen missing
person reports after he ran away from home or bolted from treatment
programs, often taking shelter in homeless encampments. After leaving
one program in Downey, he walked 50 miles to Glendora, where he was
hospitalized for a week due to renal failure from extreme dehydration.
Curtiss says her son has been arrested multiple times for non-violent
offenses, with the exception of two. Once as a juvenile and then as an
adult, he was taken into custody for battery against her. She told
police he had, among other acts of violence, slapped and choked her.
Dating back to middle school, he’d been prescribed an array of
psychopharmaceuticals but mostly stuck to weed, which he started smoking
at 12, eventually moving on to meth and ketamine as he got older.
For these reasons and dozens of others, Curtiss, who is a nurse, says
she became convinced that the only way her son could be saved was if he
was placed under an involuntary mental health conservatorship, giving
her access to his records and control of his care. She believed he
surely met the requirements because he was gravely disabled, a potential
danger to himself and others.
But if her son’s troubles weren’t painful enough to face, she would
now be forced to confront a mental health system that left no statutory
pathway for a despondent mother or other loved one to obtain the kind of
highly restrictive court-ordered conservatorship she was seeking.
Currently, under state law, only a physician in a hospital can
initiate that process, which requires strong communication between
public and private medical providers and a willingness by hospitals,
insurers and doctors to take action—all of which are in short supply.
As homelessness rises among severely mentally ill individuals, she
found herself at ground zero in a growing debate in California over
whether restrictions for such measures should be loosened to confront
the new realities on the street or kept strict to guard against
potential violations of an individual’s rights.
“The system is designed for people to give up,” says Curtiss, adding
that the only way to make it work for her and other similarly situated
families is through the kind of sheer will she would need to summon in
her two-year effort.
“I knew my son needed a conservatorship early on,” she says, “but I
was continuously told that he was not ‘sick’ enough or that he hadn’t
been in the hospital enough. What a travesty it is to know that your son
is so very ill and so very lost and be told he’s not sick enough.”
Danielle
Curtiss and her son watch a Los Angeles Lakers game together when he
was about 9 or 10. Photo courtesy of Danielle Curtiss.
A clash of rights and realities
Despite wide acknowledgement of the conservatorship system’s
shortcomings in addressing rising mental illness among the unhoused,
recent legislative efforts to reform the 56-year-old law that governs
mental health conservatorships have failed.
Strong pushback over the years has come from those who fear the state
could regress to the era before 1967, when tens of thousands of people
were locked away in state psychiatric hospitals—heavily medicated,
subjected to experiments and stripped of their rights and freedom.
“Conservatorship is the most extreme form of deprivation of civil
liberties, aside from the death penalty,” Susan Mizner, director of
disability rights for the American Civil Liberties Union, said recently.
Reform advocates, meanwhile, say that as homelessness has reached
crisis levels and the public regularly encounters severely mentally ill
people on the street, the question they ask is: Why is no one doing
anything?
“It’s the question we’re all asking,” says Jessica Cruz, executive
director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which supports
reforming conservatorship requirements to make them less restrictive.
The kind of conservatorship Curtiss was seeking was created under the
Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, or LPS, which was passed in 1967. It is
reserved specifically for people with diagnosed mental health disorders,
usually schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
The law authorizes only hospitals and in-patient physicians to
petition a county to obtain one—a statutory precaution against
individuals being unnecessarily committed to locked-down mental health
facilities. But records show that such measures are rarely sought.
Although 1,200 unhoused people in Long Beach said they suffered from severe mental illness during the 2023 homeless count, Long Beach hospitals sought only 20 LPS conservatorships in fiscal year 2021-2022, according to Los Angeles County data.
Long Beach Memorial sought one, while St. Mary Medical Center didn’t
seek any. College Hospital, which has a contract with LA County to
provide mental health services, sought 10, and the VA Hospital in Long
Beach sought nine.
In that same 12-month span, a total of 388 LPS conservatorships were
sought by general acute care hospitals overall in Los Angeles County,
and the majority came from public hospitals run by the county, none of
which are in Long Beach. Jails, courts, state hospitals and other
specialized psychiatric facilities recommended 354 conservatorships to
the county.
Of the total of 742 that were referred for LPS conservatorships, 700
were pursued by the county, records show. Of those, more than half, or
450 people, were placed into conservatorships, with the courts naming
the county as the conservator for 284 people, and assigning private
conservators, such as family members, for the rest.
These court-ordered arrangements can be denied for a number of
reasons, which include physicians not showing up to court to testify, or
the person being able to prove to a judge they are not gravely
disabled.
Connie Drexler, the county’s deputy public guardian, cited one case
in which an unhoused man successfully argued that he was able to care
for himself because he had a tent on Skid Row and that he could get food
from a nonprofit.
“It may not be your or my first choice, but he had a plan for food,
shelter and clothing, and the judge said that was acceptable,” she says.
At wit’s end
The turning point—the boiling point—for Curtiss in getting an LPS conservatorship for her son came in 2019.
By then, she had compiled a 10-page chronicle of his deteriorating
mental health in all its manifestations, from his 5150 psychiatric holds
to his brushes with the law to his turbulent relationship with his
mother. She had to piece together some of his medical odyssey after he
turned 18 because she could not directly access his records. (At
Curtiss’ request, the Post agreed to withhold her son’s name to protect
his privacy.)
Her “declaration in support of conservatorship” was intended to
demonstrate that action was needed immediately, given his long history
of life-threatening—and worsening—mental health crises.
“I have received NUMEROUS telephone calls from concerned police
officers, security and members of the public whom he reaches out for
help,” she wrote, detailing incidents in which he had been beaten bloody
on the street, become lost after aimlessly riding trains and buses and
plagued by paranoid fantasies of being tracked by “The Cartel,” among
others.
She recounted one frightening incident while he was still in middle school.
One morning, he rode his bike to his former campus—where he’d
experienced bullying—instead of his current one. There, he was arrested
when staff discovered a Bowie-style knife in his backpack. His mother
says he was placed in a juvenile diversion program.
Curtiss wrote that she agreed to a recommendation that her
middle-schooler be given medication for a diagnosis of ADHD. His grades
improved a bit, she said, but that didn’t last. Soon, he was getting
busted at school and by police for having marijuana pipes and other
paraphernalia.
His troubles mounted even as he played football at Poly High, then at
Wilson, with dreams of someday suiting up for Notre Dame. Curtiss
enrolled him in multiple diversion and treatment programs, and doctors
prescribed an array of medications, including Seroquel, Trazodone,
Prozac, Haldol and Abilify.
Danielle
Curtiss (left) and her son in 2017 when he was about 18. The two of
them played on a semi professional football team called the Wolfpack.
“Football was something that helped him stay out of trouble,” she says.
Photo courtesy of Danielle Curtiss.
As his illicit drug use escalated in his late teens, he began “to be
motivated by some unknown internal stimulus to suddenly need to leave,”
his mother wrote. “It is now so bad that he can not stay in any one
place for greater than a few hours before this sensation drives him to
leave.”
At 18, he was taken to Orange County’s St. Jude Hospital by Fullerton
police after threatening suicide in a call to his mother, with whom he
was no longer living. When Curtiss arrived at St. Jude, her son was
rocking back and forth, holding his head in his hands, shouting “turn
the cameras off.”
He was placed on a short-term involuntary hold—one of many over the
years—before being transferred to College Hospital in Long Beach and
then to a Kaiser outpatient psychiatric program. It was there that he
was diagnosed with schizophrenia and acute psychosis. He continued to
spiral out of control.
In 2019, with her son now 20, Curtiss was at wit’s end. She took her
10-page litany of trauma to the Los Angeles County Probate Court and
applied for a conservatorship that did not need to be initiated by a
doctor in a medical facility, like an LPS conservatorship.
Probate conservatorships can be requested by family members or
concerned caregivers. They’re typically sought for older adults with
debilitating conditions such as dementia and, thus, are usually
permanent.
LPS conservatorships are reviewed annually with the goal of giving a person back their autonomy.
The probate court appointed an attorney to represent the interests of
Curtiss’ son in the proceeding, a breakthrough for his mom, who had
filed her document in the court record.
With the history supplied by Curtiss, the attorney assigned to the
case prevailed upon a psychiatrist at Del Amo behavioral health hospital
in Torrance, where Curtiss’ son was then being treated, to sign a
“capacity declaration” stating that the patient was unable to provide
informed consent for his medical care because of his impaired mental
functions.
“Patient in the past will have periods of stability,” the treating
psychiatrist wrote, “but frequently decompensates due various factors
leading to behaviors that complicate his existing condition of
schizophrenia.”
Ultimately, Curtiss’ probate court request was rejected when the
court ruled that the son’s schizophrenia diagnosis would specifically
require an LPS conservatorship initiated by a doctor.
But with the psychiatrist’s declaration in hand, Curtiss was able to
persuade the Torrance hospital to begin the LPS process, which was
completed just months later and named her as the conservator of her
son’s affairs. She placed him in a locked facility in Long Beach.
“The conservatorship is the ONLY way I’ve been able to help him, the
only way I have been able to participate in his care, advocate for him,
develop a care plan for him,” Curtiss wrote in a recent email to the
Post, adding: “I had to keep pressing everyone to do something. I
couldn’t let up.”
A system bursting at the seams
As Curtiss’ experience illustrates, the hurdles to obtain LPS
conservatorships remain high. Beyond questions of rights and freedoms,
advocates contend that hospitals and physicians are disincentivized to
participate for other reasons, including money.
The state’s insurance provider, Medi-Cal, pays hospitals the highest
rate for providing acute care, when a patient is facing an emergency.
Reimbursement rates are nearly cut in half if a patient is stabilized
but waiting for a bed somewhere else or waiting for the conservatorship
process to be finalized.
In Curtiss’ case, this took several months. Throughout that period,
her son was kept in the emergency room at Del Amo hospital without
access to activities or personal items. Curtiss says she shuttled back
and forth between her nursing shifts to bring him fresh clothes and
other necessities.
“He was miserable,” she says. “He was begging me to take him home.”
Hospitals readily acknowledge there simply aren’t enough alternative
places, like subacute facilities, for patients like Curtiss’ son to go,
says Sheree Lowe, vice president of the California Hospital Association,
a trade and advocacy group.
According to a 2022 RAND study,
Los Angeles County has just 5.2 subacute psychiatric beds per 100,000
residents, the lowest rate in the state. To meet the existing need, that
number should be 24.6, according to the study.
Gov. Gavin Newsom in March proposed a 2024 bond measure to raise an estimated $1 billion annually for thousands of new mental health beds, from subacute to residential.
“It’s unacceptable what we’re dealing with, at scale, in the state of California,” the governor said at a media event.
Waiting for the courts to act, combined with this shortage of
subacute options, means patients awaiting possible conservatorships are
often discharged back to the street once they’re stabilized.
What’s more, such crucial decisions might be made without the benefit
of knowing a patient’s full medical history because of inadequate
communication between hospitals where an individual may have been
earlier treated. They might not know, for example, such basic
information as whether this is a patient’s first or 10th psychiatric
hold or any previous attempts at outpatient treatment.
It’s advantageous when a patient is treated at the same facility
multiple times so physicians have at least some history, says Lowe of
the hospital association, noting patient privacy laws are very strict
about sharing medical data.
“There’s really no way around that,” she says.
Pushing for change
Curtiss and many others have lobbied hard for changes to the law that
governs LPS conservatorships, including recent efforts to loosen the
standard of who qualifies.
A state bill introduced in March would expand the criteria to include
any condition that causes an individual to be “at risk for serious
harm” due to a mental illness or a substance use disorder—a new category
of illness that could be taken into account for LPS conservatorships.
Although a similar measure failed in 2022, state Sen. Susan
Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, who has authored several bills over the
past five years to change mental health law, says the increasingly
visible toll of mental health and homelessness could open a window for
this one to succeed.
“Decades have passed and we’re still operating on laws that were a
good idea at one point in our history, but are now obsolete and a
barrier to protect vulnerable people,” she says.
Metropolitan in Norwalk is one of just five remaining psychiatric hospitals in California. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.
The 1967 Lanterman-Petris-Short Act came in the wake of a public
outcry over the conditions of state psychiatric hospitals, where tens of
thousands of patients were held indefinitely and subjected to horrific
treatment, such as electric shock therapy and lobotomies.
The legislation, signed by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, effectively shut
down all but five state mental hospitals. But funding for a new
community-based approach did not materialize.
Today, the state’s five state mental hospitals, including
Metropolitan in Norwalk, have a total of 6,078 beds, compared to more
than 50,000 beds in the 1950s. Of those, only 617 are occupied by LPS
conservatees. The remaining 90% are occupied by those with mental
illness who are accused of committing crimes or have been convicted of
them.
A February staff report for the county’s Board of Supervisors said
the wait time for transferring an LPS conservatee to a state hospital
last year was 394 days. The wait time for a specialized or subacute care
facility, meanwhile, was 141 days.
Despite the intent of the LPS Act, one of the original authors, Sen.
Nicholas C. Petris, said in a 1989 interview that mistakes were made:
“In this overemphasis to get away from this tyrannical and oppressive
system … of incarcerating people so easily, we went overboard the other
way.”
The act made it extremely difficult to hold someone against their
will longer than 72 hours. As a result, short-term holds in California
have risen from about 75,000 annually in 1980 to about 125,000 in 2018.
At the same time, conservatorships have plummeted from about 12,000 in
1980 to 6,000 statewide.
Officials are hopeful that the governor’s new CARE Court model will
fill the gap between 72-hour psychiatric holds and conservatorships.
These courts would function more like a social service agency than a
legal venue. Some are scheduled to start in December, including in Los
Angeles and Orange counties.
Families, nurses, social workers, police and other concerned parties
would be able to directly petition the CARE courts to enroll someone in
the program, in which regular appearances would be required and
services, including housing, would be provided. Participation would be
voluntary, unlike the more restrictive LPS conservatorships.
If individuals refuse or fail to complete CARE Court requirements, they could then be referred for an LPS conservatorship.
Curtiss, who has supported the CARE Court concept, says she’s hopeful
it will provide another option for families desperate to help loved
ones. But she’s skeptical about LA County’s ability to provide the
promised services that will be crucial to its success. Just getting the
key players in her son’s conservatorship case to communicate with her
has been a challenge, she says.
Danielle
Curtiss (right) with daughter Ava (left) and Rep. Grace Napolitano.
Curtiss has lobbied politicians across the state to make it easier for
families to access mental health care. Photo courtesy of Danielle
Curtiss.
In fact, at her son’s most recent conservatorship hearing in
February, Curtiss celebrated a big win for a woman who for years has
camped out in administrative offices and pestered politicians on behalf
of her son: Her lawyer persuaded a judge to order LA County and Kaiser
to work with her to devise a discharge plan—including housing and
care—once her son’s conservatorship ends.
“I know the end is coming,” she says. “It’s just a matter of time.”
Asked what would be a best-case scenario for her son, she struggles
for an answer. She would love for him to be somewhere structured, where
he can feel supported but also develop some autonomy.
“My hope,” she says, “is that someday he can advocate for himself.”
She says she also hopes for a sea-change in a system that should not
require those with severe mental illnesses to endure so much trauma
before they can get help.
This story was edited by special projects editor Joel Sappell.
Photography by Thomas R. Cordova, with submitted art from Danielle Curtiss.
Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman announced behavioral health legislation in
March with several mayors of the state’s largest cities. Photo via
@emily_hoeven Twitter
Mayor Todd Gloria testified before the state Senate’s Judiciary Committee Tuesday on behalf of California Big City Mayors in support of Senate Bill 43 to reform outdated conservatorship laws.
Authored by Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, the legislation
would update California’s conservatorship laws to help those suffering
from severe mental illness get the help and care they need.
The number of people with untreated severe mental illness in our communities is unacceptable.
— San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria (@MayorToddGloria) April 25, 2023
SB 43 would expand the definition of “gravely disabled” in
conservatorship law, allowing consideration of a person’s inability to
attend to their necessary personal or medical care. It would also update
conservatorship laws to include substance-use disorder as a factor in
addition to mental illness.
Gloria, chair of the
bipartisan coalition of mayors of California’s 13 most populous cities,
served as the lead witness in support of the behavioral health reform.
“Today, we took an important step toward reforming California’s
inadequate conservatorship laws to ensure people suffering from severe
mental illness and addiction issues can get the care they need,” Gloria
said.
“All Californians have seen the need for this reform in their
communities — whether among our unhoused population or families
struggling to get care for a severely ill loved one,” he said. “By
passing Sen. Susan Eggman’s Senate Bill 43, the Senate’s Judiciary
Committee has advanced a truly significant behavioral health policy
reform and given these folks hope.”
“California’s mayors are on the frontlines of the state’s
homelessness and mental health crises, and we need tools like
conservatorship to help our most vulnerable residents. We are excited to
continue to work on this bill on behalf of the families and people who
desperately need and deserve mental health care,” Gloria added.
The New York State Department of Health is investigating a video that appears to show a nurse asleep while standing and working at Auburn Rehabilitation and Nursing Center on Sunday.
Jeffrey Hammond, the department's deputy director of communications, confirmed the investigation to The Citizen on Wednesday.
"The (department) has made it a top priority to hold nursing homes accountable for the quality of care they provide," he said.
Hammond
declined further comment due to the investigation being open. But he
encouraged nursing home residents and their families to share complaints
or concerns with the department's Centralized Complaint Intake Unit at health.ny.gov/facilities/nursing/complaints.htm or 1-888-201-4563. Complaints are kept confidential, and the outcomes of reviews are shared with complainants.
According to state Department of Health records,
the nursing home was the subject of 62 complaints between Feb. 1, 2019,
and Jan. 31 of this year. It had 75 complaints and 10.9 citations per
100 occupied beds, compared to the state averages of 49.9 and 2.6,
respectively. The nursing home was fined $17,000 last July for allowing
two staff unvaccinated against COVID-19 to work there.
The 92-bed nursing home at 85 Thornton
Ave. is also continuing its own investigation into the video,
Administrator Judson MacCaull told The Citizen on Wednesday. He declined
comment on the current employment status of the nurse depicted in it.
He also said the certified nursing assistant who recorded and posted the
video on Facebook, Alexxis McNeil, is still employed by the nursing
home.
"Once
the investigation is complete and we have an opportunity to carefully
consider the findings, we will make personnel decisions in accordance
with the law and consistent with our commitment to the health and safety
of our residents and staff," MacCaull said. "We appreciate your
understanding of the need for a fair and complete review and to avoid
premature speculation or rushes to judgment."
McNeil,
however, told The Citizen she was informed by the nursing home's human
resources department that sharing the video publicly violated HIPAA, the
federal law restricting the release of medical information. Upon being
told she would be fired as a result, McNeil instead quit, she said. To
the best of her knowledge, she is no longer an employee of the nursing
home.
McNeil's video, which she posted Tuesday morning, has been viewed more than 450,000 times and shared more than 5,700.
On Tuesday, the Arizona House of Representatives took a major step in
protecting Arizona citizens from abuse and the potential for corruption
within the current probate system by passing SB1038, establishing a
citizen-led Probate Advisory Panel that reports their findings directly
to the legislature.
Supporters say the need for such a panel was made clear in testimony
from Arizona victims of probate abuse during committee hearings and is
supported by the reports out of the United States General Accountability
Office and the Department of Justice, documenting years of physical,
psychological, and sexual abuse, physical abandonment, and financial
exploitation from probate actions.
In explaining his “yes” vote, Rep. Alex Kolodin, an attorney,
described that his original reluctance to support the bill was overcome
by the testimony of witnesses and the paring of SB1038 with SB1291,
which he described as “a very good probate reform bill.”
SB1291 is awaiting final House approval before heading back to the Senate due to amendments in the House.
The bill was the work of Sherry Lund, a nationwide advocate for
probate reform, and Senator John Kavanagh-R. On the passage of SB1038 in
the Arizona House, Mrs. Lund said, “At a time of such division within
our country it is inspiring to see the bipartisan support of this bill
which really speaks to the belief in protecting the rights of the people
against the status quo. It is not a Democrat issue or a Republican
issue, this is a Constitutional rights issue. It was encouraging to see
that recognized by the huge majority of members, regardless of party.”
The Probate Advisory Panel, if signed into law, would meet at least
quarterly and report its findings directly to the legislature for
consideration of further reforms to the probate system in Arizona.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - New public
guardian cases are not being accepted for the time being by the state
due to a severe staff shortage.
In a
letter to Chief Justice Peter Maassen and the Alaska Supreme Court,
Office of Public Advocacy Director James Stinson highlighted the
severity of the situation caused by a lack of certified public guardians
in the state, including an unexpected health issue for one certified
guardian that has created an “untenable staffing situation.”
“As
we have been alerting the courts for the last several years, the Public
Guardian caseloads have become overwhelming,” Stinson wrote.
Stinson
said that the usual ward caseload of about 40 has recently been
stretched to upwards of 100 wards per public guardian, over twice as
many as expected and far beyond the case load limit for other states.
Stinson also noted that the office has
tried to stay within guidelines set forth by the National Guardianship
Association’s Standards of Practice and Ethics, which lay out the
reasonable abilities of taking care of children and other Alaskans that
need help, including limiting workloads “that allows the guardian to
accurately and adequately support and protect the person.” It requires
that guardians visit their ward at least once a month and provides for
regular contact with all service providers.
The staffing shortage has created what Stinson has called an “untenable” system.
“We
have had grave concerns we are not meeting the NGA standards,” Stinson
wrote. “With the caseloads now even higher, we absolutely cannot meet
the NGA Standards.”
Stinson went on to
explain that one of the chief reasons that led to the current crisis is
the amount of resignations and retirements of previous public guardians
without a suitable influx of replacements signing on. Stinson said the
process to adequately train public guardians can take upwards of two
years.
Robert Ray Zendek, 31, of Madera has been arrested for allegedly stealing $12,013 from a 90-year-old relative.
According
to the affidavit of probable cause, on April 14, the victim, a Bigler
Township resident, came to the Clearfield state police barracks and
reported more than $10,000 was taken from her account.
State police obtained her bank records and found that Zendek made several unauthorized purchases totaling $12,013 using CashApp.
Police interviewed Zendek and he admitted to making the unauthorized withdrawals and said they occurred over seven months or so.
Zendek
is charged with financial exploitation of an older adult or care
dependent person, theft by unlawful taking, access device issued to
another who did not authorize use another reason access device is
unauthorized by issuer —all four are felonies of the third degree.
Zendek
is incarcerated in the Clearfield County Jail in lieu of $50,000
monetary bail. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday before
Magisterial District Judge Michael Morris.
Being tied to something as well-known as “Disney” provides for
interesting conversations. Mention “probate court” and eyes glaze over.
My stepson, Brad Disney Lund, the grandson of Walt Disney, and our
family have been in protracted probate cases for more than 13 years.
Brad won his Arizona case, our family vindicated of any wrongdoing, but
the people we met and what we learned about the probate system in the
United States revealed a nightmare worse than any evil portrayed in
fantasy. (Deposit Photos)
Being connected to something as well-known as “Disney” provides for
interesting conversations. Mention “probate court” and eyes glaze over.
The connection to one has made me all too familiar with the other. My
stepson, Brad Disney Lund, the grandson of Walt Disney, and our family
have been in protracted probate cases for over 13 years. Brad won his
Arizona case, our family vindicated of any wrongdoing, but the people we
met and what we learned about the probate system in our country
revealed a nightmare worse than any evil portrayed in fantasy. The Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals called the probate court in our case “The Most
Unhappy Place on Earth.”
These real-life experiences invoke questions of how this is even
legal in America. When compared, the pattern of practice across the
country becomes obvious. The Department of Justice has years of
documented physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, physical
abandonment, and financial exploitation from probate actions. More
accounts are found with a simple internet search.
People being denied due process, stripped of every dime they saved,
robbed of pensions, restricted of precious time with loved ones, drugged
and left to develop bedsores, pushed into declining health ultimately
to die penniless and often alone, motivated me to seek change. Which is
why two probate reform bills, SB1291 and SB1038, are in our Legislature
this session. Both bills have garnered immense bipartisan support, are
vitally important and must become law.
Arizona law allows for a simple medical evaluation, it could be by a
registered nurse or physician assistant, to place someone under a court
order. There is no requirement for an evaluation from your long-time
personal physician, or someone specifically trained in detecting mental
and physical incapacity to perform this evaluation that will remove you
of every right you ever had. A stranger is able to determine if a person
stands to lose their civil rights and be reclassified as a “ward” in a
court action where limited evidence is required.
Enter the dystopian reality of families legally
prevented from seeing loved ones, sedation to keep the ward “calm,”
liquidation of assets and personal belongings, a likely change of
residence to fit the needs of the guardian who now bills the ward for
every aspect of care, for example $25 to open and $25 to read each piece
of mail – even junk mail. The ward loses the right to vote, to drive,
to see whomever they choose, to live where they choose, the ability to
choose their own doctor and make healthcare decisions. Essentially, all
individual decision-making is forfeited and given to the guardian, a
stranger, appointed by the courts in most cases.
When a guardian is appointed, it usually means that a conservator
over their estate is also appointed. Probate does not require great
wealth or being elderly. Owning your home, having a 401K or IRA, other
assets, Social Security or pension will do. It can start with getting
sick or having an injury with an unexpected hospitalization, a bank
account problem, or a family squabble over who takes care of someone, or
who gets the house and remaining retirement savings after mom and dad
are gone.
These events trigger the idea that there is a need for an
intervention in the care or financial management of the individual,
which ushers in the court-appointed attorneys, fiduciaries and
guardians. With relatively minimal effort, an individual’s civil rights
are removed, their life no longer under their control. Then there is the
money that is filtered through probate cases. So much money.
The money running through the probate system makes
it ripe for corruption. The United States is estimated to have 1.3
million active probate cases, including over $50 billion under
management, with a staggering $16.9 billion drained from retirement
accounts, family trusts, and lifetime savings of Baby Boomers alone. In
many cases it is the court-appointed players receiving these funds,
nicknamed “probate pirates” due to their ease at liquidating assets
while staying in the gray zone of legality. One recent article said the
current probate system “… irreparably damages entire generations of
innocent families.”
Not surprisingly, the abusers in the system are trying hard to push
back on SB1291 and SB1038 by lobbying to water down these bills. They
should not be allowed to deny the Constitutional protections against
what is happening in the probate courts to protect their status quo.
Every citizen should be concerned that our rights are so easily
eliminated and all that we hold dear and planned for, wiped away. It is
incumbent on the Arizona Legislature to pass and Gov. Katie Hobbs to
sign into law, SB1291 and SB1038.
Sherry Lund of Paradise Valley is the founder of Protecting
Liberty 5-14, a grassroots organization dedicated to protecting the
rights guaranteed in the 5th and 14th Amendments and has spent over a
decade advocating nationwide for victims of probate abuse.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WRBL) — A
Montgomery attorney, sentenced on the charge of financial exploitation,
agreed to pay $345,000 to his victim, an elderly military veteran.
According to Alabama’s Attorney General’s Office, John Warren Godwin,
39, pleaded guilty and was sentenced by the Montgomery County Circuit
Court to a ten-year suspended sentence with five years’ probation.
Earlier on May 1, agents with the Attorney General’s Office arrested Godwin,
The Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation into Godwin’s
conduct in June 2022 after receiving information from a local bank that
identified suspicious transactions from the victim’s accounts.
That investigation revealed that Godwin was court-appointed in 2018
to represent D.N., an elderly veteran in need of emergency protective
services who had no family to care for him.
Godwin admitted that he breached his fiduciary duty to D.N. by
failing to pay property taxes on his home, which led to the property
being sold to a third party at a tax sale.
Godwin further breached his duty by recklessly failing to redeem that
property within the statutory period of three years. Because of his
failure to reclaim the property, D.N.’s home was permanently lost.
As a condition of Godwin’s plea, he agreed to pay $345,000 in
restitution to the victim (the value of the home lost in the tax sale),
to permanently surrender his license with the Alabama State Bar, to
disclaim any and all bequests, interests, inheritances, and duties from
any and all last wills and testaments of the victim, and to pay all
other court costs and fees.
In exchange for Godwin’s immediate cooperation, the State agreed to
not bring any additional charges related to Godwin’s service as a
guardian and conservator.
When Ann King, 88, faced worsening dementia, her children considered a dozen care homes and carefully picked Reigate Grange, part of the Signature Senior Lifestyle chain, with annual fees close to £100,000.
Within months, however, they began to worry their mother was being neglected as she began asking them if they were going to throw her out of bed, or the window. The family installed a covert camera on King's bedside table that revealed harrowing abuse.
They have shared some of the footage with the Guardian in the hope of exposing such practices; something they say their mother, a former nurse, would have wanted. Signature apologised to the family and insisted the ''reprehensible' behaviour was 'committed by rogue individuals'.
Laws on guardianship in North Carolina have remained unchanged for
decades, and advocates say they don’t reflect changes in the field that
call for more information and expanded rights for people whose lives are
put under the control of another person, agency or business.
by Thomas Goldsmith and Rose Hoban
Charlotte resident Tylor Freeman said now that he's out from under
guardianship, he's looking forward to living where he wants. His
guardian for eight years came from a company that gets paid for each
guardian they manage. After that, his guardianship was transferred to
The Arc of North Carolina, and his guardians there informed him of his
rights and helped him transition away from being under a guardianship
regimen. "They made sure that I was informed of my rights. You know, I
never knew I could have a trial by jury. Or I never knew that I could
ask for an appeal. Because we would go to court, and nobody would tell
me these things," he said. Credit: Rose Hoban
By Thomas Goldsmith
When Tylor Freeman was 18, he remembers, a Buncombe County court
ruled that he needed a legal guardian to help him make life decisions,
because that’s what a psychologist recommended after a 10-minute
interview.
Freeman, 28, of Asheville, who has cerebral palsy, told his story
during an April 25 event in downtown Raleigh for professionals and
advocates involved with proposed reforms of guardianship law that are moving through the General Assembly.
He recounted being 18 and just transitioning from living with his mother.
“They did not think that I was making good decisions,” Freeman said
about the process to place him under the care of a guardian. “Then I
come and I’m like, ‘What do you mean? What am I supposed to do?’”
A bill containing proposed reforms to several aspects of adult guardianship passed the state Senate unanimously
on April 20 and headed to a House committee April 25. Its passage would
mark the first substantive changes in decades in this area of law, with
language aimed at improving rights of the person under guardianship,
making sure they are fully informed about the process, and improving
oversight by the offices of county clerks.
Under legal guardianship in North Carolina, a person can have
near-total control of their life — over daily living and/or financial
matters — turned over to another person, agency or business by order of a
county clerk of court. It happens when the court finds that a person,
called a respondent, or a “ward” in outdated terminology, does not have
the capacity to make and communicate decisions about his or her welfare
or money.
The reforms actually are “… the essence of what the disability rights
movement is all about, which is choice and self-determination,” said
Linda Kendall Fields, a longtime developer of these reforms and incoming
director of UNC Cares, or the Center for Aging Research and Educational Services, at the UNC Chapel Hill.
“It affects where you live, who you’re with, what you do, how your money is spent. It’s really core to personhood.”
‘It doesn’t get revisited’
In the fiscal year 2021-22, 5,786 people were under guardianship in North Carolina, according to a March presentation
to legislators. Laws governing the practice would get a revamp partly
as a result of a campaign that’s been pursued since 2015 by Rethinking Guardianship, a statewide effort funded by the North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities and carried out by UNC Cares at the School of Social Work at UNC Chapel Hill.
“There are some provisions that would allow people to make choices
about what they want to happen,” said Heather Burkhardt, executive
director of the North Carolina Coalition on Aging,
which supports the bill. “So it’s not taking away all of their rights
around these guardianships and making sure that people have
opportunities to come out of guardianship.
“Often what happens is that a lot of people will have a guardian, and it’s forever and it doesn’t get revisited — ever.”
That’s nearly what happened for Freeman, who had his rights restored on Jan. 24 after spending a decade in the system. The ARC of North Carolina,
the agency that took over his guardianship from a private provider,
followed a practice that the proposed law would mandate. Its provisions
would make sure that the respondent, or person under guardianship, is
aware of a number of rights, some of which may only have appeared in
rulings in earlier cases, Fields said.
“I never knew I could have a trial by jury,” Freeman said. “I never
knew that I could ask for an appeal, or that we would go to court. And
nobody would tell me these things.”
A mandate for full information
Restoration of rights for people who can handle their own affairs can
have significant benefits. A court put Sean Brady, 36, under
guardianship when he was diagnosed with symptoms of autism at age 27. As
a result, he had to ask his stepmother as guardian for permission for
activities such as traveling out of town for business.
With the help of Rethinking Guardianship, Brady had his full rights
as an adult restored. Using a document certifying his status in
situations like applying for college, he earned a two-year degree in
horticultural and applied plant science.
“I think I’m the first person in my whole family to ever have a
college degree,” Brady said in a phone interview from his new home in
West Virginia. “I’m looking at possibly going back to West Virginia
University, to take it from an associate’s degree to a bachelor’s in
business or something like that.”
Anyone can file a petition to have another person declared incapable
of making and communicating decisions about their care and finances.
With proposed new requirements in the bill, the petitioner has to
provide several items of specific information.
“In the past, if the clerk found the respondent to be in need of
guardianship, they had no recourse but to assign a guardian,” Fields
said. “The petitioner must show that attempts have been made to support
this person’s decisions through a less restrictive means first.”
Carol Kelly, who is active in guardianship causes in Orange County
and nationally, spoke at the Raleigh event about the importance of this
portion of the proposed reforms. Kelly got involved because of the
experience of her mother, in California, who she said was the victim of
financial exploitation in an unnecessary guardianship.
“The purpose of this legislation is to require that every avenue is
looked at,” Kelly said. “Do you have your power of attorney in place?
And could that person work with you? Or is there some other way of
support so that you maintain your dignity, your personhood? To have that
taken away could just be devastating.”
Avenues to passage
Advocates for changes in guardianship got a boost that can’t be
quantified from the story of pop star Britney Spears’ harrowing fight to
escape the guardianship of her father, Burkhardt said. Spears’ example
showed up in legislative discussion.
Fields said three main parts make up the bill next to be considered by the House:
A mandate to consider alternatives that carry the least restrictions for the lives of people facing potential guardianship.
A need to make sure all parties are fully informed about relevant rights.
The ability of courts to monitor guardianships and call for hearings if needed.
The Rethinking Guardianship organization plans to push for more
reforms in future legislative sessions, Fields said. One will be
revisions in what is considered archaic statute language, such as “incompetent” instead of “incapacitated” to describe a person who may benefit from guardianship.
Statutes also use such outdated terms as “inebriety” and “senility.”
The terms occur not just in specific laws governing guardianship, but
also in other statutes that are referred to, so any such process would
get complicated, Fields said. The legislature has undertaken such
language reform in the past, as in a 2018 effort to revise words such as “lunatic” and “mentally retarded,” but not all of the terms have been eliminated.
New processes already spreading
Meanwhile, years of discussion about changes to guardianship have
created waves that are being felt in county clerks’ offices across North
Carolina, said Mark Kleinschmidt, clerk of Superior Court in Orange
County.
“I hope that you understand that the conversations and the hearings
are going on, and clerks’ offices around the state have changed already
because of the work you’re doing,” Kleinschmidt said to officials and
supporters of the legislation at the April 25 event. “One of my
colleagues from a neighboring county, very close to mine, in the last
six weeks, has dismissed two adjudication petitions.
“And she called me both times and said, ‘Hey, Mark, I dismissed a petition today.’
“And I said, ‘Oh, wow, how did you get there?’
“She said, ‘Well, there were plenty of supports for this individual.
And this person was not incompetent, and I dismissed the petition.’”
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) - According to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), elder abuse is a
big problem in the United States.
It is defined as an intentional act or a failure to act that causes harm.
This
then begs the question: Are abuse and neglect happening in nursing
homes and licensed assisted living facilities across Michiana?
And if so, what is being done to combat the issue?
Karla Fales is the President and CEO of
REAL Services in South Bend. The organization helps to meet the needs of
older adults in St. Joseph County. Fales said she believes staffing has
an impact on resident outcomes.
“And I
would say the staffing is one of the predominant things that drives the
abuse and neglect because of the fact that they do not have enough.
They may not have adequate training and just the heavy load that they
are carrying,” Fales said.
Lynn Clough, the director of the State’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman program, agrees.
“They are considering putting a minimum staffing standard in place for nursing homes,” Clough said.
Under Federal Nursing Home Regulations, residents have the right to be free from abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
According to the Family and Social Services Administration’s adult protective services division:
Abuse includes touching another person in a rude manner.
Neglect is defined as failure to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, or medical care.
Exploitation includes unauthorized uses of personal services or property.
“Neglect
may or may not be intentional,” Clough added. She also said a Certified
Nursing Assistant (CNA) who is poorly trained may not know how to
provide proper care.
Clough then gave some examples of neglect, including:
Incorrect body positioning.
Lack
of toileting or changing of disposable briefs, which causes
incontinence and can result in residents sitting in urine or feces.
A lack of assistance with eating and drinking, which can lead to malnutrition and dehydration.
Ignoring call lights or cries for help.
“I dealt with the bad nursing homes. I am sure there’s plenty of good nursing homes out there,” Mark Shroyer said.
Shroyer
said his dad, Glenn Shroyer, moved into a local nursing home in 2022
and claimed Glenn experienced several issues during his stay.
“Went into his room, he had feces, and he
had urine on him... My dad would ask to go to the bathroom. They
wouldn’t come. I had, many times, said, ‘Hey, my dad needs to go to the
restroom.’ ‘We will be there in a little while’... Patients just
wandering. I mean you saw it every day,” Shroyer recalled.
Fales
said abuse and neglect cases are not always so cut and dry. She said
the examples Shroyer mentioned could be considered neglect, if it is
continual and if residents are exposed to unsafe conditions.
Shroyer
said he never filed a formal complaint with any government agency
because he did not think about it at the time but notified staff
members.
A month went by, and after having surgery in Chicago, Glenn was transferred to another nearby nursing home.
“Somebody will be there. They’ll help
him. They’ll do his rehab. And it didn’t turn out that way at all. There
was nobody there for him, so that hurts,” Shroyer said.
Shroyer said his dad experienced similar issues as before.
For
example, he said Glenn’s “clothes and teeth were missing.” He was “left
in his feces.” And “his catheter bag would leak, and he would be lying
in urine.”
Shroyer said he notified staff members.
“If you’re taking on the responsibility
of having one of our elderly come into your place of business, and you
are promising to take care of them, then you should be able to take care
of them. If you don’t have the staff to do it, then we need to find
another way,” he told 16 News Now.
Shroyer said this time, he did file a formal complaint with the department’s Long-Term Care Division.
16 News Now asked for a copy of the complaint, but Shroyer says he completed it online.
When Shroyer received a copy of the health department’s findings, he said it mentioned nothing about his dad.
While the health department declined an
on-camera or Zoom interview, and declined to comment on specific cases,
they said they received a total of 3,822 complaints in 2022, which
included 941 allegations of abuse or neglect.
Complaints
are confidential under state and federal law. After investigating, a
survey report is written, and then, if needed, facilities are required
to submit a plan of correction.
The
department says it then follows up to make sure the correction has been
implemented. It also does annual inspections and writes report cards
based on survey findings.
Facility
report card scores were not updated for a period of time due to changes
in the survey process during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic but have
since resumed.
While the health department is looking to see if regulations are being upheld, the Ombudsman program takes a different approach.
“State
ombudsmen have a different perspective and we work for the residents.
Our job is to help resolve resident issues or complaints...And I think a
good way to put this is that surveyors want to know if the call-light
system is working. Family and ombudsmen want to know if somebody is
going to be there to answer the call light when the resident pushes it,”
Clough said.
The program helps
“advocate for residents of long-term care facilities, which includes
nursing facilities and licensed assisted living facilities.”
“You
know, people who live in a nursing home are entitled to the same level
of dignity that we are living in our own homes. And so, they help ensure
that they can advocate for them on that,” Fales said.
REAL Services hires ombudsmen.
“And
so, they are employed by REAL Services. We have two of them, but they
actually report in terms of their authority and their discretion
directly to the state ombudsman, which every state has one,” says Fales.
Shroyer said he never knew about the program until our interview.
Glenn eventually passed away on October 22, 2022.
Though difficult, Glenn’s memory carries on. Shroyer said Glenn was a family man, a pet lover, and a guy with an amazing spirit.
“Even
at his sickest time, someone would walk in, and he would try to make a
joke to make them smile...It makes me sad because he didn’t have to
suffer like that. He really didn’t,” Shroyer recalled.
“We’re
hoping to bring forward through the legislature, and through others, to
say there needs to be standards within the industry. That better equips
the nursing home facilities to do what they are supposed to be doing,”
Fales said.
Tune in Friday at 6 p.m.
as 16 News Now continues investigating potential abuse and neglect
happening in nursing homes and licensed assisted living facilities
across Michiana.
West Plains, MO. – A West Plains couple has been charged with multiple felonies dealing with the financial exploitation of an elderly man in 2021.
Edwin Ruther and Lisa Jones are charged with Stealing $25,000 or more
and Financial Exploitation of an Elderly/Disabled Person. The charges
stem from an investigation performed by the Howell County Sheriff’s
Office beginning in 2021.
A man contacted the Sheriff’s Office stating that Jones and Ruther
had potentially taken a large sum of money out of the bank account that
he had shared with his late father between June 24 and July 22, 2021.
The elderly man had sold land and a house to the couple prior to his
death in September 2021.
The probable cause statement references a $4,500 check that had been
written to Jones on June 24, 2021, for the sale of a trailer to the
elderly man. It goes on to state that Jones lacked paperwork to back up
the sale and that the trailer remained titled in her name. Additionally,
a $28,000 telephone transfer was made on July 22, 2021, from the man’s
bank account to Jones’. The PC states that Jones initially told
authorities it was for a truck to buy but changed it for the care of the
elderly man’s horse.
According to an interview with authorities, Ruther stated he did not
know of any further financial agreements between the elderly man outside
of the sale of the land and house and denied receiving any payments
from him in the form of checks or bank transfers.
The statement says that Jones was arrested on an active warrant
through Ozark County during the investigation. An online search of court
documents performed by News Team 7 failed to turn up any court cases
for Jones through Ozark County. This could be due to a case being sealed
or other action.
During this time, the elderly man had rapidly declining health stemming from a diagnosis of high-grade cancer.
A grand jury indicted the couple earlier this year. Jones has an
arraignment scheduled before Judge Steven Privette in Howell County on
May 5th. Ruther has been granted a change of judge and the case awaits
assignment.
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