Connecticut’s conservatorship system is failing those who need it most

by Chelsea Donaldson

I met Frank during the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, in early 2020. We could not meet in person, and so I had to perform a legal intake with him over the phone on the floor of my bathroom – the only room in my studio apartment that had a door so I could maintain privacy.  The phone call was brief and confusing, and the only thing he could tell me was that the military harmed him, and that he could remember his social security number.  He wanted me to represent him in a disability claim for service-connected compensation through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Frank had schizophrenia. His type was severe. He suffered from hallucinations and delusions that were so all-encompassing that I sometimes wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he knew he was talking to me or to the voices in his head. He struggled with alcoholism and frequently called me from liquor stores – so often that I saved the phone numbers in my office line as “Frank – Liquor Store (New London)” or “Frank – Liquor Store (Banned)” so I knew what I was getting into when I picked up the phone. 

In order to represent Frank in his disability claim, I needed to get in touch with his conservator. It was a hard time – even attorney to attorney, getting forms signed on behalf of Frank was a lot of back and forth. Getting the conservator on the phone was next to impossible. It was my first encounter with the conservatorship system in Connecticut, and it was not a pleasant one. I often received messages that I considered disparaging against my client. In one message, the conservator’s office asked me, “Does he actually have a case? Is this even necessary?” I often felt that I was alone in believing Frank’s story that he was disabled as a result of his service.  

I won that case. Frank was thrilled. It was one of the few happy phone calls I had with him in our years-long attorney-client relationship. He could now afford rent and live in a stable housing situation. He could be comfortable instead of deciding which bridge to sleep under that night.

Eventually, Frank petitioned for a release of his conservatorship. He had never agreed with being conserved, and wanted full access to his money. His clinicians (doctors, nurses, social workers, and staff) strongly recommended against it. Frank struggled with an ongoing substance abuse problem. Liquor and cocaine were his drugs of choice. His clinicians had stabilized him. He was sober for the first time in months, but his sobriety was tentative. He was medication-compliant, but that did not stop his most severe symptoms from bubbling up in times of stress or excitement. Before the hearing, Frank had informed his clinicians that he had intended to divvy up money to his clones when he was released from his conservatorship. 

I attended the hearing, but did not formally testify. After all, I was Frank’s attorney for a very specific issue, and did not offer an opinion on whether or not he should be conserved. I only confirmed what was already in the record – that Frank had been deemed not able to manage his finances by the VA, that he had a service-connected disability of schizophrenia, and that I regularly worked with his clinicians in order to adequately communicate with Frank due to the severity of his psychosis.

The probate hearing ultimately resulted in Frank being released from his conservatorship. He had full access to his non-VA funds, immediately. The judge did not seem to take the concerns of his clinicians seriously, and neither did the conservator. Instead, the judge stated that conservatorship was “not the answer” for Frank, and that Frank needed to fail in order to learn how to manage his money. That he, in spite of every ounce of evidence to the contrary, did not need case management for his funds. That there were consequences for actions.

Within days, Frank called me, words slurred with alcohol. Within weeks, he had regularly blown through his non-VA funds on anything but his basic needs. Within six months, I received a call that Frank was found dead in his home. 

This situation is not unique. The conservatorship system in Connecticut is inherently flawed, but a solid solution at fixing it seems out of reach. Many court-appointed conservators have thousands of cases to manage and are paid minimally through the state. They serve an essential function – to manage people who have no other options. In my experience, the probate court is loath to hold these folks to the high standard that Connecticut law requires because, to be blunt, there is no one else to fill the gap.

The people who fall into the court-appointed conservatorship cycle, like Frank, meet a few set qualifications. They have no family to step up for them, or they are too poor to afford a private pay conservator. So they are appointed one by the court – and that court-appointed conservator often does not have the time or training to manage people who require proper case management like Frank. The only training “encouraged” by the state of Connecticut is a three-hour program concerning what a conservator is responsible for. For someone like Frank, who lived in a different reality than the rest of his circle, a three-hour training was not going to prepare someone to navigate the complexities of his situation.

Instead, people like Frank become a number in a system that is overburdened and woefully inadequate for individuals who require compassion, care, and dignity in the midst of mental crisis.

In a system where society’s most vulnerable requires the strength of character to defend them, Connecticut falls woefully short. As the Connecticut Legal Rights Project states: “Connecticut has a modern, even a model conservatorship statute, but it is too often ignored.”  Per the Standards of Practice for conservators, “The conservator shall limit the conservator’s caseload to a size that allows the conservator to support, protect and maintain ongoing contact with each conserved person.” 

In reality, this does not happen. 

In my experience, I voiced complaints and concerns for multiple conservatorships on behalf of my clients, but they have been ignored by the courts. On one occasion, I was told by the judge: “Where else do you want me to send your client?  Because it’s either this conservator or nothing.”  I have been told by attorneys who operate as court-appointed conservators that they have upwards of 1,500 clients through this system. I have been told by clients that they never speak to their actual conservator, but the paralegals in their office instead.  

The probate courts may be doing the best with the resources they are granted, but it is often not enough. Too many court-appointed conservators do not pay sufficient attention to their clients, who are desperate for assistance. For some, it may be because they are corrupt and do not care.  But for many, it is because they simply do not have the time to handle the hundreds to thousands of clientele the state assigns them for lack of a better place to go. 

The system failed Frank. He died far too young, a victim of a system that was supposed to protect him. He should be alive and enjoying his time off of the streets, making friends and getting healthy. Instead, I will no longer be answering phone calls or seeing him at the VA, but visiting a grave.

In memory of Frank, my client and friend. I treasured every single conversation I had with you. The system failed you, and I hope you are now at peace. 

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Connecticut’s conservatorship system is failing those who need it most

Burlington County nursing home with nation’s biggest fine for a safety violation this year faces Medicare and Medicaid crackdown

Story by Harold Brubaker

Sterling Manor Nursing Center, a Burlington County nursing home, received the nation’s biggest fine for patient safety violations this year and is now facing a federal and state crackdown. Regulators have threatened to terminate its participation in Medicare and Medicaid, the government insurance programs that pay for most nursing home care.

Federal regulators fined Sterling Manor $738,590 in connection with a January complaint inspection that uncovered multiple drug overdoses by residents. Separately, in July, Sterling Manor was fined an additional $266,450, but details on why were not immediately available.

The two fines gave Sterling Manor the highest total for financial penalties nationwide out of more than 2,300 nursing homes with fines from January through Oct. 2, an Inquirer review of federal records found.

The facility’s history of “serious quality issues” is reflected in a warning icon posted on a Medicare website that rates nursing homes on quality measures. Sterling has no rating currently.

Last month, about a month after state inspectors cited Sterling for another resident overdose, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid notified Sterling that it would be terminated from the government-sponsored health insurance programs on Jan. 31, unless it produced an adequate improvement plan, according to a Dec. 6 letter from the New Jersey Department of Health.

Thursday the New Jersey Comptroller’s Medicaid Fraud Unit jumped in, announcing its intention to suspend Sterling Manor and a nursing home in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, from Medicaid in 60 days. It’s common for nursing homes to be sold or placed under alternative control under these circumstance, as happened to facilities in Deptford and Hammonton this year.

Both Sterling and South Jersey Extended Care in Bridgeton provided substandard care for years and engaged in a Medicaid fraud by siphoning money to a group of related companies that operated the facilities on behalf of an owner who had no real responsibility, the comptroller’s office said.

Sterling has 124 beds. The number of beds at South Jersey Extended Care is 167.

Investigation into a Bridgeton facility

At the same time as announcing its intention to suspend the two nursing homes and their operators from Medicaid, the comptroller’s office released a 70-page report painting a picture of how a web of related companies allegedly profited from their management of South Jersey Extended Care, which is owned on paper by a man named Mark Weisz.

The reality, according the comptroller, is that Weisz ceded all responsibility for the facilities’ operations to companies owned by his cousin, Michael Konig, and Konig’s brother-in-law, Steven Krausman. Those relationships were not disclosed on nursing home cost reports as required by law, allowing Konig and Krausman to charge inflated rates without exposure to state and federal scrutiny, according to the controller’s report.

“This investigation shows that Krausman and Konig’s broader business model was to funnel as much money as possible to themselves — from a dedicated, taxpayer-funded funding stream — to support their other business interests, while providing low-quality nursing home care,” the report said.

The scheme described by the comptroller has been documented for years throughout the industry by national media and academic studies.

When asked for comment, Peter Slocum, a lawyer for Konig, Krausman, and Weisz, provided copies of his responses to an advance copy of the comptroller’s report.

The report is “defamatory and wholly unsupportable,” he told the comptroller’s office in the Nov. 19 letter. He provided no further comment to The Inquirer.

A new management company, not included in the comptroller’s report, has operated the two facilities since August 2022.

Konig’s record

Konig has a checkered record in the nursing home industry. In the mid-1990s, Connecticut banned him from the business for five years, according to the Boston Globe, and later that decade Massachusetts banned him from operating nursing homes for 10 years. In both cases, authorities investigated Konig for Medicaid fraud and poor resident care.

Around that time, Konig set up alternative owners for the nursing home operated in New Jersey, including Weisz at South Jersey Extended Care and Sterling Manor. But his Broadway Healthcare Management continued providing extensive services to the facilities, including staffing them, according to the comptroller’s report.

Konig has a history of receiving reprimands from federal authorities.

A federal judge in 2015 ordered him to pay $636,410 in back wages and overtime to at least 150 direct-care staff who worked at 10 nursing homes throughout New Jersey.

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1996 upheld a National Labor Relations Board decision ordering Konig to stop interfering with unionization efforts by licensed practical nurses at a Vineland nursing home he owned at the time.

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Burlington County nursing home with nation’s biggest fine for a safety violation this year faces Medicare and Medicaid crackdown

Casey Chairs Final Aging Committee Hearing on Disability Rights

U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, held an Aging Committee hearing entitled “Empowering People with Disabilities to Live, Work, Learn, and Thrive.” At the hearing, Chairman Casey highlighted his long record as a champion for people with disabilities, and laid out his vision for how Congress must continue to work to empower them. The hearing was Casey’s last as Chairman of the Aging Committee.

“From the beginning of my time in the Senate, I heard a constant refrain from disability advocates that their needs were not being met—they faced barriers to save for their future, they were being paid well below a living wage, and they could not afford or access the care they needed,” said Chairman Casey. “Those refrains, including from some of the people we heard from at today’s hearing, are what inspired me to make people with disabilities a focus of my Senate career and time as Aging Committee Chairman.”

During his 18 years in the Senate, Chairman Casey has been one of the foremost champions in Washington for people with disabilities. He created the ABLE program, which has helped hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities save for their future, made federal websites more accessible for people with disabilities, and propelled the fight for access to home care to the forefront of the national conversation. At the hearing, he highlighted this record, but also made clear that there is more work to be done.

“We have made a lot of progress, from creating the ABLE program to making government technology more accessible,” Chairman Casey continued. “But as we heard today, there is still a lot more to do—from expanding access to home care to finally phasing out the subminimum wage.”

At the hearing, witnesses from Pennsylvania and national organizations testified about the impact of Chairman Casey’s work on the disability community in the Commonwealth and around the country.

Ai-Jen Poo, President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance: “I want to thank Senator Casey for your leadership. None of the successes I outlined would have been possible without your steadfast championship, advocacy and partnership. It is daunting to think about facing the challenges ahead, particularly the threats to Medicaid, without you at the helm, but we have been emboldened to reimagine what is possible because of your leadership.”

Neil McDevitt, Mayor of North Wales, PA: “Senator Casey, you have been a steadfast ally of North Wales Borough, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and millions of disabled and Deaf Americans. We owe you a debt that can never be repaid.”

Erin Willman, CEO of White Cane Coffee in Warren, PA: “Things are actually changing. We are not yet where we need to be when it comes to disability access and acceptance, but we are getting there. It brings me great joy when I hear of disabled people in my community getting good paying jobs and not being relegated to sheltered workshops for less than minimum wage.”

Lydia Brown, Director of Policy, National Disability Institute: “Ten years ago, Senator Casey’s leadership in introducing and passing The ABLE Act changed the game. People whose disabilities began before age 26 can now access a savings vehicle that can conserve up to $100,000 total without their savings counting against them in determining eligibility for SSI and Medicaid. Money in an ABLE account can be used for a wide range of qualified disability expenses, including otherwise unaffordable assistive technology and health care, as well as educational and employment related costs. For many disabled people on Medicaid, an ABLE account is also their only available means to save for retirement.”

During the hearing, Chairman Casey released a series of issue briefs detailing his record chairing the Aging Committee on making government technology accessible, expanding access to home care, improving nursing homes, lowering prescription drug costs, and ensuring economic security for older adults.

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Casey Chairs Final Aging Committee Hearing on Disability Rights

Bob Casey Leads Senate Aging Committee Hearing On Empowering People With Disabilities

On Thursday, the Senate Aging Committee held a hearing entitled, “Empowering People with Disabilities to Live, Work, Learn, and Thrive.”

Source:
Bob Casey Leads Senate Aging Committee Hearing On Empowering People With Disabilities

Victims across the country come forward after having money stolen from Fidelity retirement accounts

ATLANTA — People are reaching out to Channel 2 Action News investigates from all over the country after seeing the story of an 86-year-old woman who had nearly $50,000 stolen out of her Fidelity retirement accounts.

“Somebody was asleep at the switch. Somebody was not doing their job, or this would have never happened,” Nancy Smith told Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray.

In September, three new joint accounts were created in Smith’s name.

Each of the accounts was linked to a different person Smith said she did not know and had never met.

“Eleven different transfers had been made by these three bogus people,” Smith said.

Smith said she never authorized the transfers or the changes to her accounts.

Robin Gunnink reached out to Channel 2 Action News from Wisconsin.

“My 96-year-old mom had the same thing happen to her. On Oct. 11, a joint account was opened in her name. There was a withdrawal of $20,000. $10,000 was immediately put in another Fidelity account and left the Fidelity platform. She has not gotten it back,” she wrote.

Mark McConnell contacted us from Renton, Washington. He said in October he discovered someone else’s name was added to his Fidelity trading account.

“This person had had access to my account for over a month,” McConnell told Gray.

McConnell said that while no money was stolen, he has filed three complaints with the Federal Trade Commission about the incident with his Fidelity account.

“There’s something wrong. And the problem is, is they’re not being open and transparent,” he said.

A Fidelity representative told McConnell it was not fraud in his case, but instead “a representative processing error.”

Fidelity wrote, “We confirm that the appropriate steps were taken to close the impacted account and transfer the assets to a new account.”

McConnell worries that his personal information could have been compromised.

“All I want to know is if anybody clicked into my account one and two, did they download anything? Because I now need to protect myself,” McConnell said.

It is important to note that account maintenance errors, such as this one, are rare.

In October, Channel 2 Action News introduced you to another Georgia retiree who had $32,000 stolen from her Fidelity accounts.

“I don’t know how you are safe. I really don’t know,” Deborah Neal said.

In that case, one crook posed as Fidelity on the phone with Neal, while an accomplice was on the phone with the real Fidelity pretending to be her.

Last month Neal’s money was returned to her account by Fidelity.

More than two months after her money was stolen, Smith said she’s still waiting for a resolution from Fidelity.

Smith said a manager told her on the phone to “lower her expectations.”

“My mother would be ashamed of me if I said what I would like to have said because I couldn’t go to the Methodist church after that,” Smith said.

While Fidelity will not discuss individual cases, a spokesperson tells Channel 2 Action News fraud investigations can take several weeks.

Fidelity sent the following statement to Channel 2 Action News:

“To protect customer privacy, we do not discuss individual matters and work with our customers directly to answer any questions they may have concerning suspicious activity. We understand scams can impact individuals and their families and encourage everyone to take steps to protect themselves and their accounts, including monitoring accounts frequently for suspicious activity and contacting financial institutions directly should anything out of the ordinary, including phone calls or texts from unknown parties, occur.”

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Victims across the country come forward after having money stolen from Fidelity retirement accounts

Granite City Police Charge Two For Financially Exploiting Elderly Victims

by Dalton Brown

GRANITE CITY - A Granite City man and New York resident both face felony charges for financially exploiting elderly victims in two separate but similar cases filed on the same day.

Richard W. Hoffmeister Jr., 64, of Medina, N.Y., was charged with two Class 1 felony counts of financial exploitation of an elderly person or a person with a disability. He was also charged with a Class 1 felony count of theft.

For over two years from Sept. 1, 2020 to Dec. 1, 2022, Hoffmeister allegedly obtained over $15,000 from an elderly victim over 70 years of age “while standing in a position of trust and confidence” with them, according to court documents.

In a separate case, Brian F. Griffith, 45, of Granite City, was also charged with two counts of financial exploitation of an elderly person or person with a disability, both Class 1 felonies. He was also charged with theft, a Class 2 felony, and wire fraud, a Class 3 felony.

Griffith reportedly financially exploited a different elderly victim who was also over 70 years old at the time. From Feb 1, 2022 to Dec. 1, 2022, Griffith operated a “scheme” to steal over $15,000 from the elderly victim, which he then used to make various purchases.

“[Griffith] knowingly devised and intended to devise a scheme … to defraud [the victim] and obtain money and property by means of false pretenses,” a description of the wire fraud charge states. “He made substantial online purchases and payments to child support through the internet.”

The Granite City Police Department presented the cases against Griffith and Hoffmeister on Dec. 10, 2024. Both individuals were granted pretrial release from custody.

The issuance of charges is based solely upon probable cause and is not an indication of guilt. All subjects charged with criminal offenses are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 

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Granite City Police Charge Two For Financially Exploiting Elderly Victims

'He's my hero': 6-year-old Danville boy helps grandmother call 911, saves house from exploding

Things could've been very different for one Danville family this holiday season. They're grateful their house still stands after a fire almost started in their basement over the weekend. A 6-year-old boy saved the day.

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'He's my hero': 6-year-old Danville boy helps grandmother call 911, saves house from exploding