Ensign: The Nursing Home Empire Built on Fatal Neglect

By: Michelle Cera Andrew Ford Laura Wadsten 
Editor: Jim Impoco Sam Koppelman 

They beat the walls.

Cheryle Weir couldn’t breathe, her roommate recalled. Dependent on ventilators at an Ensign facility, they couldn’t talk. They couldn’t scream.

So they banged on the table, banged on the wall, desperate for anyone to hear. A nurse should have been there. No one was.

Eventually, Cheryle stopped banging. 

Her family’s lawsuit blames her death on The Ensign Group ($ENSG).

Ensign is America’s largest operator of “skilled nursing facilities” (SNFs) — facilities designed to rehabilitate people who need less than hospital care, but more care than they can provide themselves. 

Ensign boasts about its star ratings, “industry-leading” clinical outcomes, and “strong history of quickly improving the quality of care in the facilities we acquire.” A sell-side analyst referred to Ensign’s quality star ratings as part of its “secret sauce.” And Ensign says it sets “the standard by which all others in our industry are measured.”

But a five-month Hunterbrook investigation found that standard is tragically low — and fatal.

The investigation revealed Ensign’s $10 billion empire is built on a dubious foundation: Its profits are heavily dependent on understaffing facilities. It performs better than average on self-reported quality metrics but worse on independently verifiable measures. It regularly violates state minimum staffing laws, and routes taxpayer dollars to its executives and to its own affiliates. Meanwhile, Ensign patients suffer and sometimes die.

“We could’ve had so much more time,” Weir’s daughter, Hanneka White, told Hunterbrook in an interview. “And it was taken away.” 

One of Cheryle Weir’s daughters, Hanneka White, with a photo of her mother. Source: Hunterbrook Media

Hunterbrook Media’s reporting team — led by three journalists, as well as former financial analysts from Goldman Sachs and Magnetar Capital — examined millions of Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) datapoints, reviewed thousands of pages of documents, and interviewed dozens of sources, including: attorneys, professors, healthcare professionals, ombudsmen, data analysts, and public advocates, as well as former employees of Ensign, residents of Ensign facilities, and family members of Ensign residents. 

Here’s the story:

• Ensign’s profits can be traced to providing less care than its patients need — and less care than it is meant to provide based on the tax dollars it receives from the government. Government programs pay skilled nursing facilities based on “acuity level,” a measurement of how sick the residents are. Ensign says it’s focusing on high-acuity people in order to increase its revenue, the bulk of which comes from government programs. But then it staffs many facilities below the levels needed to provide the care those payment rates are calibrated to support. Using the formula from a 2025 peer-reviewed study, Hunterbrook calculated a 5 million-hour gap between hours of nursing care needed and hours actually provided at Ensign facilities between July and November 2024, the period for which robust data is available. “The difference between those two numbers is fraud,” opined Ernest Tosh, an attorney who litigates nursing home abuse and neglect cases. Hunterbrook estimates that closing that staffing gap would have cost Ensign about $161 million during the period studied — or roughly $386 million annualized. That’s more than the company’s entire reported net income that year of $298 million. Hunterbrook also found that the more a facility profited from understaffing, the worse its health survey scores, facility-reported incidents, complaint deficiencies, total penalties, staff turnover, and staffing ratings. 
• The Ensign Effect. We found Ensign’s growth strategy is to buy struggling nursing homes — then cut staff at those facilities and bank the savings, all while claiming quality improves. Ensign has rapidly built its $10 billion empire by rolling up distressed nursing homes, claiming to transform them into “market leaders in clinical quality.” But after Ensign acquires a facility, we found, nursing hours fall. Hunterbrook tracked 161 facilities before and after Ensign acquisition against roughly 15,000 other nursing facilities, controlling for industry trends. Bottom line: The quality of the facilities gets worse, not better, after Ensign acquires them.
• Federal and state laws prohibit understaffing. Federal law requires every Medicare- and Medicaid-funded nursing facility to keep “sufficient nursing staff” to meet each resident’s needs. The sicker the resident, the more staffing the law generally demands. Yet Hunterbrook found no consistent relationship between how sick Ensign’s residents are and how many hours it staffs. Four states where Ensign operates impose numeric floors on the care that must be provided: California, Washington, Tennessee, and Kansas. Our analysis of CMS records from 2020 through 2025 found Ensign facilities falling below the legal floors in those states on more than 18,000 days cumulatively. “You have to staff to meet the needs of residents, and that consistently does not happen,” said Ed Dudensing, an elder-abuse attorney, describing insufficient staffing. “That’s illegal.”
• Ensign’s superior “star” ratings are largely built on an honor system the company appears to be gaming. The CEO emphasized Ensign facilities “outperformed industry peers in 5-Star Quality Measure results” in a recent press release. He also highlighted “the highest quality clinical outcomes” in an earnings call last year. What he didn’t mention is that those measures are largely self-reported. We sorted CMS Provider Information performance metrics into three tiers: independently verified by unannounced government inspectors; self-reported but auditable via payroll records; or self-assessed and self-reported with no imposed documentation procedures. The result: Ensign performs worse when there is external verification.
• Ensign paid more than $339 million to its own affiliates in 2024. That’s about 8% of $ENSG revenue that year. The maneuver is known as tunneling. Our cost-report analysis shows Ensign facilities pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year to entities also owned or controlled by Ensign. Think: Landlords. Insurance. Transportation. “Home office” management fees. Hunterbrook found that, across the industry, more money going to related parties correlates with fewer staffing hours, more staff turnover, and lower health inspection scores, among other metrics. A 2024 congressional letter to Ensign’s then-executive chairman identified the industry practice as a “deceptive tactic” to hide profit. In an interview, Tosh, the attorney, shared his opinion of nursing homes tunneling money to related parties without any effective oversight: “It’s just a huge menagerie of corporations to hide the money movement. In effect it’s money laundering.”
• Former employees in different states described systematic misrepresentations. Fabricated Google reviews; document falsification; falls downgraded to “slips;” improperly upcoded patient acuity; and retaliation against staff who refused to engage in these activities. Former employees also told Hunterbrook they were compelled to provide unnecessary care and exaggerate its duration. One former Ensign therapist described higher-ups encouraging higher billing via falsifying minutes of therapy: “The 30 would be erased and somebody would put in a 70.” 
• An industry lobbying group waged a multi-front campaign to kill a federal government rule meant to stop understaffing. In February of 2026, the Trump Administration rescinded a Biden-era rule setting a federal staffing minimum for nursing facilities, after the American Health Care Association (AHCA), an industry group, sued the government. Ensign and other operators backed a pro-Trump super PAC and Ensign gave $750,000 to MAGA Inc before the rule was rescinded. The now-defunct rule was estimated to save 13,000 lives a year.
• Behind all the numbers, patients suffer and die. Thomas Scates died after an Ensign facility neglected him, according to his family. Herbert Howenstein died after a large pressure ulcer developed at an Ensign nursing home. Six inches long, an inch deep, blackened dead flesh, penetrating to muscle. An EMT report shows that facility staff were aware but nobody was treating him for it. An expert reviewing his death concluded, “The patient’s demise was almost merciful.” A nonverbal resident with Alzheimer’s was found covered in ants with bites all over her body — an infestation discovered by her family, not the staff, according to an investigation report. Cheryle Weir died after begging for help that did not come in time, her daughter told Hunterbrook. These are just some of the stories Hunterbrook heard, which represent a fraction of the devastation in Ensign facilities around the country.
• Ensign did not respond to multiple detailed requests for comment from Hunterbrook. Ensign CEO Barry Port did, however, tell The Arizona Republic in 2023 that staffing is decided by individual facility management, and the suggestion that his company siphons money to boost profit is “categorically false.” Other statements by the company seem to contradict that supposed distance between Ensign and its individual facilities. In a recent earnings call, for example, Port cited access to patient-level data and involvement in facility-level decisions. The most recent 10-K also suggested there was visibility over individual facilities: Ensign said they use specialized software to help caregivers “more accurately” capture services to “increase reimbursement,” and that the company had “installed software and touch-screen interface systems in each operation.”

To see our full methodology, click here.

If you or a loved one has been affected, or if you have any relevant information to share, please reach out at ideas@hntrbrk.com. This is part one of a series on Ensign and the industry.

“They’re The Model”

Most of us will require institutional care in our lifetime. We hope that care will be high quality.

Faced with an aging population and widespread nursing shortages, every American nursing facility must contend with infections, falls, and sometimes death. On an average day, a facility might smell like human waste cut with cleaning products. Easy listening music covers the croaking sounds of uncomfortable residents. Frontline staff do their best at difficult and low-paying jobs, in facilities lit fluorescently and decorated in liminal beige.

But Ensign has established something worse: a business model that seems to depend on eroding care for America’s sick and elderly.

“To take away resources from that is, I don’t even think that’s bad management. I think that’s just evil greed.”

Robert love, Former cook at Tennessee Nursing Facility Acquired by Ensign

Our investigation shows the company boomed in recent years by rolling up distressed homes, cutting high-skilled nursing staff, and gaming metrics.

“They’re the model,” said David Kingsley, a retired professor at the Kansas University Medical Center who researches corporations that depend on revenue from Medicare and Medicaid.

Ensign operates the most CMS-certified nursing facilities in America, with 334 locations across 17 states. They offer more than 38,000 skilled nursing beds, according to a March filing.

But these facilities have problems — and they seem to get worse after Ensign takes over. Conditions at several of its facilities are so severe that they are candidates on CMS’s “Special Focus Facility” list, a roundup of facilities with a pattern of serious problems that pose risks to resident health and safety. Facilities on the SFF list are at risk of being terminated from Medicare or Medicaid programs.

And Ensign is coming for more. In the second quarter so far, it has announced purchases of 17 facilities in Texas, two in Wisconsin, and one each in Iowa and California (real estate only).

Ensign’s model is working. It grew rapidly after its current CEO took the helm in 2019. His $13.8 million in compensation last year — at a company whose revenue is largely derived from public funds — was mostly tied to company performance. 

And Ensign does not limit incentive-based compensation to its senior executives. Our investigation found that some individual facility administrators are compensated the same way, creating powerful incentives to cut costs. While it’s normal to have financial performance incentives for cutting costs, it’s different when the incentive is to cut nursing hours — the results can be a matter of life and death.

For example, a lawsuit deposition shows the company tied a facility administrator’s bonus directly to location profits, and by staffing below recommended levels, that administrator was able to boost a roughly $400,000 annual bonus to more than $800,000.

As a result of understaffing at that very same facility, the lawsuit claims, a resident died, his final moments captured on a recorded phone call provided to Hunterbrook:

One source, a forensic accountant, likened the industry to the Sackler family’s opioid profiteering. 

Full Article & Source:
Ensign: The Nursing Home Empire Built on Fatal Neglect 

Elder abuse case upgraded to murder in Huron County

A Huron County man charged with elder abuse in March now faces up to life in prison after prosecutors added a second-degree murder charge in connection with his mother's death.

Source:
Elder abuse case upgraded to murder in Huron County 

Second sister pleads not guilty to murder charge and elder abuse | NBC 7 San Diego

Rebecca Wu, 53, was arrested last week along with er sister, Ingrid Wu, 52, for allegedly failing to properly care for their parents at a University City apartment. Rebecca pled not guilty on Tuesday. Ingrid entered the same plea on Monday. NBC 7's Allison Ash has the latest details on the case from the downtown courthouse. 

Source:
Second sister pleads not guilty to murder charge and elder abuse | NBC 7 San Diego 

Judge rules Veterans Guardian violates federal law — months after lobbying efforts in Kansas

A for-profit veteran benefits claim consultant told Kansas lawmakers the company’s operations were legal. A federal judge disagreed.

By: Grace Hills 

OVERLAND PARK — A federal judge in North Carolina found that Veterans Guardian, a for-profit consultant that charges veterans for help filing their disability claims, violates federal law.

The order came just a few months after the company lobbied Kansas legislators to pass a bill that would have greenlit for-profit consultants, despite concerns that the practice may be unlawful. The bill almost became law but support for it crumbled apart in the final hours of the legislative session.

Proponents argued Feb. 3 before the House Veterans and Military Committee that a few “bad actors” ruined the for-profit consultants’ reputations by charging exorbitant fees and using suspicious marketing tactics. Bill Taylor, co-founder of Veterans Guardian, said House Bill 2214 would have reined those companies in.

“We are 100% in compliance with federal law,” Taylor testified to lawmakers in February.

In May, U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles disagreed.

Federal law states “no individual may act as an agent or attorney in the preparation, presentation, or prosecution of any claim,” unless they are accredited — which Veterans Guardian and the other for-profit consultants are not. Veterans who want help reviewing a claim can get help from an attorney or claims agent in exchange for a fee, which could include a portion of the veteran’s benefits.

Opponents have called the for-profit consultants “claim sharks,” and argue that charging veterans thousands — even tens of thousands — for a service that is offered for free by accredited services is predatory.

Eagles’ order outlined how the Pinehurst, North Carolina-based Veterans Guardian charged the three plaintiffs between $1,880 and $21,360. The $21,360 fee was for an initial disability claim.

“The evidence is undisputed that (Veterans) Guardian is not accredited, that on behalf of veterans it prepares claims forms, that in those forms it presents disability claims for decision by the (Veterans Affairs), and that it charges fees for doing so,” Eagles wrote in her order. “These actions violate federal law.”

Veterans Guardian was founded in 2017. The federal law Eagles cited has existed since long before then. Veterans Guardian, and similar for-profit consultants, have operated through a legal loophole.

An NPR investigation found that in 2006, as the U.S. was at war with Iraq, Congress thought veterans needed more options to navigate the disability claims process. For-profit consultants repeat that rationale today — that veterans deserve a choice between their paid, streamlined services or free but more complex accredited ones.

That year, Congress stripped the criminal penalties for violating the law — but kept the law on the books. That meant companies like Veterans Guardian have been able to use that loophole to continue operating without consequences.

Multiple bills have been introduced to reinstate the criminal penalties, but none has passed. Veterans Guardian has spent millions lobbying on the federal level. A federal bill similar to the Kansas one — that would allow for-profit consultants to legally charge veterans — advanced in the U.S. House.

After Eagles’ order, more congressional attempts at criminalization were introduced in the U.S. House and Senate. U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas, signed onto the legislation Monday, a spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Republican U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, who chairs the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, didn’t provide a comment in time for this story.

Anthony Pierce, counsel to Veterans Guardian, said the company “strenuously disagrees” with the court’s ruling.

“The ruling is not final, and Veterans Guardian will vigorously pursue all available avenues of appeal to defend our work on behalf of disabled veterans,” Pierce said. 

Full Article & Source:
Judge rules Veterans Guardian violates federal law — months after lobbying efforts in Kansas 

Opinion - They calculated that New York nursing home families would move on. They were wrong.

by Vivian Zayas, opinion contributor

There is a calculation that powerful people sometimes make when the victims of their decisions are elderly. It goes like this: the families will grieve, the news cycle will move on, and if you wait long enough, time does the work that accountability never had to. For six years, the families of over 15,000 New Yorkers who died in nursing homes have been proving that calculation wrong.

In a letter issued this month, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) wrote to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche demanding an answer to a question that should not require a congressional letter: what is the status of the criminal referral against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo?

That a letter was necessary tells you everything about where we are.

Every person in a nursing home is someone's mother. Someone's father. Someone's grandmother. They are not abstractions. They are people with histories, with families, with someone who loved them. People who needed care they could not get at home, and who trusted that the system governing that care had standards worth the name. Andrew Cuomo knew this. On March 24, 2020, he declared: "My mother is not expendable. And your mother is not expendable. And our brothers and sisters are not expendable."

The next day, his administration issued a directive ordering nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients without testing. Thousands died. When families demanded to know how many, they were given a number that a 104-page congressional referral later documented was falsified. The actual death toll was undercounted by approximately 50 percent.

Cuomo testified to Congress in June 2024 that he was not involved in drafting the report. Evidence suggested otherwise. There were emails. Edited drafts. His own handwritten notes in the margins. The subcommittee referred him to the Department of Justice for making false statements to Congress in October 2024. The Biden Department of Justice received that referral. It did nothing.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer resubmitted the referral in April 2025. An investigation was reportedly opened. Then silence. Pam Bondi was removed from her post as attorney general in April. Her replacement has not publicly addressed the referral. Cuomo ran for mayor of New York City twice. He lost both times. His team argued prosecution was election interference. That argument no longer holds. There is no election left. There is only the question of whether the rule of law applies equally to a powerful former governor as it does to anyone else.

That question remains unanswered.

Voices for Seniors was founded six years ago by families who refused to accept that calculation. We have testified before Congress and written to two attorneys general. We have written op-eds, given interviews, made calls and knocked on doors in Washington that were sometimes opened and sometimes shut. We did all of this while grieving. Because we understood early on what the powerful were counting on: that eventually, we would stop.

If thousands of children had died under these circumstances, if a directive had sent infectious patients into facilities housing children, if the death count had been falsified, if a cover-up had been documented line by line before Congress, there would have been a commission. There would have been prosecutions. There would have been the kind of reckoning that follows tragedies where the victims are young and the public refuses to look away.

Our loved ones were old. And someone calculated that their families might eventually move on.

The congressional letter sent today by Tenney is not a legal filing. It will not compel the Department of Justice to act. But it is a public declaration that the people elected to represent New York's families have not forgotten either. And it matters, because silence from the powerful only works when no one is watching.

We are watching. We have been watching for six years. And we will keep asking is there one standard of accountability in this country, or are there two: one for the powerful, and one for everyone else?

The families we represent know which answer they have been living with. Six years of it. And they are still proving that calculation wrong.

Grief has a long memory. We haven't forgotten. And neither, we hope, will the Department of Justice.

Full Article & Source:
Opinion - They calculated that New York nursing home families would move on. They were wrong.

What Will Guardianship Law Do When You Can No Longer Stand Alone? Lessons from the Brooke Astor Case

by Philip C. Marshall

Summary 

• Socialite Brooke Astor, who at age 104 had Alzheimer’s, had a son who was convicted of 14 counts of elder abuse against her; now, her grandson advocates for senior lawyers to recognize and challenge when guardianship proceedings are protecting one’s legal rights or stripping them away.
• Guardianship can strip adults of nearly all legal rights through procedures that fall below the constitutional standards applied to far less consequential deprivations—a gap senior lawyers are positioned to recognize and challenge.
• The disability rights framework of supported independence—scaffolding without confiscating sovereignty—offers a principled standard for measuring whether the law is honoring or merely managing human vulnerability.
• Senior lawyers bring irreplaceable authority to guardianship reform: professional credibility, lived proximity to aging, and the persuasive precision of those who have insisted on reasoned process throughout their careers.

The system worked. That is what has troubled me ever since.

In 2006, I petitioned a New York court to protect someone I loved—my grandmother, Brooke Astor, then 104 years old. The court agreed. What I could not have fully articulated at the time, and what I have spent the years since trying to name, is this: The same system capable of protecting her was also capable of erasing her by removing her rights. The difference was not the law itself. It was who was present, who was credible, and who could afford to persist.

You already know how to spot when due process is being honored and when it is being performed. You have spent careers insisting on reasoned findings, reviewable records, and procedural integrity. This piece asks you to point that same professional discernment at a system you may not yet have examined closely—and at a life stage that is no longer abstract.

The System Lawyers Are Built to Question

Guardianship is widely understood as a protective remedy—a last resort, carefully applied. In practice, it can operate as a near-total reassignment of legal agency: control over residence, medical decisions, finances, relationships, and access to courts transferred to a third party, sometimes effectively permanently.

The doctrinal label is “protective.” But protection is a purpose, not a constitutional exemption.

When the interests at stake in other legal contexts are this sweeping—civil commitment, termination of parental rights, major deprivations of liberty—the system demands heightened procedural protection and reviewable reasons. Guardianship touches interests at least as foundational, and yet the procedural floor is often among the lowest the civil system tolerates: truncated hearings, conclusory findings, reliance on untested evaluations, and an appellate posture that treats judicial discretion as self-justifying.

A right without a workable remedy is not a right in practice. It is an aspiration. And the people most likely to need the remedy are often least able to use it—lacking funds for independent counsel, unable to initiate proceedings without access to communications or resources held by the very guardian they would challenge, and facing health timelines that outrun appellate calendars.

You recognize this pattern. You have argued against it in other courtrooms.

A Life-Course View that the Law Has Not Caught Up With

There is a structural gap in how the law thinks about personhood over time.

The law is strong in the middle—in the world of contracts, commerce, torts, and ordinary civil procedure, where the idealized independent adult is assumed. But the human life course does not stay in the middle. It begins in dependency. It often returns to dependency. Disability does not observe a schedule—it may be present from birth, arrive through illness or injury, or accumulate gradually with age. If the law protects autonomy only for the fully capable adult at full capacity, it is not a code of justice. It is a code of convenience.

The disability rights movement understood this before elder law did. Its core insight—that the problem is often not the person but the environment, and that impairment is a reason to provide supports rather than reduce rights—is the civil rights framework most explicitly built around the human condition as it actually is: interdependent, fluctuating, and embodied.

That framework has a name that is useful here: supported independence. Not substituted judgment, where the system replaces the person. And not only supported decision-making, which is already on the books in a majority of states as a less restrictive alternative, though chosen infrequently by courts, and tends to remain focused on the transaction rather than the person. Supported independence adds the relational dimension: the recognition that autonomy is not a solo achievement but a shared one, sustained by the people and institutions that surround us.

It is the proposition that the law should supply scaffolding without confiscating sovereignty. That vulnerability is not a reason for erasure but a reason for reinforced rights.

When the Preamble to the Constitution named among its founding purposes the obligation to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” the founders were not drafting a rule of decision. They were naming what the whole enterprise of law is for—the frame within which every code, every procedure, every adjudication should be measured. Supported independence belongs in that tradition. It is not a statute to be litigated or a mechanism to be administered. It is a standard—and the question this piece puts to the profession is whether the system we have built is finally ready to be measured against it.

What Senior Lawyers Already Know How to Read

This is not merely a philosophical aspiration. It has operational content—and senior lawyers are among the best-positioned people in any setting to recognize when it is being honored and when it is being ignored.

• Presume agency. Justify every restriction. You have argued this in other contexts. The burden belongs on the system to prove the necessity of limitations, not on the person to prove their worthiness of rights they have never forfeited.
• Offer supports before substituting judgment. Less restrictive alternatives—advance planning instruments, supported decision-making arrangements, limited financial assistance, care navigation, community-based services—must be real options, not rhetorical gestures. A system that names them without resourcing them has not offered an alternative. It has described one.
• Make findings specific and functional. Capacity is not binary. A finding that someone “lacks capacity” without specifying what they cannot do, which rights are affected, and why narrower measures are insufficient is not a legal determination. It is a conclusion dressed as one.
• Records should be reviewable, and reasons should be transparent. Confidentiality can be protected through proportionate means. Opacity that forecloses accountability has not protected the person. It has protected the proceeding.
• Appoint counsel that is genuinely independent. Counsel that is appointed but not resourced, present but not empowered, is a procedural gesture. The person’s voice is not a gesture. It is the constitutional center.
• Make the exit real. Restoration cannot be mythical. Periodic review, a meaningful path to modification or termination, and a presumption that rights return when justification fades—these are not generous additions to the system. They are what make it a legal system rather than an administrative one.

Why This Audience, and Why Now

Joan Erikson’s contributions to the developmental model she built alongside her husband Erik are too often absorbed into his name rather than credited in her own. In her nineties, after Erik’s death, she described what she called a ninth stage of life—an account of vulnerability and trust at the far edge of experience. At its center she placed gerotranscendence: a shift in very late life toward a more expansive orientation, freed from what no longer matters. It remains among the most courageous acts of scholarship in the field.

At its center is a question about trust—not the trust of infancy, which is a question of caregivers, but the trust of late life, which is a question of systems. Can I trust the institutions that claim to protect me? Can I trust that help will not cost me myself?

For lawyers in the Senior Lawyers Division, this is not an abstraction. It is either approaching or already present in the lives of friends, spouses, siblings, clients, and—with honesty—ourselves. The lawyer who has spent decades insisting on reasoned decision-making in other contexts is in the best possible position to bring that same insistence to this one.

Not from a podium. In conversation—at ABA gatherings, with family members navigating a diagnosis, with colleagues whose clients are aging, with journalists and legislators who have not yet heard the argument made with professional precision by someone who has lived it from the inside.

That is the generative move available to this audience. Not a new doctrine for its own sake, but a more honest continuity between what the law promises and what it actually delivers—to the clients you have served, to the people you love, and eventually, if you are fortunate to live long enough, to yourself.

The law’s highest function is not to manage human vulnerability. It is to honor it.

That is the kind of code worthy of the next 250 years.

Full Article & Source:
What Will Guardianship Law Do When You Can No Longer Stand Alone? Lessons from the Brooke Astor Case 

See Also:
Family, friends, and neighbors are at the heart (and the heart) of elder justice

‘The Ultimate Betrayal’: Grandson Of Victim Explains Signs Of Elderly Financial Abuse

Brooke Astor’s grandson makes case for ‘Elder Abuse’ postage stamp

Brooke Astor's Grandson Fights Against Elder Abuse

Georgia caregiver arrested after videos show alleged ‘hateful’ abuse of patients

Ann Cowan, a caregiver at Corinth Road Personal Care Home in Newnan, has been arrested and charged with two counts of exploitation and intimidation of disabled adults, elderly persons, and residents. The charges follow allegations of elder abuse, including leaving medication out of reach for a wheelchair-bound resident and assaulting an elderly man with dementia. Cowan is currently in jail with a bond set at $10,000. A former coworker who witnessed some of the alleged abuse hopes that coming forward will encourage others to do the same. 

Source:
Georgia caregiver arrested after videos show alleged ‘hateful’ abuse of patients 

California nurse charged with 77 felonies, including alleged elder abuse

by Vivian Chow 

A California woman who worked as a registered nurse was charged with 77 felonies, including alleged elder abuse, theft and more.

Rosanne Marquis, 71, had been operating an unlicensed in-home health care business in Santa Barbara, according to the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office.

While running the business, Marquis is accused of stealing from “elderly dependent adults, including a veteran, and failed to both supply accurate tax returns for her business, and to make required deductions and payments to the Employment Development Department on behalf of her employees for several years,” court documents said.

Although authorities have not disclosed how much money she reportedly stole, court records obtained by the Santa Barbara Independent noted that it totaled over $100,000.

Before she opened Rosanne Marquis HomeCare Service, the suspect worked as a trauma nurse coordinator at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. 

She also previously served on the boards of the Council of Alcohol and Drug Abuse and the Alzheimer’s Women’s Initiative, the Santa Barbara Independent reported.

Marquis was arrested in April. On June 9, she was charged with 77 felonies in connection with the crimes. She remains out of custody on bail.

The case was investigated by members of the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General, and the California Employment Development Department. 

Full Article & Source:
California nurse charged with 77 felonies, including alleged elder abuse

Elkhart woman sentenced in guardianship fraud case

by Jon Zimney

An Elkhart woman has been sentenced to prison after admitting to fraud involving a disabled adult under her care.

 

Debra Collins pleaded guilty to one count of fraud after authorities found she improperly spent Social Security benefits belonging to the victim. Prosecutors say Collins transferred thousands of dollars from the victim’s account and used the money for personal expenses, including purchases at retail stores and online shopping.

 

Collins was sentenced to four-and-a-half years, with one year suspended. She will serve 18 months in prison, followed by home detention and probation. 

Full Article & Source:
Elkhart woman sentenced in guardianship fraud case 

Horrifying details released in case against suspended Jefferson County Probate Judge Yashiba Blanchard

by  Apryl Marie Fogel

A scathing 120-page complaint outlines seven charges against Jefferson County Probate Judge Yashiba Blanchard.

"Judge Blanchard's conduct has degraded the public's confidence in the integrity of the judiciary and brought the judicial office into disrepute. Judge Blanchard's delay and lack of attention in handling her cases have harmed the litigants, protected persons, respondents, family members, attorneys, healthcare professionals, healthcare services, and others who have business before the Probate Court," the report explains.

The meticulously detailed complaint alleges that Blanchard's behavior made life miserable for court staff, created a "threat to public safety," kept individuals hospitalized longer than necessary and created a logjam of cases.

The charges against Blanchard include:

1. Pattern and practice of failing to diligently discharge judicial duties
2. Pattern and practice of failing to follow the law
3. Pattern and practice of exhibiting bias against attorneys appearing in Judge Blanchard's court
4. Failure to disqualify from a case in which Judge Blanchard served as an attorney
5. Harassment, intimidation, and retaliation against probate court staff
6. Allowing other court officials subject to Judge Blanchard's direction and control to engage in harassment and intimidation of probate court staff
7. Failure to maintain professional competence in judicial administration

The report repeatedly states that Blanchard was late to hearings on her schedule.

"Judge Blanchard told her staff on one occasion that she was late to her involuntary commitment docket because she had three dogs to walk," the complaint says.

Included in the report is one of three emails from hospital staff to the court regarding the consequences of the judge's delay of the case:

“With the cancellation and the rescheduling of her hearing to December 2, this patient will now remain hospitalized for an additional two weeks solely due to the lack of timely access to the hearing process. This not only prevents her from being home with her family for Thanksgiving, but it also generates unnecessary hospitalization costs and creates avoidable emotional distress for the patient and her loved ones.

Beyond this single case, the cancellation of the docket disrupts unit flow, delays care for other patients needing admission which can pose a threat to public safety and places our staff in untenable operational positions. It is difficult to reconcile today's action with our shared responsibility to ensure patients receive timely due process and appropriate, least-restrictive care.

The sequence of events today reflects a disregard for the rights of our patients, the time and safety of their families, and the operational efficiency of the hospital.”

Following repeated emails advocating for the patient, Blanchard set a new hearing on November 20 and released the patient.

In another case, an individual was held for 18 days before having a hearing. State law says:

“When any respondent sought to be committed has any limitation imposed upon his liberty or any temporary treatment imposed upon him by the probate judge pending final hearings on such petition, the probate judge, at the time such limitation or treatment is imposed, shall set a probable cause hearing within seven days of the date of such imposition.”

Among the human resources complaints are accusations that the court's chief clerk and several other employees who were transferred from the Birmingham Probate Court building in downtown Birmingham to the Bessemer location, at times with little to no work or duties commensurate with their skill and pay level, were subjected to acts of retaliation or for no reason at all.

While each of those moved has their stories shared in the report, one shows a level of indifference that would shock even the hardest hearts.

“Another clerk sent an email to Judge Blanchard and to the Place 2 Judge on August 28, 2025, asking if she could be moved back to the Birmingham Division because her sister was dying of cancer. The clerk liked to visit her sister in the evenings after work and assist with her daily needs, and the commute to Bessemer-which was 35-40 minutes longer through heavy traffic-made visiting her sister more difficult. The Place 2 Judge expressed to the employee in person that there was nothing she could do because Judge Blanchard was the·Presiding Judge of the Probate Court. Judge Blanchard never responded to the email at all. Shortly thereafter, the clerk's sister died. The clerk was unable to make it to the hospital in time to say goodbye because she was stuck in traffic driving to the hospital from Bessemer.”

The full report details how Blanchard's actions affected hundreds of conservatorship and guardianship cases, as well as a detailed account of bar complaint filings and other conduct that led to charges.

Complaint Against Jefferson County Probate Judge Yashiba Blanchard by aprylmarie.fogel

On Thursday, Blanchard was suspended from the bench, and retired Judge Sherri Friday was sworn in. 

Full Article & Source:
Horrifying details released in case against suspended Jefferson County Probate Judge Yashiba Blanchard 

See Also:
Suspended Jefferson County probate judge accused of election interference in new lawsuit

Jefferson County judge suspended, complaint says she called herself “ultimate authority”

Glamorous judge accused of bullying, intimidation and delaying cases so she could take her DOGS for a walk 

Two sisters arrested for allegedly killing mother, elder abuse of father in University City

by: Sharisse Cohee

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — Two sisters were arrested Thursday for allegedly murdering their mother and for reported elder abuse of their father, according to the San Diego Police Department (SDPD).

The sisters, who are in their 50s, were reportedly caretakers of their elderly parents, who could not care for themselves.

The arrests stem from an incident on March 6, when crews responded to a 911 call on Genesee Avenue in University City, during which family members reported finding an 81-year-old woman, who was later identified as Kun-Ying Yang, unconscious and not breathing in her apartment.

First responders found Yang unresponsive on a pull-out couch, lying face-first in the gap between the couch and bed frame, according to SDPD. After removing her from the bed frame, she was pronounced dead.

Due to the suspicious circumstances of her death, police investigated the incident as a homicide.

Investigators interviewed multiple witnesses and worked closely with Adult Protective Services in the weeks following the incident. The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Yang’s cause of death was positional asphyxia with contributing factors such as neglect, according to SDPD.

The manner of death was officially ruled a homicide.

During the investigation, evidence reportedly showed that the daughters, Ingrid Wu, 51, and Rebecca Wu, 53, were the caretakers for both their elderly parents. According to SDPD, the daughters allegedly endangered their parents’ health and failed to act as legally required, leading to the neglect of their 88-year-old father and the death of their mother.

The sisters were taken into custody Thursday and booked into the Las Colinas Women’s Detention Facility.

Anyone with information regarding the case is encouraged to contact SDPD’s Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477. 

Full Article & Source:
Two sisters arrested for allegedly killing mother, elder abuse of father in University City

Man charged with elder abuse, dumping mother's body in river

Reporter: Maddie Herron, Haley Zarcone 

A man is now in custody after authorities linked him to his mother's death. 

The Lee and Charlotte County sheriffs announced the arrest in a joint news conference. WINK News reporter Maddie Herron was there and spoke with neighbors in Twin Pine Villages, a North Fort Myers neighborhood where the man was arrested. Deputies confirmed to WINK News that the woman was identified as the mother of 47-year-old Joshua Cullen.

Body camera footage showed Joshua Cullen getting arrested outside his North Fort Myers home on Hitzing Avenue, where he was living with his mother he claimed to be caring for. Cullen reported her missing on Memorial Day, but detectives say she had been dead for weeks.

"What began as a missing person investigation soon revealed a web of lies," Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said.

Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno stood next to Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell as they announced Cullen's arrest was a major break in a weeks-long Jane Doe death investigation out of the Peace River in Charlotte County.

"These remains were wrapped in blankets rolled inside a rug and bound with tape," Marceno said.

Once deputies found the woman's body, they began searching for evidence near the Peace River.

"Some of the things they collected were a wheelbarrow, blue straps, and a ladder," Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell said.

Some of the items appear on top of Cullen's car in surveillance photos. The pictures helped create a timeline and tie Cullen to the scene.

"That's not right. You don't do that to somebody, somebody's mother, somebody's daughter," North Fort Myers neighbor John Fenlon said.

Cullen is charged with neglect of an elderly person and abuse of a dead human body. This remains an active investigation.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office is investigating the case. WINK News is working to learn more about the victim and has reached out to the suspect's family.

Full Article & Source:
Man charged with elder abuse, dumping mother's body in river 

New safeguards approved for Illinois hospitals’ adult guardianship cases

By Emily Hoerner and Christy Gutowski

A bill aimed at strengthening protections for vulnerable adults under guardianship gained approval from Illinois lawmakers six months after a Tribune investigation revealed troubling consequences of area hospitals’ use of guardianship.

If signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker, the legislation will create a number of additional oversight mechanisms for hospitals and other parties that request guardianship for an adult with whom they have no personal relationship, as well as for private professional guardians.

Guardianship is a life-altering and often permanent legal process that strips disabled adults of control over their life decisions. Under the new legislation, institutions that petition for guardianship and recommend a private guardian will be required to provide information to the court describing their “efforts to contact the (person’s) nearest relatives.” They would also need to notify the county public guardian of the case.

The bill also encourages private professional guardians to meet with the allegedly disabled adult prior to being appointed to the case or as soon as is feasible. An earlier version of the bill had required that such guardians attest in court that they had met with and assessed the adult prior to their appointment.

The Tribune’s investigation last year found that area hospitals filed guardianship petitions on behalf of patients hundreds of times during an 18-month period. The reporting revealed that the hospitals’ use of guardianship often eased the way to discharge patients to subpar nursing homes and sometimes stripped family members of the ability to make decisions for their loved ones. Tribune reporters spoke with several family members or close friends of patients who said they were taken by surprise when a hospital filed for guardianship, recommending that someone else make decisions for their loved one.

While most of the patients placed under guardianship had limited financial assets and were represented by the Office of the State Guardian, the Tribune found that patients with financial assets like a home or savings were often placed under the care of the same private guardianship organization. In several instances, the Tribune found, the private guardian and its lawyers billed the former hospital patients for thousands of dollars in fees on top of hefty nursing home costs, quickly draining lifelong savings.

Other guardrails in the bill include naming an individual on the guardianship petition instead of an organization, requiring certification of all staff working in guardian roles at private guardianship organizations, and periodic background checks of those employees.

Private guardians will also be required to notify the court at least 60 days prior that they are planning to refer the disabled adult under their care to the state or county guardian, and to estimate as part of the budgeting process how much longer the disabled adult can afford their fees and services before their estate is depleted. They also need to notify the court if the disabled adult’s home would be required to be sold to pay for continued services within the next 36 months.

Two prior bills that aimed to address the steep costs charged by private professional guardians and their lawyers in guardianship cases initiated by hospitals, nursing homes and similar institutions faced staunch opposition because they barred private guardians from being appointed. The recent bill still allows for the appointment of private guardianship organizations in those cases.

Although the final version of the bill includes several compromises from the original language, Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, who along with AARP Illinois helped champion the bill, said it still represents real progress in safeguarding the rights of vulnerable adults.

Golbert, whose staff oversees the cases of more than 600 adults under guardianship, said face-to-face meetings are standard practice in his office prior to appointment and are crucial to properly assessing the person’s needs. He said more than 20% of all cases in his office involve people under a limited guardianship that allows the person some control over their life. In the Tribune’s 18-month review, only seven of the hospital-initiated guardianships, or roughly 2%, were limited in nature.

“I think all guardians should be seeing and evaluating their people before they’re appointed,” Golbert said. “I think that’s key to preventing unnecessary guardianships and from preventing a full guardianship when the person might only need a limited or a temporary guardianship.

“But the bill still does a lot. I still support it.”

State Sen. Michael Halpin, a Rockford Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a news release citing the Tribune’s investigation: “This kind of abuse taking place in Illinois is unacceptable. When our most vulnerable are put in the care of a stranger we have to guarantee that individual’s safety and financial security.”

In an emailed statement, AARP Illinois State Director Philippe Largent said the AARP worked with Halpin and another sponsor, Rep. Marti Deuter, in collaboration with “aging, hospital, and guardianship advocates to pass a meaningful measure that helps protect older adults, caregivers, and all Illinoisans” who are involved in private guardianships.

“This bill reflects a strong commitment to improving lives, strengthening accountability, and ensuring greater protections for vulnerable individuals across our state,” Largent said.

A spokesperson for Pritzker’s office said in a written statement that state agencies were “heavily involved in negotiations” around the bill and its passage. The spokesperson did not confirm whether the governor intends to sign the bill into law, stating “the Governor will carefully review everything that comes across his desk.”

Full Article & Source:
New safeguards approved for Illinois hospitals’ adult guardianship cases 

Charles Lavine: The importance of good guardianship

By Charles Lavine

I’ve been hearing a consistent and concerning message from constituents, judges, hospital leaders and advocates across my district and throughout New York: Our state doesn’t have enough nonprofit guardians to meet the growing need.

Guardianship is meant to be a last resort — a carefully tailored legal intervention used only when necessary to protect those who cannot safely manage essential decisions about their health, finances or living arrangements. When it works as intended, it helps people stabilize their lives, access critical services and live safely in the least restrictive settings possible.

But too often, I’m hearing about what happens when no guardian is available.

Judges are struggling to identify qualified guardians for people who lack financial resources or family members able to serve. Hospital administrators and discharge planners tell me about patients who are medically ready to leave but remain stuck in beds because no one is legally authorized to arrange home care, apply for benefits or consent to placement. Families and service providers are left trying to navigate an already complex system without the authority they need to help.

This isn’t an abstract problem. It is a systems challenge with real consequences for health care capacity, court efficiency and the well-being of vulnerable New Yorkers. Across the state, patients who no longer require acute medical care are remaining in hospitals for months because a guardian cannot be identified. Nearly all of these people have limited financial resources, and many have no family able or willing to step in. Without a legally authorized decision-maker, even routine steps toward discharge become impossible.

I’ve heard directly from providers about the toll this takes. Extended hospital stays can lead to isolation, functional decline, infections and other preventable complications. Hospitals aren’t designed to serve as long-term residential placements, yet that is effectively what they become when no guardian is available.

The financial impact is also significant. A single hospital bed can cost more than $7,000 per day. When patients remain hospitalized solely due to the absence of a guardian, it strains our health care system and is an unnecessary costs for taxpayers.

We don’t have enough nonprofit guardians, and those we do have are unevenly distributed across the state. Existing providers are doing extraordinary work, often serving thousands of New Yorkers, but many programs are operating at or near capacity. In some regions, courts have few, if any, nonprofit guardians available to appoint.

To close the “guardianship gap,” I am sponsoring the Good Guardianship Act in the Assembly. This bill would establish a statewide initiative of nonprofit guardians that would allow us to build on existing expertise while expanding services to underserved areas. It would help courts make timely appointments, support consistent standards of care, and reduce unnecessary delays that ripple across systems. In addition, the legislation is structured to allow the state to support implementation through future budget appropriations and existing nonprofit guardianship infrastructure.

This approach also aligns with the goals of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Master Plan for Aging, which calls for coordinated support that allows older adults and people with disabilities to live safely and with dignity in their communities.

Nonprofit guardians play an essential role in that continuum of care, coordinating medical treatment, securing stable housing and preventing financial exploitation. Their work often helps people avoid unnecessary institutionalization.

Let me be clear: Investing in nonprofit guardianship isn’t about expanding guardianship unnecessarily. It must always remain a last resort. But when it is needed, the system must be able to respond — responsibly, equitably and without delay.

This initiative would alleviate prolonged hospital stays, delayed transitions to community care and fragmented decision-making. It is also a matter of fairness. Access to a qualified guardian should not depend on where someone lives, what resources they have or whether a family member is available.

If we fail to act, these gaps will continue to place pressure on our courts, our health care system, and families already navigating difficult circumstances. If we act, we have an opportunity to strengthen accountability, improve efficiency, and ensure that vulnerable New Yorkers receive the support they need.

As the legislative session’s conclusion draws near, I urge my colleagues and the governor to support a statewide initiative of nonprofit guardians. When guardianship is necessary, it should work as intended — protecting rights, promoting independence and helping people move from crisis toward stability. This investment will help us get there.

Charles Lavine represents the 13th Assembly District.

Full Article & Source:
Charles Lavine: The importance of good guardianship  

Panama City man charged with exploiting elderly woman’s assets

by: Adele Henley

BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – A Panama City man was arrested for allegedly exploiting an elderly person out of more than $50,000 worth of property.

On May 26, a report was filed with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office by the daughter of an elderly woman. The woman has dementia, and her daughter has been deemed her legal guardian and has full responsibility over her mother’s finances.

The report stated that the daughter was speaking with a realtor to sell some properties belonging to her mother when she discovered that one of her properties had been sold to a company called WAAC LLC on May 5. The properties had been sold for only $1, the affidavit reports.

The listed owner was 55-year-old Wayne Clarke. When the daughter asked her mother, she said that a male had come to her house and asked if he could use her lot to set up food trucks. 

Her mother agreed to allow the use of the property temporarily, but did not recall going to the clerk’s office to sell the property.

When the daughter went to the clerk’s office, the notary who had notarized the quit-claim deed said that they remembered her mother coming to the courthouse with two males and signing the paperwork, the affidavit says.

The daughter hired a lawyer and sent legal demand letters to two addresses allegedly belonging to Clarke, but had not received a response by May 26, when she went to the Bay County Sheriff’s Office.

On Wednesday, investigators interviewed the notary, who claimed that the only time they spoke with the woman was when she asked for her driver’s license before she signed the quit-claim deed.

The notary reported that one of the men had filled out all the paperwork, and the woman only signed the form. When the notary asked if there was a purchase amount, the woman said no, but the men allegedly stated $1.

Investigators proceeded to interview Clarke, who said he was introduced to the woman through her son.

Clarke said that the woman had asked him to come see her about the property because he wanted to clean it up for her, and she offered to turn the property over to him to help him out.

Clarke said that the woman had filled out all the paperwork and had come up with the purchase amount of $1 on her own, and that he did not take advantage of her.

The affidavit says that Clarke was charged with exploitation of a disabled adult over the amount of $50,000 and grand theft in the amount of $20,000 to $100,000. His first arraignment has been set for July 16. 

Full Article & Source:
Panama City man charged with exploiting elderly woman’s assets