Home care providers cheer first-ever federal regulations for adult protective services

by Adam Healy

The Administration for Community Living this week finalized the first-ever set of federal regulations governing adult protective services (APS) programs. These programs often work closely with home care providers to help older adults live independently in their communities.

ACL’s final rule received praise from home care advocates, including the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.

“NAHC supports the development of standards for state APS services,” the association told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse, in a statement. “The regulations will help to improve consistency in services across states, better protect the vulnerable elderly, and increase understanding of the APS processes and expectations for those who provide care in the home.”

The new regulations for APS, published Tuesday in the Federal Register, established national data reporting requirements, ethics policies and common definitions to improve information sharing. ACL built upon the National Voluntary Consensus Guidelines for State APS Systems, an existing set of codes that voluntarily bound APS programs, to produce the national regulations.

“For many years, the APS community, Congress and other stakeholders have called for federal guidance, leadership and resources for APS systems,” Alison Barkoff, leader of the ALC, said in a statement. “With the APS final rule, ACL is answering that call.”

Vulnerable population

In establishing national standards, ACL said it intends to provide stronger protections for APS recipients — many of whom are older adults or people with disabilities living at home and in their communities. These individuals are often at risk of abuse, neglect or exploitation. Roughly 1 in 10 older adults living in the community experience some form of maltreatment, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, and few cases are actually reported. APS programs work to connect victims with resources like home- and community-based services providers to aid their recovery, ACL noted in the final rule. 

The new regulations will take effect on June 7, according to the ACL, and regulated entities will have four years to achieve compliance.

Guardianship warning 

ACL solicited feedback for the rule in September 2023. Many commenters raised concerns related to older adults subject to or at risk of guardianship. ACL’s guidelines advised APS providers to exhaust all available community-based resources to help prevent guardianship.

“APS programs should recommend guardianship, whether they themselves are petitioning for guardianship, accepting a court appointment to serve as a guardian, or referring to another entity to petition for or serve as guardian, only as a last resort if lesser-restrictive measures have been exhausted or determined not feasible,” ACL wrote in the final rule. 

APS programs address the following, ACL noted: Medicaid home and community-based services, Older Americans Act-funded programs such as congregate and home-delivered meals, homemaker and chore services, and transportation.”

Older adults at risk of being subject to guardianship also have caught some lawmakers’ attention. Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) recently introduced the “Alternatives to Guardianship Education Act,” which promotes awareness of guardianship alternatives among healthcare workers and family caregivers.

“Awareness of guardianship alternatives by people that frequently interact with older adults, people with disabilities, and other individuals at risk of guardianship determinations may helpreduce unnecessary guardianship arrangements and preserve decision-making rights,” Casey said Wednesday in a statement.

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Home care providers cheer first-ever federal regulations for adult protective services

Detroit grandmother freed from guardianship after 7 Investigation

DETROIT (WXYZ) — She’s a 78-year-old Detroit grandmother who just wanted a wheelchair ramp. Instead, she was put under court guardianship. The 7 Investigators were in court Thursday when the Chief Probate Judge terminated that guardianship, bringing a lot of joy to Bessie and her family.

Bessie Owens can now make her medical, legal and financial decisions.

And not only did the judge terminate this guardianship and conservatorship – he also put Adult Protective Services on notice that things need to change with how they’re petitioning the court to put seniors under guardianship.

Cheers and applause filled the halls of Wayne County Probate Court Thursday where supporters gathered to watch Chief Judge Freddie Burton Jr. terminate Bessie’s guardianship and conservatorship cases.

“I do not want or need strangers or bureaucrats over my life or finances,” Bessie told the judge.

Bessie called the 7 Investigators in August after she discovered Adult Protective Services investigator Tresna Tupper had petitioned the court, saying Bessie was “medically frail” and “unable to manage her affairs.”

At the time, Bessie says all she needed was a wheelchair ramp so she could get out of her house safely. Instead, court records show Tupper told Judge Burton that she couldn’t find Bessie’s adult children to tell them about the guardianship, as required by law, even though the 7 Investigators easily found Owens’ daughter on Facebook.

“It does look like there’s some things that, in the course of doing your job, that some things were missed,” Burton told an APS supervisor in court on Thursday. The supervisor was in court instead of Tupper.

Bessie’s three adult children were also present.

“It seems to me it would be pretty simple to find them. Were other efforts made,” Judge Burton asked.

The supervisor maintained that Tupper followed APS protocol, but ultimately no one objected to Bessie’s request to drop the guardianship and conservatorship.

“It’s clear to me there’s insufficient evidence to continue the guardianship, and so I will grant the petition to terminate guardianship as you requested,” ruled Judge Burton.

A large group of anti-guardianship protestors in the courtroom cheered and applauded the judge’s decision.

The 7 Investigators showed you last week how Bessie’s conservator, lawyer Cynthia Williams, was asking the court to approve $687.50 in legal fees, even though she never met with Bessie.

“Why are you trying to charge her $687 when she only has $6500,” Catallo asked.

“Because that is my fee for my services,” Williams said.

“What did you actually do though,” Catallo asked.

“It’s on my account, did you see it,” Williams said.

Today Williams argued briefly with the judge, but she ultimately waived her fees and the judge terminated the conservatorship as well.

“The thing that’s important here, Mrs. Owens now has her ramp, and the court is apprised. We need to get out of her way and let her go live her life,” Judge Burton said.

“[I’m] elated and glad it was terminated, there was no need for it. And I think there should be something addressed to keep this from happening to another person and their family and friends,” said Bessie after the ruling.

“Did you have any notice from Adult Protective Services this was happening,” Catallo asked Mischia Smith, Bessie Owens’ son.

“No. I talked to my mother, who I talk to on a daily basis and she informed me, they didn’t contact me at all. And I was very surprised by this whole thing. I believe they should be punished for what they do,” Smith said.

Judge Burton also put APS on notice that he wants a meeting with state officials to make sure they are giving family members notice, before taking the extreme step of declaring an adult legally incapacitated.

“It does look like there’s several things we need to shore up, particularly in terms of making certain notice is provided,” Judge Burton said.

Bob Wheaton, Public Information Officer for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees APS, issued this statement last week about investigator Tupper and this case:

“The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is committed to respecting human dignity and protecting the health, safety and well-being of vulnerable adults. Adult Protective Services takes very seriously its responsibility to protect vulnerable adults. APS follows policies put in place to help understand and respond to each unique situation, and when necessary, works with partners in the court who make the final decision on what’s best for these individuals. Adult Protective Services aims to provide the least-restrictive services that are necessary to keep a vulnerable adult safe. The department is looking into the concerns that have been expressed.”

Full Article & Source:
Detroit grandmother freed from guardianship after 7 Investigation

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Detroit grandma just wanted a wheelchair ramp, but ended up being put under guardianship

Detroit grandma just wanted a wheelchair ramp, but ended up being put under guardianship

DETROIT (WXYZ) — After a fall in her home, 78-year-old Bessie Owens said she just needed some help getting a wheelchair ramp installed. Instead, the long-time Detroit resident ended up being put under guardianship in the probate courts – where she was declared legally incapacitated.

When you’re put under guardianship and conservatorship, you can no longer make any legal, medical or financial decisions.

That’s why Owens says she wants to know why Adult Protective Services workers petition the court to put her under guardianship and conservatorship, instead of helping her get what she really needed.

Owens needs a walker to get around, but she’s still fiercely independent. She struggles with osteoarthritis, but Bessie says she is more than capable of handling her own medical and financial affairs.

“I know how to tap into resources in my neighborhood and beyond,” Bessie told 7 Investigator Heather Catallo. “And I think I should have some input into my life daily.”

That’s why the long-time Detroiter is furious that an Adult Protective Services worker petitioned the Wayne County Probate Court last May to place Bessie under guardianship and conservatorship.

“Did you have any notice that a guardianship case had been opened about you?” Catallo asked.

“No,” said Bessie.

“Nothing in writing?” asked Catallo.

“Nothing in writing,” Bessie responded.

This all started last year when Bessie says she fell two times and ended up in the hospital.

Bessie says on her own, she arranged for in-home caregivers, but she still needed a ramp to bypass her front steps with her walker.

“Without the ramp, I could not get outside to transact business and that kind of stuff,” said Bessie.

Someone contacted Adult Protective Services for a welfare check, and then Bessie says an APS investigator named Tresna Tupper came into her home uninvited.

“That’s intrusion,” said Bessie.

Tupper then filed petitions for guardianship and conservatorship with the Wayne County Probate Court, saying Bessie is “medically frail” and “unable to manage her affairs.”

Court records show Tupper even wrote under penalty of perjury that she couldn’t find Bessie’s adult children to tell them about the guardianship – even though the 7 Investigators easily found Bessie’s daughter on Facebook.

Her daughter, a Wayne County employee, confirms no one from APS or the courts ever contacted her. Tupper also typed the wrong address for APS on the petitions, as well as on the petition in another case reviewed by the 7 Investigators.

Legal experts say Owens' family would have had priority under the law to become a guardian, if one was needed.

“Your guardian is making some very intimate decisions about everything about your life,” said Nicole Shannon, Systemic Advocacy Attorney from the Michigan Elder Justice Initiative.

Shannon also says, “Michigan law requires that adult children be notified of a petition for guardianship and presumptive heirs be notified of a petition for conservatorship. That notice has to be in writing and served either in person or through the mail."

If a person filing a petition is unable to locate the adult children or presumptive heirs, they can ask the court for special permission to notify them through publication or some other method. That is done by filing an affidavit under penalty of perjury with the court showing that despite diligent efforts, they could not determine the whereabouts of the person.

Diligent effort typically includes asking known friends or family members, as well as conducting an internet search. There should not be a final ruling until all parties have received their notice.

Unfortunately, when family members do find out about guardianship or conservatorship after the fact, it can be too late. Significant decisions have already been made, and there must often be a second series of court hearings to try to unwind what has already happened.”

“I do not need no one to oversee my finances, or a guardian. I’m mentally capable of transacting my day-to-day business. I do not need that. I need a ramp to be able to leave my home when I need to,” said Bessie.

Even after she learned of the guardianship case, Bessie says she did not have transportation for court so she could not attend the hearing last summer.

Tupper asked the court to appoint Whitehouse Guardian Services, which is owned by Stacey White-Smith.

Court records show Tupper has asked the court to give at least nine guardianship cases this year to Whitehouse Guardian Services.

Tupper also nominated a lawyer named Cynthia Williams to be Bessie’s conservator to take over her social security income.

Court records show Tupper and Williams are also listed together on at least eight conservatorship cases since 2018.

Williams and White-Smith deny they have any sort of relationship with APS investigator Tupper.

On her own, Bessie contacted a local non-profit who installed the ramp for her in August.

Guardian Stacey White-Smith would not talk to us on camera, but she did admit she’s only seen Bessie two times since she was appointed guardian in June.

Bessie says when she tried to get ahold of White in September she couldn’t, and later found out White was out of the country.

The 7 Investigators started asking questions why Bessie Owens was put under guardianship in August.

Now, both the guardian and the conservator have told they court that they want out of the case, and say Bessie doesn’t need a guardian or conservator.

“Have you met your conservator?” Catallo asked Bessie.

“No. Never,” said Bessie.

Even as she seeks to terminate her involvement, court records show the conservator wants to get paid $687.50 for five and half hours of work.

We caught up with conservator Cynthia Williams after a court hearing for another case where she and White-Smith are both in charge of a different ward.

“Why are you trying to charge her $687 when she only has $6500?” asked Catallo.

“Because that is my fee for my services,” said Williams.

“What did you actually do though?” asked Catallo.

“It’s on my account did you see it,” said Williams.

“I did see your account, but you never talked to her, you never went to see her, you filed some paperwork, she doesn’t have that much money, she says she doesn’t need a guardian or conservator -- so what did you do?" asked Catallo.

“You saw my account correct,” said Williams.

“I did – I’m asking you what you did,” asked Catallo.

“I told you, my account shows you what I did,” said Williams, who refused to provide more details.

“I want everybody to know, especially the population that I’m in, which is seniors and people with disabilities, what can happen, if you don’t pay attention to the system that’s supposed to protect us,” said Bessie.

Bessie Owens, the guardian and the conservator will all be in court next week when Bessie Owens hopes to have this guardianship terminated.

The 7 Investigators did try several times to talk to Tresna Tupper from APS, including visiting her a home and calling her.

A spokesman says they can’t comment on the specifics of this case due to privacy rules, but they are going to conduct additional training on filing guardianship petitions and using community resources first.

Below we have listed a series of our questions to APS about their role in initiating guardianship cases.

The guardian says she tries to go above and beyond for her wards. Her additional statement is below.

Stacey White-Smith Statement

“I am one of many public guardian's that genuinely care [sic] about the community that I live in and would like to see more stories in regards to the challenges we face serving the mentally and physically incapacitated individuals in Wayne County. Every day is a challenge in making sure that my Wards have all of their needs met. It is my job to assess every situation individually and make the best decisions for the people I am appointed to serve. As a guardian at times I go above and beyond my mandated duties to make sure that my Wards feel that they are cared for. It is not beneath me to assist with transportation to hair appointments, grocery stores, doctor’s appointments, even bringing lunch and snacks to my clients in nursing and group homes. I love my community and I love the people in it and I have committed myself to making sure that I help as many people as I can in Wayne County. My client list is very small, one of the smallest agencies in Wayne County but that's only because I want to make sure that I can give individualized attention to the people I've been appointed to care for…

Everyday I work with phenomenal Judges who have to make tough decisions in regards to people's lives. I am proud to be a part of this system and I hope that I can continue to provide quality Guardianship Services to my community. At this point I would have to respectfully decline a second interview. I thank you in advance for respecting my privacy and the privacy of my family.”

Questions regarding Adult Protective Services to Bob Wheaton, Public Information Officer, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services:

How often do APS investigators file petitions for guardianships?

Guardianship petitions are filed when allegations of abuse, neglect, and/or exploitation is substantiated for adults determined to be vulnerable, mentally or physically at risk of harm and/or unable to make an informed decision. APS will exhaust all other alternative resources to alleviate risk of harm to the client prior to filing a petition.

Policy is as follows:

Whenever non-legal intervention fails to meet the goal of protection, the need for voluntary or involuntary legal intervention may be utilized to protect the client. The APS worker must evaluate the need for legal intervention, and it should be initiated only when the following conditions exist:
· Endangerment cannot be eliminated with the use of the social intervention process, and
· The client requests or voluntarily accepts legal assistance because physical or cognitive limitations result in the inability to manage one’s own affairs or the client does not consent to legal action but is endangered because he/she is unable to exercise independent judgment due to cognitive or physical limitations.

What’s the protocol for filing a petition?

The APS investigator determines if petition is needed and gathers information to support or justify the need to present to the court.

What happens before a petition is filed?

The APS investigator gathers pertinent information, attempts to alleviate risk of harm by obtaining resources, working with client (if cooperative/able), working with the client’s support base, i.e. community affiliations, family, neighbors, and friends, and making appropriate referrals/arrangements for other services. APS investigator reviews the case with supervisor.

What’s the protocol for trying to reach family members?

It is routine for APS investigators to attempt to find and contact family members and include the family if appropriate (unless the related person is the perpetrator) when completing a Plan of Care and filing petitions. There are times in which it is appropriate to honor the client’s request not to contact family. In an attempt to locate family, APS investigators will ask the client, review former MDHHS cases, conduct the Bridges system (which tracks public assistance cases) clearance to search associated people, ask friends or neighbors of the client if appropriate, review the Court-View court records system, and publish in the Legal News.

How is the guardian determined?

The guardian can be nominated by the judge or APS investigator. There are times when APS will nominate a guardian and the judge appoints someone else. Wayne County has two contracted guardianship agencies which we will generally nominate, prior to 2018 we only had one. However, APS is not restricted to utilizing contracted agencies due to the volume of clients in need. Guardianship agencies are our community partners who we establish working relationships with. Due to agencies’ established networks with community resources, some specialize in serving developmentally delayed clients, seniors who want to stay in their own home or clients who need placements. In general APS investigators establish working relationship with various guardians and learn who provides the best client services and will best meet the needs of clients.

Does your APS investigator (Ms. Tupper) have a relationship, financial or otherwise, with Whitehouse Guardian Service?

The department is unaware of any relationship other than a professional relationship.

Why did the APS investigator (Ms. Tupper) say in the petition that she couldn’t reach the client’s family to see if there was a suitable relative provider when the client says all she had to do was ask the client for contact information? Tupper wrote “unknown” for the address of all three adult children who live in Southeast Michigan.

We can’t discuss specifics due to confidentiality, however, as stated above, APS attempts to find a suitable family guardian if possible and if the client wants to have a relative guardian. In some cases, the client does not want to have a relative be his/her guardian or the probate court may appoint an guardian that the court feels is best suited for this role, if the court finds there is clear and convincing evidence that the person is legally incapacitated and that the appointment is necessary to provide continuing care and supervision of the person.

How does this APS investigator (Ms. Tupper) find guardians?

Each county has contracted guardians, and can also utilize other guardians that the workers are familiar with. There are checks and balances in the system. Clients have a guardian ad litem who is appointed to watch out for the client’s interest, and the probate judge makes the final decision. So APS investigators may make a recommendation of a guardian who is willing to serve as guardian and the probate court determines who the guardian will be.

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Detroit grandma just wanted a wheelchair ramp, but ended up being put under guardianship

Extraordinary Rendition: An Act of War on America’s Seniors

by Marti Oakley

We should have taken a lesson; we should have paid attention because we all know that what the government gets away with in other places will soon be brought home and visited upon us. So it is with what is referred to as “extraordinary rendition”. ( explanation provided below) Now this same methodology is used to cull and and disappear senior citizens. No crime has been committed. No evidence is produced to substantiate the capture, imprisonment, robbing, and eventual serendipitous deaths of America’s senior citizens.

The Rendering of America’s Seniors

We have a system of extraordinary rendition occurring right here at home and utilized to traffic and cull senior citizens. But in this system it isn’t the military or CIA who are taking prisoners. It is attorney’s, predatory for-profit guardians, Adult Protective Services and other “stakeholders” who have been given the green light to capture, isolate, psychologically torture, forcibly medicate, rob and eventually end the lives of seniors. And these prisoners of guardianship are held in secret locations; the floating prisons and black ops sites now replaced with “nursing homes”, “hospice” and of course hospitals where they can languish for years as insurance and medicare is exploited.

As no crime has been committed by the elder that is targeted, that would activate civil or criminal courts, the probate system was constructed to treat them as though some nonchargeable crime had occurred. In this system they have no rights, and are treated worse than a felon with even fewer options.

Every day these predators kidnap unsuspecting elders, snatching them from their homes, from hospitals and from their families, friends and others. Their crime? Usually just aging with assets that the predators have decided should belong to them. We don’t call the elderly prisoners of war, we call them wards of the state. But they are prisoners none-the-less. And even though statutes supposedly restrict isolation, forced medication, and abuse, prisoners of the guardianship system are immediately isolated. No reason needed other than the predator ordered it. Medications are forced on the elderly, and many are left in such neglect and despair that they quickly deteriorate mentally from these things and the forced isolation. Many families have no idea where their family member is being held prisoner.

Who else helps work this system?

Trolls, spotters and other useful low-life’s make a living identifying possible targets. These people troll neighborhoods with a high number of elderly home owners and report back to the people who employ them when they spot a home up for sale, or maybe the yard just isn’t mowed. Anything is an excuse when you are looking for one. They also rifle through property tax files which are a wealth of information and statistics; very useful for identifying potential profit prospects. They can also be the admission clerk at your local hospital, or a floor charge nurse who has a predatory guardian on speed dial. And the ever present and always threatening, social services agent who just wants to visit with you and make sure you aren’t being abused. Even if you refuse the interview, even if you order this person to leave you alone, they will write up a report as if they had a long conversation with you and you showed all the signs of abuse. These individuals are no different than the Egyptian/Saudi kidnappers; they make their money delivering bodies.

Once captured, the elder is immediately guardianized via an emergency petition for guardianship. No due process, no notice of hearing. Not that it matters, the targeted victim would not be allowed to speak anyway. The probate examiner turns a blind eye to the lack of evidence, to random and malicious charges levied against family and friends, and accepts on face value whatever charges are presented as the excuse for what is about to happen.

He Who Claims Must Prove

This is an old maxim of law, and exactly the reason that all guardian cases are administered in tribunals instead of courts of law. In a court of LAW you would have to follow the rules of evidence and the code of Civil Procedure.

In a tribunal you can do what ever you like, no problem. In a probate tribunal, you are not dealing with law, rights, or anything you would recognize as supposedly being integral to the legal system of justice that is supposed to exist in this country. Which is exactly why these tribunals were created; to avoid all that pesky stuff like constitutional rights and protections and actual law.

Usually, these motions for guardianship are granted without notice to the person, without due process, without any verifiable evidence, and are granted without question. What is about to commence is kidnapping, identity theft, isolation, forced medication, abuse, neglect and estate theft. Everyone involved from the hearing examiner on down, including medical providers, will be making money off this one victim. The attorney’s, predatory guardians, medical providers, nursing homes, hospitals, agencies, ..all extracting every last dollar they can using whatever means necessary, to enrich themselves, their agency or organization. 

But what about those charges made, those claims against the elder himself/herself? Or those made against family and/or friends? Have you ever wondered why, not one time after making these charges, all of which are crimes under various state and federal laws,…. no one is ever charged or prosecuted?? There is a good reason for this. This would allow access to actual courts. In a court of LAW you would have to provide evidence, and prove your claims in front of a jury. There wouldn’t be any of this “its true because I said so”. Imagine how things would change if this happened.

As it is a very rare occasion that any such evidence exists, no charges are ever filed. But the person whom these charges were made against now has them listed on their public record as if they were a proven fact. The ministerial clerk, administrative hearing examiner or magistrate or whatever euphemistic title they operate under in your state will accept the charges made by the predators as if they were spoken by the Lord himself.

No, you may not present any evidence refuting these claims.

No, you may not speak up in your own defense, and,

No…your family member, friend, companion.. cannot be the guardian.

If any of these people were the guardian, should one actually be needed, these predators couldn’t steal the estate. They couldn’t convert the real property into their own names and sell it. They couldn’t rifle through personal possessions and steal anything of value, and they most certainly would not be able to access liquid accounts. And to add another level to this sick business, these predators make themselves the assigned payee on all Social Security benefits, and railroad retirement pensions, any military benefits and any other source of dedicated retirement income. After all, according to the probate tribunal, these predators are now in fact….you. The real you doesn’t exist any longer and the law will not recognize you as existing.

But don’t think for one moment that just because you might not have property or liquid assets, that you would be exempt from this human trafficking for-profit scheme. We now have numerous predators across the country who are doing business based on volume. In other words, they capture as many vulnerable seniors as possible who have nothing more than the above mentioned benefits. But multiply those benefits by hundreds of prisoners of guardianship….excuse me…”wards of the state”, held hostage by one of these predators and this provides an individual predator with a hefty monthly income.

The concerted efforts not only here in the US, but globally, to capture, cull and reduce the number of elderly is growing. We have been determined to be a waste population and one that has no other value than the accumulation of whatever level of wealth we have.

In the US, people over 60 are the largest block of actual homeowners and actually comprise at least 50% of the real wealth of this nation. What is happening to us is not only the eradication of the aging population, but a dispossession and disinheriting of generational wealth that was intended to be passed on to the next generation of our families.

And while this generational harvesting machine rolls on, our elected officials mouth platitudes, pass fluff & buff useless bills and pretend they care. They don’t.

Background on extraordinary rendition.

During the Iraq war, and I would assume ongoing even today, was the practice of kidnapping so-called “terrorist” suspects, who were then taken to black ops prisons. No charges. No actual evidence of any terroristic activities, but many times simply kidnapped off the streets and sold for bounty to the US military, CIA and other US agencies and organizations. Egypt and Saudi Arabia made many millions of dollars kidnapping unsuspecting Iraqi’s and others, usually for about $5000 US per head. As the majority of them were never charged with a crime, they were none-the-less held indefintely, some still held in captivity these 18 years later. Most of these “suspects” were imprisoned on floating prisons at sea where US laws and access to courts was not an issue. The floating prisons, the black op sites in several mid-eastern countries and of course the infamous Gitmo were and are notorious for their torture and severe abuse of the detainees. Their families never knew what happened to them, where they were or if they were even still alive. 

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2018/may/9/us-coast-guard-operating-inhumane-floating-prisons/

http://www.historycommons.org/project.jsp?project=us_torture_abuse

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/20-extraordinary-facts-about-cia-extraordinary-rendition-and-secret-detention

https://fas.org/irp/congress/2007_hr/rendition.pdf

https://www.vox.com/2014/12/9/7361291/map-cia

Full Article & Source:
Extraordinary Rendition: An Act of War on America’s Seniors

‘I’m Petitioning … for the Return of My Life’

When Phyllis Funke hit bottom, the court appointed a guardian to prop her up. The remedy is like prison, she said. But “at least in prison you have rights.”

The last weeks that Phyllis Funke could legally make decisions for herself, she climbed into bed, planning to stay there for a while. It was the end of 2016 and she felt disillusioned with the election and wounded by her brother’s recent move to Texas.

She wasn’t considering suicide, she said. She just needed to go under the covers until she could figure out how to deal with the rest of her life, so totally alone.

She had credit cards, a car, friends and financial advisers in Maine and New York.

When a caseworker from Adult Protective Services and a city psychiatrist entered her apartment on March 3, 2017, clipping the security chain because she did not answer the door, she was unraveling emotionally and physically, at risk of becoming homeless or worse. She had no idea what price she would pay for the intervention.

“I’ve been bullied, blackmailed and stripped of the things I need to live, including my money,” she said on a recent afternoon. “Everything has been taken away from me. I have no access to my bank accounts. I don’t have the money to pay for the medications that I’m prescribed. I don’t get mail. I can’t choose my own doctors.”

Ms. Funke had entered the world of adult guardianship.

In a city like New York, where people are used to looking past their neighbors, how often do you see someone and ask yourself, Is that person O.K.? Should I call someone? Maybe they’re older and not moving well. They look adrift in the produce aisle, or you pass their open apartment door and you can’t see the floor for the clutter. You’re a paramedic and they’re refusing to go to the hospital after a bloody fall. It’s your mother or your uncle, and you’re worried about the bills piling up, or the email scams or the sudden loan to a stranger.

You bandage the wound or you promise to check in tomorrow, or you turn away and get on with your life.

Or you call Adult Protective Services. After all, that person needs some sort of protection, doesn’t she?

For Ms. Funke, that call came from the management of her building, after she didn’t respond to court motions to evict her for hoarding.

Ms. Funke, 77, has a master’s degree from Columbia University, a pilot license and — she believes — several hundred thousand dollars in investments, mostly an inheritance from her parents. She is a scuba diver, an avid reader and a global traveler. She has lived in the same cheap apartment for 41 years. If it were up to her, she said, she would be sailing in the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia right now.

She is also, in the eyes of New York State, an “incapacitated person.” She has been deemed unable to manage her personal needs and property, or to understand the danger she had fallen into.

What started as a complaint about clutter grew to affect every aspect of her existence, including her right to make basic decisions about her life, own a gun or enter into certain legal contracts. Her appointed guardian, a former police officer, said he was unsure whether Ms. Funke had the right to marry.

“I feel as if I have absolutely no rights at all in the country in which I was born, and therefore in the rest of the world,” Ms. Funke said. She compared her situation to being in prison, then thought better of it. “It’s worse than incarceration,” she said. “At least in prison you have rights.”

If you have heard at all about guardianship for older adults, chances are that it has been about a predatory guardian who plunders the estate of a helpless older person. In New York, the poster victim is a Brooklyn judge named John Phillips, whose guardians sold off more than $20 million of his real estate and left him to freeze to death in 2008 in a facility unlicensed to treat people with dementia.

Judge John Phillips built a small real estate empire in Brooklyn, including the Slave Theater. When he was put in guardianship because of dementia, he lost everything — including his life.CreditChester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Last month, the United States Senate Committee on Aging called for massive reforms in the guardianship system, warning that “unscrupulous guardians” have used their position to get control of vulnerable people and then “liquidate assets and savings for their own personal benefit.”

When I started to look into guardianship, I expected to find many such clear-cut cases. In New York, anyone can petition to have someone declared incapacitated. A judge may then appoint a family member or a third party, usually a lawyer, to be guardian over the person’s physical needs, financial affairs or both. Critics of guardianship say these strangers have open license to raid their wards’ estates.

But as I met families in contested guardianships, more often the conflicts involved sibling infighting, with children battling for control of their aging parents’ assets, crying foul if the courts did not side with them.

A retired banker in Brooklyn, for instance, was placed under guardianship after two of her children accused a third of stealing from her. Now they are all in court.

On Long Island, a son was trying to keep his frail, blind mother at home, battling a daughter and a guardian who wanted to move her to an assisted-living facility. The son blamed his sister and the guardian and the judge and the court evaluator and a real estate broker.

On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a mentally ill woman who was living with her mother became homeless after the mother’s guardian obtained a court order barring her from the apartment, because he said she was interfering with the mother’s care. These families, too, are in court.

Guardianship was where the breakdowns of modern life — broken families, broken health, broken finances and broken bureaucracy — tumbled together in a system that appeared to bring out the worst in people: secretive, confusing and run by lawyers, with extraordinary powers over vulnerable individuals. It was also the last defense for lives that had come undone.

Then there was Phyllis Funke.

Her letter of introduction began, “Permit me, please, despite the above-noted ‘situation,’ to introduce myself. (Assuming ‘I’ still exist; as I trust you’ll gather from the accompanying ‘tale,’ I’ve an officially appointed guardian who’s doing his darnedest to eradicate ‘me’ — possibly violating New York City and State laws while denying me all my assets, civil rights, and often telephone service).”

Ms. Funke was something different.

She was a journalist and had written freelance articles for The Times, among other places. She said she’d reported from more than 150 countries. Her father, Lewis Funke, had been a drama editor and critic at The Times. Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s notorious counselor, was a distant relation; Dick Morris, the controversial former political consultant, was her stepbrother.

When the city workers entered her apartment that day, they found her malnourished, dehydrated, unaware that she was under eviction proceedings or that she had not paid the rent in months. There was almost no food in the apartment, and clutter throughout.

As Ms. Funke remembered it, “They asked me who the president was, and I said, do I really have to say that name?”

She could not say how she got in her mental state; maybe it had to do with a lack of sleep. “I was eating less and less,” she recalled later. “I had pasta, and when I ran out of sauce I used Worcestershire sauce. There were cans of tuna but I couldn’t find a can opener, so I used a hammer and an awl.

“The closest I can come is to say I dissociated,” she said. “I checked out.”

In the coming months, while she recuperated in a nursing home, the protective-services agency petitioned the court to declare her incapacitated and place her under guardianship.

In court, the city psychiatrist testified that she suffered from “unspecified bipolar and related disorder, rule out bipolar II disorder, hoarding disorder and unspecified personality disorder.”

John DiGiacomo wanted to keep his mother, Agnes, in her home with him. Transfer to an assisted living building, he said, would kill her. His sister and a guardian disagreed.CreditLily Landes for The New York Times

The designation “rule out” means that further examination was needed to rule out the disorder; according to Ms. Funke, no one ever conducted this examination, and the court records do not indicate any further evaluation. At one court hearing she appeared lucid and persuasive; at the next she was barely coherent.

The judge, Shawn T. Kelly, appointed a lawyer named Gil V. Perez to be her guardian, and suspended the eviction proceedings. It was for her own good.

Nancy Yonge, a friend of Ms. Funke’s from Smith College, saw the case differently. She had visited in late 2016, and found Ms. Funke lucid, planning her next travel adventure.

“She had financial advisers locally and in Maine who were looking after her resources,” Ms. Yonge said. “I do believe this case is all about the money. If she didn’t have money, they wouldn’t be after her this way.”

By the time I visited Ms. Funke this summer, she said that her dissociative state had passed, and that she was “sentient.”

Her apartment: books galore, yarn sticking out of a cabinet door, couch piled with knitting supplies and a laptop, wall art from her travels, room for two people to sit. Nothing outrageous. The next time I returned the papers had doubled, covering the couch and parts of the floor. She was working on her case, she said.

She produced a letter from a psychiatrist declaring her stable and “perfectly competent to handle all her affairs.”

In a country that guarantees the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, at what point does a person forfeit the right to make bad decisions?

Some numbers would be helpful here: how many people are in guardianship, what assets they have, how many petitions are accepted or rejected. Unfortunately, those numbers do not exist in any meaningful way. Guardianship records are kept separately by each of New York’s 62 counties, with no standardized reporting and no state or city totals. Other states are similar.

“Why are there not systems in place?” asked Pamela Teaster, director of the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Tech University, who is studying New York’s guardianship system. “When you look for a shirt on the internet, your email will be filled with ads for shirts. We can’t track who’s under guardianship and their ages and health status.”

A “best guess” by the National Center for State Courts put the number of people in guardianship nationally at between one million and three million. In Manhattan, a database used by the court lists 2,596 guardianship cases for incapacitated adults, though some of these people may have died.

Other numbers do exist. Since last August, when the process started, Ms. Funke has been billed $16,800 by her court-appointed lawyer; $3,437 by a court evaluator, who deemed her in need of guardianship; $5,000 by her first temporary guardian, Mr. Perez, whose original request for $13,790 was slashed by the judge; at least $9,050 by her current guardian, who took over last November; plus money for a geriatric care manager and home attendants, whom Ms. Funke resents. (All fees must be approved by the judge.) Whenever the various players convened, the meter for Ms. Funke ran at close to $1,000 an hour, for a process she did not want.

When New York enacted its statute governing guardianship for older or frail adults, Article 81 of the Mental Hygiene Law, in 1992 (a different statute covers people with intellectual or developmental disabilities), it was considered a progressive model, requiring guardians to provide the least restrictive conditions possible and consider their wards’ preferences in all decisions.

“It’s a great statute,” said Kristin Booth Glen, a former judge who helped write Article 81 and now advocates for an alternative to guardianship called supported decision making. “And if people actually applied it, we wouldn’t have a lot of people under guardianship. But they don’t. That’s the problem.”

 

Ms. Funke wanted to hire a cleaning service for her clutter. But a geriatric care manager insisted on trained home attendants. Ms. Funke saw the attendants as unwanted intruders.CreditLily Landes for The New York Times

Instead, she said, judges have found it safer to overprotect people, and guardians, who bill their wards at steep hourly rates, have only their own moral incentives to do a good job — their clients are too incapacitated to object, and court monitoring is minimal. How minimal? Though the statute requires guardians to report on their wards’ assets and care within 90 days, a study of cases in 14 New York counties found that it took an average of 237 days, and then 210 days before anyone read it.

This leaves families feeling powerless and uninformed. Bars to entry are low: in New York, aspiring guardians must complete a one-day certification course. A 2010 report by the federal Government Accountability Office found that the courts conducted no background checks, relying on the applicants to disclose any criminal convictions or recent bankruptcies.

Once someone is under guardianship, it is very difficult to get out, because any resistance can be treated as evidence that they are at risk to themselves, so they need protection. For emotionally fragile people, the stress of guardianship — of paying to have your rights transferred to someone else — can make them even more fragile. And if a relative opposes a guardian’s actions, everyone involved — the guardian, lawyers for both the guardian and the ward, the court evaluator and possibly others — can bill the ward for their time.

“It’s total overkill, it’s completely unconstitutional and it’s done every day,” Ms. Glen said. “And it’s done in the name of protection. And the real question is, does it actually protect people? There’s no evidence that it does. When you give one person total power over another person’s life, including the power to isolate that person, you’re setting them up for abuse and neglect and exploitation.”

Guardians and judges complain that the system is vastly underfunded, and that most wards have little or no assets to pay for time-consuming work. Several nonprofit organizations provide guardianship for poor individuals.

Jean Callahan, who oversees low-income guardianship cases as attorney in charge at the Legal Aid Society’s Brooklyn neighborhood office, likened guardianship to nursing homes. “It’s not what anyone would choose, but I’m glad they’re there,” she said. “It’s a blunt instrument, but it does solve problems sometimes.”

Even then, though, it transforms one sort of bad situation — the descent into helplessness — into another, which is a supported death. There are no happy outcomes.

Phyllis Ellen Funke grew up in the Parkchester section of the Bronx and later Mount Vernon, a high-achieving teenager with a lust for travel and occasional bouts of depression. She wanted to be an actress, she said, but turned to journalism after her father threatened to thwart her in order to protect her from the casting couch. “He would never believe there was an editing couch,” she said, alleging a demand for sex from an editor at a major Jewish publication. She mentioned other people who sabotaged her career or wounded her. It was a theme of her conversation.

“She doesn’t have delusions,” her brother, Michael, said. “She can have strong opinions.”

Friends thought she never got over her father’s disapproval. She got writing assignments from prestigious publications but never turned them into an income of more than $5,000 or $6,000 a year.

Her rent, set at 30 percent of her net income, once dropped to $97 a month.

“I remember almost constant complaining about her father,” said Morton Fleischner, a friend from journalism school who went on to be a producer at ABC News.

Ms. Funke traveled and wrote and traveled and wrote. She acquired stuff on her travels and put it in her apartment, and acquired research materials for future trips and put these in her apartment as well. She bought scuba gear from the shop next door. She bought yarn for knitting. In 2004, the building moved to evict her for hoarding, but her parents helped her tidy up.

Bill Lambrecht, 81, a neighbor and friend for more than 30 years, dismissed her clutter as a harmless eccentricity. “Her apartment was always really messy,” he said. “I’d see pennies on the floor, clothes shoved everywhere. She doesn’t hoard things. She just throws things on the floor.”

Mr. Lambrecht accompanied Ms. Funke to a court conference this August. He had been a guardian for an older woman once, and did not think Ms. Funke needed that level of oversight. At the conference, Judge Kelly called Ms. Funke “a brilliant woman,” but he added, on the guardianship question, “That ship has sailed.”

The judge offered to address any problems she was having with her new guardian, Charles Barbuti, adding that this was not the time to reopen the case — for that she had to fill out a form called an Order to Show Cause. He had explained that last time, Judge Kelly said. Ms. Funke began at the beginning. Digressions opened into other digressions. When Judge Kelly stopped her, she simply started again.

“I’m begging you,” Judge Kelly said. “I have spent more time on your case than on any single other case on my docket.” He ended the conference to hear the next case.

Mr. Lambrecht said: “She’s lucid, intelligent and knows how to take care of herself, mostly. She never cuts to the chase on things. But she’s not a bad person in any way. She’s very lonely. She’s what you’d call a noodge.”

Outside the courtroom Ms. Funke snagged Mr. Barbuti.

“I need money to pay for my medication.”

“Send me the bills, I’ll pay them.”

She could not do this, she said, for a simple reason. “I’m not taking the medication.”

It was a standoff. Mr. Barbuti billed $250 an hour. Sheila O’Brien, the geriatric care manager, stood by. She billed $150 an hour, plus $75 an hour for travel time to and from her office in Connecticut.

The judge ordered home-care aides to tackle Ms. Funke’s clutter — twice a week, four hours each time. Ms. Funke wanted to hire a cleaning service instead. Often she refused to allow the home attendants into her apartment. This was seen as noncompliance, further grounds to continue guardianship.

“I want to see this work for you, I really do,” Judge Kelly told her. “I know you don’t want this. Help me make it work.”

“At one point early on I had about $850,000. It’s now gone and going faster. They won’t stop being after me until I’m on Medicaid or worse.”CreditLily Landes for The New York Times

If you made that call to Adult Protective Services about Ms. Funke, did you do the right thing?

The initial intervention brought her back from the edge of malnutrition and dehydration. Judge Kelly stopped the eviction proceedings and ordered help to keep the clutter from returning.

But at what cost?

In Ms. Funke’s view, the process was an assault on her liberty — and in one instance, on her person. Before a court hearing last November, when she refused to get out of bed, the guardian, Gil Perez, forced the issue.

What happened is in dispute.

Ms. Funke said Mr. Perez dragged her out of bed, slammed her head repeatedly against the wall, then dragged her out toward the elevator in her nightgown. At the hearing that day, Judge Kelly noted that she was disheveled and unresponsive. “Ms. Funke,” he said, “you just don’t seem yourself to me today.”

Mr. Perez did not respond to requests for comment. At the hearing he told the judge, “Today, getting her to this court was quite an adventure.” Ms. Funke said nothing.

Nathan Villada, a paramedic who was helping Ms. Funke after her initial crisis, cleaning the apartment and taking her to medical appointments, said Mr. Perez was physical but not violent in the way she described. “This was when Phyllis was doing really, really badly mentally,” Mr. Villada said.

“She was yelling obscenities and it seemed like she was making aggressive movements toward him. So Gil started grabbing her hands. And that just made her more aggressive. Gil pushed her against the bookshelf more as a restraint, not slamming her. My personal preference, I don’t think there’s a necessity to touch someone like that. She started yelling out, ‘Help, help, I’m being raped.’ He pushed her out into the hallway, but he didn’t drag her on the floor.”

Ms. Yonge said Ms. Funke had called her at the time and told her about the episode, describing it as an “assault.” “She was in tears about it,” Ms. Yonge said.

Over time, Ms. Funke began to see this encounter as the root of her problems, and all the court’s interventions as more harmful than helpful. If she hadn’t been roughed up, she wouldn’t have been listless in court that day. If she hadn’t been listless, she would have persuaded the judge that she did not need a guardian.

Ms. Funke also said that a social worker from Adult Protective Services propositioned her and touched her inappropriately, and that Mr. Villada and his girlfriend had stolen from her. Whatever the validity of her charges, the anguish she feels is clearly real.

“I knew nothing really until this package of papers came,” Ms. Funke said. “I believe that that was when I first heard of something called the temporary guardian.”CreditLily Landes for The New York Times

Mr. Barbuti, who succeeded Mr. Perez as her guardian, said he had not looked into her charges. That was police work, he said, and he was no longer in that line. (He was a captain in the Bronx until he retired in 2011.) “I can’t subpoena people,” he said. “Interviewing people and giving Miranda warnings are far beyond the ambit of what I can do.”

It can all be maddening. Claude Pepper, a congressman from Florida, once called guardianship “the most punitive civil penalty that can be levied against an American citizen, with the exception, of course, of the death penalty.”

One day in her apartment, Ms. Funke tried to refuse a scheduled visit from Ms. O’Brien and a home attendant. They came up anyway.

Ms. Funke treated them with open disdain. The attendant pointed to a creased throw rug on the floor. “We talked about this, Phyllis,” she said. Risk of falls. Ms. Funke saw the apartment through different eyes, as a journal of her travels.

“Each rug means something to me,” she said. “Each has a story attached to it.”

Maybe this wasn’t prison, but for Ms. Funke, it was four walls and no easy way out. Was there money left in her investment accounts? Even the court didn’t know. Only the guardian had access to her records.

Ms. Funke said Mr. Barbuti often failed to give her the $150 a week allotted by the court, and that he was late paying bills for her parking garage, car insurance, her phone and internet, and that her supplemental health insurance was expired. In court Mr. Barbuti told the judge that he could not pay some of her bills because she refused to provide them to him.

Some days it seemed like she spent more time fighting with Mr. Barbuti over her bills than it would take to manage them, and they were still a royal mess, she said.

Mr. Barbuti said people had the wrong idea about guardians, that their powers were limited to what the judge gave them. New York also limited runaway fees: if a guardian billed more than $75,000 in a year, he or she could not take any new cases the following year.

“There’s a misconception about guardianship, that somehow or other you become that person’s alter ego,” Mr. Barbuti said. “That’s just not the case. All you can do is what the court tells you you can do.” He added: “I like this kind of work. I feel there’s a chance to help somebody and make a difference in their lives.”

If you were Ms. Funke, shouldn’t you be allowed to withdraw into the covers if you wanted to? And the clutter in your apartment — couldn’t people understand that a writer needs materials around? Even if she were evicted, she had money to start somewhere else. Courts evict people with lots less.

If you were Judge Kelly, what would you do? Would you want to be the judge who left her vulnerable and unprotected?

Mr. Barbuti said the question of guardianship was a complex one.

“People should have the right to make their own decisions, even if you might look at it and I might look at it or a judge might look at it and say that’s not a good decision,” he said. “I don’t think the government should be making decisions like that for people. I think people should be able to make bad decisions. Within bounds.”

What these bounds were, he could not say.

Ms. Funke said she just wanted to get on with her life. As she approached 80, she worried that she might spend the rest of her years fighting to get out of guardianship. So she fought harder.

She remained on probation at her building.

By early December she was still writing her Order to Show Cause. It began, “I’m petitioning, very simply, for the return of my life. The chance to hope again, to dream again. And live the years that remain in a fulfilling and fulfilled manner. Too much has already been destroyed — much improperly; possibly illegally. And primarily — -carelessly, selfishly and pointlessly.”

Fifteen pages later, it still had a long way to go. She was working on it, she said.

Full Article & Source: 
‘I’m Petitioning … for the Return of My Life’

ETX organizations team up for Elder Financial Exploitation Awareness Month

Click to Watch Video

TYLER, TX (KLTV) - Adult Protective Services in East Texas is teaming up with Meals on Wheels for Elder Financial Exploitation Awareness Month.

"We have a high volume of adult abuse cases being reported on a weekly basis, and this is a safe way for family, friends, or neighbors to protect a loved one, an elderly person in their community,” said Kari Keitzer. Keietzer is the CEO for Meals on Wheels.

The groups are promoting services available to seniors who have been affected by abuse, neglect, and financial exploitation. The organization plans to distribute more than 300 information packets this week.

Full Article & Source:
ETX organizations team up for Elder Financial Exploitation Awareness Month

Attorney: Elder “Protective Services” is a Racketeering Enterprise Medically Kidnapping Seniors

The real perpetrators of elder abuse & exploitation: Medical kidnapping by state public officials

 

More than 30 years ago, throughout the United States, state governments created agencies known as “elder protective services.”

As seen by such designated titles, these agencies are made to appear as though state governments are helpful resources for citizens.

However, nothing could be further from the truth. 

These so-called protective agencies are, in fact, wolves in sheep’s clothing that I can attest to from not only my direct personal experiences, but also from years of research.

Details of my family’s ongoing travesty of justice can be found at FreeMarvin.com. (See also: Massachusetts Senior Citizen and Attorney Medically Kidnapped – Estate Plundered – Represents National Epidemic.)

Upon years of my reviewing and obtaining voluminous court documentation throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—particularly, in my professional experience as an attorney, there is no doubt, whatsoever, that public officials have been operating a racketeering enterprise through the probate and family courts, feeding off our most vulnerable citizens, the elderly.

These public officials do so through physical and financial exploitation of the elderly. [1]

In 2015, I filed a federal civil action in the District Court of Massachusetts providing overwhelming and irrefutable documentation that state elder protective agencies is one cog of many in a long-embedded governmental money laundering and embezzlement enterprise.

“Adult/elder protective services” is a money-making industry, which should set off nonstop warning bells to the public—especially, given the revelation of the magnitude of absolute corruption by government officials with hard cold supporting indisputable facts to the credit of our 45th President Donald J. Trump. (Editor’s note – See: National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in Charges Against Over 412 Individuals Responsible for $1.3 Billion in Fraud Losses – Largest Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action in Department of Justice History.)

As laid out in my 2015 federal racketeering complaint, illicit monies are funneled through kickbacks arising from prescribed medications (especially antipsychotics) and fraudulent billings for Medicare & Medicaid services.

The indisputable fact is that these state “protective” agencies have a financial incentive to unlawfully initiate court proceedings in the Probate & Family Courts to have our family members judicially declared wards of the state.

For example, Medicaid services are reimbursable for “all of the activities involved in an APS (Adult protective services) investigations of allegations of abuse.” [2]

The Medicaid program process is called Administrative Claiming. For “non-providers,” funds for APS investigations are provided by Title XIX Medicaid Administration.

UNDER SEC. 2042. [42 U.S.C. 1397m-1], Social Security also provides funds specific to investigating reported elder abuse via the Department of Health & Human Services. In 2011, $3 million dollars from Social Security was funded for “investigative” services, and $4 million each year from 2012-2014.

As evidenced,

medical providers and nonmedical entities receive kickbacks for the mere reporting of elder abuse.

Add to that, medical providers have even more of a financial incentive to facilitate reports of elder abuse where they have a subsequent and additional steady stream of income to be made through providing medical services.

The way to keep that continuous flow of income, people are involuntarily forced into the Probate & Family Courts by state “protective” agencies where they ensue formal court proceedings to declare people “wards of the state” upon which they are then routinely admitted into rehabilitation and/or nursing home facilities against their will.

This is all facilitated by elders being judicially determined to be “incapacitated.”

As shown, the medical community works hand-in-hand with judges and attorneys of the Probate & Family courts to literally abduct our family members by design for pure greed.

These public officials use these court proceedings to do so by claimed “mental health” issues and/or physical illness. Through the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) own published reports, state agencies guised as “protective services” have an established pattern of profiting from dismantling the family unit for more than 30 years nationwide.

Once elders are officially deemed “wards of the state” by Probate & Family Court judges, due to state protective agencies use to hook their claws into our family members, the governmental reign of terror is embedded through these judges appointing guardians and conservators to take absolute control over “the ward.”

At that point, the elder is then stripped of all individual freedoms, including personal decisions involving medical, financial or otherwise.

There is an irrefutable and well-documented pattern of court appointed guardians isolating the ward from family and friends, so as to facilitate involuntary drugging of the ward with antipsychotics and other Big-Pharma medications through subterfuge with the ultimate objective of liquidating the elder’s estate and to use the elder as a means to funnel funds via kickbacks and Medicare & Medicaid fraud.

Do NOT Call Elder Abuse “Hotlines”!

Even more alarmingly, for decades, state Attorney General Offices have continuously bombard citizens with “public service announcements” urging citizens to call “hot lines” to report abuse of elders.

Often times these calls to “elder abuse” hot lines are made “anonymously” with obvious underlying ill-motives, while other citizens are conned into thinking that they are going to be provided help to keep their family unit together when the state government has an established blatant and flagrant pattern of doing the exact opposite—they overtly seek to dismantle the family unit.

Showing the true motives of the offices of the Attorney Generals, they disturbingly blast a narrative that the majority of elder exploitation supposedly occurs by family members. For example, see: Commonwealth of Massachusetts – Elder Financial Exploitation and Fraud: Is it a Problem and What Should Credit Unions Do?

Established evidence shows that governmental abduction of family members involves all ages, all socio-economic backgrounds, and all ethnicities.

My family’s personal miscarriage of justice is a prime example that no one is beyond the clutches of this long-embedded systemic criminal enterprise.

Overwhelming court documentation shows that due process for accused family members is nonexistent.

In fact, it is business as usual for these public officials to fabricate and manufacture information to abduct our family members.

Don’t make the tragic mistake of thinking that state governmental medical kidnapping can’t happen to YOUR family.

Some short & fast tips to help avoid state governmental intrusion into your family:

• Do not initiate any proceeding in the probate & family court system
• Do not use services offered by state protective services
• Do not use services offered by local municipal organizations claiming to help the elderly, such as Council of Aging
• Do not call Abuse Hotlines
• Do not attend “free” publicly offered estate planning seminars

Seemingly, it is human nature for people to want to avoid horrifying topics of conversation like medical kidnapping—not wanting to even conceive of the thought that this could happen to their family.

People tend to bury their heads in the sand, but in reality, such reflex worsens the problem.

A unified and cohesive movement by we, citizens, for accountability, is so needed where the insidiousness in which governmental medical kidnapping is so deep. If not now, when?

Full Article & Source:
Attorney: Elder “Protective Services” is a Racketeering Enterprise Medically Kidnapping Seniors

Temptations singer Dennis Edwards was abused before his death, court documents allege

Chicago police are investigating allegations that Dennis Edwards, a Grammy-winning singer with the Motown group the Temptations, was abused shortly before his death.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee died at a Chicago hospital Thursday from complications of meningitis, according to his wife, Brenda Edwards. He was 74 and had lived in the St. Louis area for more than 30 years.

Legendary Temptations singer Dennis Edwards, of Florissant, dies at 74

He moved to St. Louis in the 1980s.

Court documents filed by an adult protective services investigator allege that weeks before the singer’s death, Brenda Edwards abused her husband.

An investigator with the Healthcare Consortium of Illinois filed the protection order request on behalf of Dennis Edwards Jan. 12 in Chicago, where the couple lived together before Edwards’ death.

The documents allege that Brenda Edwards had attempted to suffocate the 74-year-old by holding his head facedown on a bed. The investigator also accused Brenda Edwards of taking her husband’s hearing aids from him, according to a petition for an order of protection. The documents say Edwards was “bed bound and immobile.”

Dennis Edwards was removed from the home because of medical issues, according to the Jan. 12 document.

An emergency protective order against Brenda Edwards was granted Jan. 18, barring her from contact with Dennis Edwards. A hearing that would have allowed Brenda Edwards to respond to the allegations was scheduled for Friday, but was canceled after her husband’s death the day before.

The protective order was vacated on Friday, after Dennis Edwards’ death.

Brenda Edwards disputed the allegations in a brief statement released Monday night. “I loved Dennis, and we were married for 18 years,” she said. “I would have never done anything to harm him. These allegations are false and defamatory and will be proven as such. Until this is all over, I have no further comment.”

The Chicago Police Department confirmed Monday that there is an open criminal investigation into the matter.

Until recently, Dennis and Brenda Edwards lived in north St. Louis County, and property records show the house remains listed in Dennis Edwards’ name.

The couple recently moved to Chicago to seek better health care, according to Dennis Edwards’ daughter Denise Edwards.

Dennis Edwards lived in the St. Louis area for more than 30 years. He was born in Alabama and moved to Detroit as a young boy, but moved to the St. Louis area in the 1980s to be closer to his mother.

In an undated file photo, The Temptations singing group is pictured. From left are; Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin and Glenn Beonard. Back row from left, Richard Street and Dennis Edwards. Edwards, a former member of the famed Motown group, has died. He was 74. (AP Photo/Lennox McLendon)

By that time, Edwards had already sung lead vocals on some of the Temptations’ biggest hits

Edwards wasn’t an original singer with the classic Temptations lineup, but became the official sixth member in 1968.

He sang lead on hits including “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World is Today),” “I Can’t Get Next to You,” and the Grammy-winning tracks “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” and “Cloud Nine.”

The Temptations were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.

In his later years, Dennis Edwards was often seen in St. Louis at the Fox Theatre and Peabody Opera House when classic soul artists passed through.



The family is working to make arrangements for a memorial service for the singer, Denise Edwards said.

Survivors of Dennis Edwards include five daughters, a son and several grandchildren.

Full Article & Source: 
Temptations singer Dennis Edwards was abused before his death, court documents allege