Nevada Guardian April Parks Robbed the Elderly the Courts Handed Her, and Got 16 to 40 Years

By M.A. Rothman

The short version

• Clark County Judge Tierra Jones sentenced professional guardian April Parks on Jan. 4, 2019, to 16 to 40 years in prison for exploiting elderly wards.
• Parks pleaded guilty to elder exploitation, theft and perjury counts, and the case carried restitution of $559,205.32, with her partner and husband also sentenced.
• Families said they want more accountability for the judges who approve guardianships, and Nevada has changed its guardianship law since the investigation began.

April Parks was handed control over the lives of elderly and disabled Nevadans by the courts, and she used that power to rob them. On January 4, 2019, Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones sentenced the former professional guardian to 16 to 40 years in Nevada state prison in what prosecutors called the state’s largest elder exploitation case. The story is making the rounds again, and it deserves to, because the system that put Parks in charge of those people never fully answered for its part.

Parks owned A Private Professional Guardian, LLC, a business based in Boulder City. According to the Nevada Attorney General’s office, she and her co-defendants used the company to financially exploit the elderly wards a court had appointed them to protect. Her business partner, Mark Simmons, and her husband, Gary Neal Taylor, were sentenced the same day.

“How is that not harm?”

Victims packed the Las Vegas courtroom for a hearing that ran nearly four hours. Parks, shackled and seated, kept her head turned and never looked their way, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. When she spoke, she told the judge she accepted responsibility “but never intended harm,” that “things could have been done better,” and that she had a “great passion” for guardianship.

Judge Jones wasn’t buying it. “You told us you never meant any harm,” she told Parks, according to KTNV 13 Action News. “But after hearing these stories of people Scotch taping their shoes, people being charged for Christmas gifts, and nothing to eat, how is that not harm?” She called Parks’ conduct “absolutely shocking” and “downright offensive.”

She was not a guardian to me. She did not protect me. As each day passed, I felt like I was in a grave, buried alive.

The victims explained why. Herman “Bill” Mesloh, who is blind, said Parks first visited him at a rehabilitation center in late 2013, and that he was involuntarily isolated from his wife, Kathy, for six months. “There are some evil people in this world,” he said. “And April Parks is a predator of the worst kind.” Barbara Ann Neely said Parks cut her off from family and friends: “She was not a guardian to me. She did not protect me. As each day passed, I felt like I was in a grave, buried alive.”

Larry Braslow told the court that a decades-old family address book vanished while Parks was in charge of his mother, along with his father’s footlocker of military uniforms. Victims described losing their life savings and feeling like prisoners. And in one of the most disturbing details of the case, KTNV reported that a storage locker was found holding urns with the ashes of some of Parks’ clients who had died.

Karen Kelly, Clark County’s public guardian, read a long list of victims who spent their final years in “intense anxiety and anguish.” Her summary of Parks was brutal: “She didn’t see them as people. They were paychecks.”

The Norths

The case that drew national attention was that of Rudy and Rennie North, a retired Las Vegas couple. As The New Yorker reported in 2017, and the Vera Institute of Justice summarized, Parks showed up at their home in 2013 claiming a court order required them to move to an assisted-living facility. Her assistant threatened to call the police if they refused. They were gone in about 35 minutes, and their daughter, Julie, wasn’t told.

The temporary guardianship was made permanent after a cursory 10-minute hearing. Parks then sold much of the Norths’ property, including Renoir lithographs and Rudy’s car, and moved their savings into her own account. When Julie tried to help, Parks called the police and Julie was cited for trespassing. Only after a 2015 hearing found Parks had sold the couple’s belongings without proper approval, and a judge suspended her guardianship, were the Norths able to leave the facility and move in with their daughter.

At sentencing, Rennie North had cancer and was too sick to attend. Rudy and Julie were there. Rudy compared Parks to Adolf Hitler and told the court, “This lady should be banished.”

The sentences

Parks pleaded guilty in November 2018. She had originally faced more than 200 felony counts. According to the Attorney General’s office, the outcome broke down this way:

• April Parks: pleaded guilty to two counts of elder exploitation, two counts of theft and one count of perjury in the main case; sentenced to 192 to 480 months, with a concurrent 72 to 180 months in a second case.
• Mark Simmons: 84 to 216 months, plus a concurrent 48 to 120 months in the second case.
• Gary Neal Taylor: 24 to 60 months, the term his plea agreement jointly recommended.
• Restitution of $559,205.32.

The state had asked for even more: 307 to 768 months for Parks. Her attorney, Noel Palmer Simpson, pleaded guilty to one count of elder exploitation in the second case, which involved an elderly couple exploited through guardianship between December 2010 and May 2017; the court continued Simpson’s sentencing to a later date. Parks, Simmons and Taylor had been in custody since March 2017.

Then-Attorney General Adam Laxalt said the sentencing “sends a strong message to those looking to exploit our vulnerable elderly.” The case was investigated jointly by his office and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

The judges who signed off

Parks didn’t sneak into these people’s lives. She was invited in by the court. She often served as the surrogate decision-maker for 50 to 100 elderly and mentally incapacitated people at a time, the Review-Journal reported, with full control over their finances, estates and medical decisions. According to the Vera Institute’s summary of The New Yorker’s reporting, it was routine in Clark County for guardians to petition for temporary guardianship without notifying the person who was about to lose their rights.

That’s why the families left the courtroom unsatisfied. KTNV reported that they called the sentence a step in the right direction, but they wanted more change, especially more accountability for the judges who approve guardianship agreements. Nevada has changed its guardianship law in the years since the station began investigating the system, KTNV noted. But a prison sentence for one guardian doesn’t explain how a family court handed one woman the keys to so many lives with so little scrutiny.

Every family with an aging parent should read this case closely. Guardianship is meant to be a shield for people who can’t protect themselves. In Clark County, it became a legal way to take away their homes, their savings and their freedom, and the people who were supposed to check it waved it through.

April Parks is behind bars where she belongs, but the court system that rubber-stamped her guardianships owes those families an accounting of its own.

Editor’s note: This article covers a January 2019 sentencing that drew renewed attention in October 2026. 

Full Article & Source:
Nevada Guardian April Parks Robbed the Elderly the Courts Handed Her, and Got 16 to 40 Years 

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Ex-Nevada guardian pleads guilty to exploitation, theft charges

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Quincy attorney suspended for one year

By Jim Roberts

QUINCY (WGEM) - Quincy attorney Roni VanAusdall has been suspended for one year by the Illinois Supreme Court, according to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.

The ARDC reported that during a divorce case, VanAusdall came to an agreement with opposing counsel concerning parenting time. The ARDC report said VanAusdall prepared a proposed order memorializing the agreement and obtained opposing counsel’s permission to submit the order to the trial judge.

The ARDC said VanAusdall then created a second proposed order that included provisions that had not been agreed upon and falsely assured the trial judge that opposing counsel had agreed to the order she was presenting.

The ARDC also reported VanAusdall was charged with attempted forgery. According to our news-gathering partners at The Herald-Whig, VanAusdall entered an Alford plea to a misdemeanor charge of attempted forgery in January 2021. By entering the Alford plea, VanAusdall maintained her innocence but agreed the state had enough evidence to prove her guilt.

Court records show she was sentenced to 18 months supervision and 100 hours of community service.

The Herald-Whig reported that if she successfully completes supervision, the charges will be dismissed.

The ARDC reported the suspension is effective April 15, 2022.

Full Article & Source:

Quincy attorney suspended for one year

Ex-Nevada guardian pleads guilty to exploitation, theft charges

As a guardian, April Parks once controlled hundreds of Southern Nevada’s most vulnerable people.

As an inmate, she pleaded guilty Monday to exploitation, theft and perjury charges. The hearing came more than a year after she was first indicted for swindling many of the elderly and infirm in her care.

In court, she only spoke when agreeing to the terms of her Alford plea — a type of guilty plea that requires a defendant to admit only that prosecutors could prove their case. She shuffled her once bright red hair — now gray — in front of her face, shielding herself from the handful of victim families who came as witnesses.

Parks, now 53, was one of the most active private professional guardians in the region. She often acted as the surrogate decision maker for 50 to 100 elderly and mentally incapacitated people, called wards, at a given time. As guardian, she had full control of their finances, estates and even medical decisions.

She originally faced more than 200 felony counts. On Monday, she pleaded guilty to six: three counts of exploitation, two counts of theft and one count of perjury.

But she still faces a maximum prison sentence of 84 years. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Jan. 4.

Parks appeared in court Monday with three co-defendants, who also entered Alford pleas.

“They’re pathetic!” one of Parks’ former wards, Rudy North, yelled in court after the pleas were entered.

Under Parks’ care, North and his wife were taken from their home and put into an assisted living facility in Boulder City. Parks sold nearly all their possessions shortly after moving the couple, North has said.

“I want you to put that in,” North continued in court. “They’re pathetic!”

The man was escorted out of the courtroom. Parks did not look at him.

“Today’s pleas resolve the most significant guardianship exploitation case in Nevada’s history,” Attorney General Adam Laxalt said in a statement Monday.

Throughout the hearing, District Attorney Steve Wolfson sat in a back row of the gallery, silently observing.

“Guardians have a duty to protect their wards, not steal from them and destroy their lives,” Wolfson later said in a statement. “These individuals violated their duty and they will be punished for their crimes.”

Parks’ attorney, Anthony Goldstein, declined to comment after the hearing.

The three other people who entered Alford pleas were Parks’ business partner, Mark Simmons; her husband, Gary Neal Taylor; and her former attorney, Noel Simpson Palmer.

Simmons entered pleas to two counts of exploitation, one count of theft and one count of perjury. Taylor and Simpson Palmer each entered a plea to one count of exploitation. One of Simpson Palmer’s cases was dismissed.

“This is not judicial process,” North’s daughter, Julie Belshe, said as she walked out of court.

Belshe now works as a guardianship reform advocate. She said the last five years fighting for her parents, who now live with her, have been trying.

“This isn’t justice,” she said after the hearing, standing next to her father. “It’s a slap on the wrist. What kind of message is this sending?”

Full Article & Source:
Ex-Nevada guardian pleads guilty to exploitation, theft charges

See Also:
UPDATE: Private guardian April Parks behind bars in Las Vegas 

Family sees first victory in guardianship case

BREAKING: Private Guardian April Parks Found Guilty Of Fraud, Theft, And Conversion
 
Steve Miller: The Story of Elizabeth Indig 
 
Elderly couple fights guardianship system
 
The Vegas Voice: Guardianship, Part 3: NOW GET RESULTS!
 
Steve Miller: Jared Shafer's Clark County Family Court Lackeys Removed From All Guardianship Cases
 
Contact 13 Investigates: Guardian Gouging?
 
Steve Miller on the Removal of Nevada Private Guardian April Parks
 
Couple liberated from guardianship system
 
New Family Court Judge Puts Immediate Stop To Elder Abuse And Exploitation By For-Hire "Guardians" Jared Shafer And April Parks
 
Steve Miller: The Story of Elizabeth Indig

  Steve Miller: A Message From the Son-in-Law of an Exploited Ward of the Clark Co. (Nevada) Family Court
 
Boulder City police investigate guardianship cases
 
Steve Miller: Judge Steel Frees Three "Wards" From Exploitive Court Ordered Guardianship On Same Day
 
Dan Roberts, The Vegas Voice on Private Guardian April Parks: She Had the Dogs Killed
 
Families Caught up in Guardianship Losing Their Homes
 
Steve Miller: "Guardian" April Parks Home and Office Raided by Police and Nevada AG
 
Search warrants served as police investigate guardianship exploitation
  Contact 13: Judge in guardianship cases recuses herself
 
Guardianship Commission to ask for criminal investigations
 
Steve Miller: Embattled Private Guardian April Parks Censured For Exploiting The Elderly, Mastermind Jared Shafer Stays Under The Radar - For Now

Couple get probation for elder exploitation

A Chatfield couple found guilty of taking more than $274,000 from an elderly family member’s estate were given probation Tuesday.

Jason and Jessica Polikowsky were found guilty of taking funds from Jason’s grandmother, Rose Polikowsky, for their own use. Rose had been suffering dementia when, in 2011, Jason, Jessica and Jason’s father, Donald Polikowsky, persuaded her to give them power of attorney over her estate, according to court records.

Jason and Jessica were given a year in jail each and up to 20 years of probation for 11 counts of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult. The two were found guilty in May after a trial but maintained they did nothing wrong through the sentencing hearing.

Jason, reading from a written statement, said his grandmother had always been generous.

“She has been gifting me things since I was a child,” he said.

“I would never have taken advantage of my grandma,” he said. “She meant the world to me.”

Investigators documented more than $150,000 in cash “gifts” to the couple from Rose’s accounts; $75,000 toward a down payment on a house for the couple and more than $21,000 for purchases of business equipment and recreational vehicles. Changes were also made on the beneficiaries on her life insurance accounts and payments were halted on Rose’s Rochester home.

The couple blames Rose’s other children, Gary Polikowsky and Diana Parks, who previously executed her estate, for the financial troubles Rose began to face, according to investigators.

Jason began his statement saying he apologized “to anyone I might have hurt.”

Jessica tearfully repeated Jason’s opening line and said little else.

Rose’s younger sister, Shirley Schroeder, read her victim impact statement before sentencing. In it she recalled her older sister’s sadness as money disappeared.

“She trusted you and you let her down,” Schroeder said. “You took advantage of her love and trust.

“I can’t understand why you would do this to your own grandmother,” she continued. “She was always kind to you.”

Schroeder also recounted how Rose was certain it was Parks and Gary Polikowsky who were draining her estate.

“You continued to plant that seed in her mind,” Schroeder said.

Rose died August 2017. Gary died June this year.

Schroeder said she wished both Rose and Gary were still around to hear an apology from the couple.

Schroeder said after the hearing she was disappointed the couple only received probation but also expressed relief the legal ordeal appeared to be over.

James McGeeney, who represented Jessica and Jason, asked for probation saying the couple would be better able to pay back the estate by staying out of prison and working at Jason’s Chatfield-based business. He said that aside from alcohol-related convictions, Jason has little prior criminal history and that Jessica had no criminal convictions prior to this case.

“I know my clients in their heart of hearts still believe that their grandmother wanted them to have the money,” McGeeney said.

“Keeping them in the community would enable them to both be supervised and make restitution,” he added.

Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem argued for prison time. He questioned the couple’s ability to make restitution.

“The money is gone,” Ostrem said. “It’s all been spent on themselves.”

Ostrem said they continued to buy things for themselves even after Rose began struggling financially.

“They could have stopped,” he said. “They could have taken care of their grandmother as she wished.”

Judge James A. Fabian said the presentence investigation recommended probation despite some of the counts against each carrying up to five years in prison upon conviction. He noted that Donald, who entered an Alford plea in April 2016 to charges against him and agreed to make $66,000, also avoided prison time.

“You have been given the opportunity to make good,” Fabian said. “If you don’t take that opportunity, prison is waiting for you.”

Jessica was ordered to begin serving her 365-day jail sentence April 1 next year with a 45-day stay with work-release privileges. She would continue to serve 45-day terms April 1 each year for the next four years after that. If she is in good standing after serving five 45-day jail terms, the rest of her jail sentence would be forgiven.

Jason was ordered to serve 365 days under similar conditions with his terms being served Nov. 1 beginning next year and Nov. 1 the following years. Both were given credit for jail time served.

Full Article & Source:
Couple get probation for elder exploitation

Attorney James Kincheloe Jr Gets Six Years for Embezzling From Elderly Woman

A Fairfax County attorney was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday for embezzling nearly $500,000 while he was entrusted to care for an elderly woman and her estate, according to the Virginia attorney general’s office.

James G. Kincheloe, Jr., 67, who lives in Fauquier County, was convicted of a single count of embezzlement in the case in Fairfax County Circuit court in July. Kincheloe entered an Alford plea, meaning he did not admit guilt but acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence for a conviction.

Fairfax County Judge Jane M. Roush ruled that Kincheloe will have to repay more than $483,000 to the estate of Pearl Buckley, a Fairfax City resident who died in 2009 at the age of 90. A separate civil suit by the family claimed almost $900,000 was taken from Buckley.

Kincheloe served as the executor of Buckley’s will and that of her deceased husband, Edward. He also had power of attorney over her. At the time of her death, Buckley was suffering from dementia and was legally blind.

Before she died, prosecutors said Kincheloe entered into an agreement with her to manage her personal affairs at a rate of more than $9,700 a month — three times Buckley’s income. They also said his now-wife, Heidi Pender Kincheloe, entered a separate agreement to serve as Buckley’s personal assistant for $35 an hour.

Prosecutors say Pender Kincheloe only worked a fraction of the hours she billed for and she has been charged with six counts of receiving stolen property in Prince William County. She denies the charges.

Source:
Attorney James Kincheloe Jr. gets six years for embezzling from elderly woman

See Also:
Elderly Woman in Virginia Cheated Out of Savings By Lawyer She Trusted, Family Alleges