Elderly care task force disbanded before new DA takes office, CAVE director says

CAVE Director William Loomer

by Jozsef Papp

 

After three years, the Crimes Against the Vulnerable and Elderly task force will cease operations Wednesday. 

In a letter Tuesday, CAVE Director William Loomer announced that the task force will be disbanded effective Wednesday.

New District Attorney Jared Williams said Loomer was not authorized to close the task force by anyone in his incoming administration.

"If he was authorized to do so, it could have only come from the current administration. I do not take office until Jan. 1, 2021, and my team will be assessing all programs after that time," Williams said in a statement.

Williams, whose term begins Monday after he beat Republican incumbent Natalie Paine on Nov. 3 with 50.51 percent of the vote, shared with The Augusta Chronicle a Dec. 28 email exchanged between Loomer and himself. In those emails, Loomer told Williams he was planning to leave the position and felt Williams should let him know his plans for the task force.

Williams responded by telling Loomer to talk to Chief Michael Lanham and Investigator Samuel Long about the status of the task force's caseload. Williams indicated he wanted to work together to make sure the community's needs are met. Williams said the email exchange was the last conversation the two had about the future of the task force. 

Paine said the decision to disband the task force was the only choice the CAVE team had. She claims all the people who run the task force were told to leave and when attempts were made to transition to a new team, if there is one, they were declined. 

Loomer said state legislation requires the district attorney of a circuit be responsible for creating or maintaining teams such as CAVE. He said Williams has offered no transition strategy and indicated he intends to restructure the employment status of CAVE leadership.

"It is in the public interest that the public be notified that the Task Force is no longer a resource available to them. I sincerely hope that the incoming administration continues to serve the vulnerable and elderly in a way that fits their model," Loomer said in the letter. "My offer to help the new administration with this remains in place."

New District Attorney Jared Williams

Since being established in 2017 by Paine, the task force has handled 360 cases, made over 60 arrests, relocated more than 120 vulnerable residents to safety and trained hundreds of professionals in recognizing the signs of abuse. The task force is comprised of 25 "core" members across 30 agencies. 

"I want to personally thank every single member of this phenomenal team for their hard work, dedication and desire to help the most under-served demographic in our community – the elderly and disabled. The officers and staff were a torch in the darkness for so many forgotten victims," Loomer said in the letter. "I would also like to thank our partners from different agencies who made our mission possible and recognized the importance of this work."

The current cases will be transferred to other personnel in the district attorney's office, while the Facebook page will start to post resources and other tools for the public to use to protect themselves and others, Loomer's letter said.

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Elderly care task force disbanded before new DA takes office, CAVE director says

New law bars trafficking of vulnerable adults

As they pored over the laws that go into effect Sunday to further protect vulnerable adults, Rickey Coates and William Loomer of the local personal care home task force found themselves nodding along in acknowledgement and agreement.

The big asset is the new law prohibiting the trafficking of a disabled or elderly adult.

“It’s going to be awesome,” said Loomer, an investigator with the Augusta Judicial Circuit’s district attorney’s office. District Attorney Natalie Paine chose to lead the Crimes Against the Vulnerable and Elderly unit that she created last year, which has made a number of local arrests.

The Georgia Legislature followed Paine’s and a few other prosecutors’ lead when it wrote a bill, now law, calling for the formation of multidisciplinary teams to investigate suspected abuse, neglect and exploitation of elderly and disabled adults. It requires that all reports to Adult Protective Services also be copied to the district attorney, something that didn’t necessary happen before now.

The new law waives any repercussions for sharing information about a possible victim with members of the investigative teams, such as CAVE in Richmond, Columbia and Burke counties, Loomer said. It also enables employees of banks and other financial institutions to share information if they suspect someone is exploiting a vulnerable adult.

The new law also allows someone who reports suspicions of abuse, neglect or exploitation to ask whether the report was received, if an investigation was opened and if the investigation is still open or closed. The new law doesn’t allow for much sharing, but before, a reporter couldn’t learn if anything was done with a report.

What Loomer and Coates, a prosecutor and CAVE team member, are really looking forward to is the new law prohibiting the trafficking of vulnerable adults. For example, the new law spells out what coercion means – not only causing or threatening physical harm, but also restraining, threatening to or actually exposing embarrassing or personal information, or threatening to or actually destroying or confiscating personal identity, medical and public assistance documents.

CAVE members have seen victims afraid to leave a bad personal care home because the owner has taken their driver’s licenses and benefit cards, Coates said. If the owners took those documents and kept them in a file with all the other information about patients, that’s fine, Loomer said. But every time they have gone in to investigate a bad home they have had to chase down all of the patients’ personal identity documents, which is time-consuming and difficult enough when you know what to do, he said. For some patients, it is overwhelming, Loomer said.

The new law also contains the element of “deception” and spells out what it means.

Someone cannot promise to provide care when they have no intention of providing any services, Coates said. That is now criminal. The law also spells out “isolation,” another tactic CAVE members have seen employed to control victims. It means preventing a vulnerable adult from having contact with family, friends, a welfare agency, police or health provider.

“The law isn’t asking (personal care owners or caregivers) to do anything they shouldn’t already be doing,” Coates aid.

The basic elements of the new trafficking law involve promising to care for a vulnerable adult with no intention of doing so for the purpose of collecting their asset for personal use while controlling the victim through exploitation, deception or isolation.

If there are two or more victims, it is a crime punishable by five to 20 years. If there are three to 10 victims, the punishment range is 10 to 20 years, and if there are 10 or more victims, the punishment is 15 to 25 years with a mandatory 15 years in prison without parole. Each violation is also punishable by a fine of up to $100,000.

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New law bars trafficking of vulnerable adults