Laurie Roberts Honors Marie Long: Probate Victim Spoke Softly But Was Heard

The first time I saw her, she was in a nursing home for welfare cases. She was sitting in a reclining chair in a drab common area, staring into space as the smell of urine and ammonia wafted through the room.

It was a sad place to land toward the end of a long life and sadder still because it never should have happened.

Marie Long had planned for her sunset years. Then a stroke placed her under the authority of Maricopa County's probate court, where she was protected right into the poorhouse.

After five years of fighting, Marie in December got some of her money back from the lawyers and fiduciaries charged with protecting her though not in time to make a difference in her life.
Marie died on April 22, at age 92.

"She was able to pass knowing all the hard work of others paid off – that gave her much joy," her niece, Kim Raynak, told me. "She actually did a fist pump in the air when we told her of the win."

Marie and her husband, Cliff, planned for their old age, knowing they'd be alone. Their daughter, Patsy, died of cancer at 16. Their son, Bobby, was 20 when he was killed in Vietnam. When Cliff died in 2003, he left Marie in solid financial shape.

She had $1.3 million in assets in 2005, when she suffered a stroke. After a family dispute over where she would live, Marie wound up in probate court, where lawyers and fiduciaries help vulnerable people and sometimes they help themselves, too, to a tidy pile of cash, unless a judge stops it.
Marie's judge didn't stop it and so she was paying $106 for hearing-aid batteries and $50-an-hour for someone to open her mail and $19 to reply to her request for new shoes.

By 2009, she was broke and moved to nursing home for indigents, though her family eventually was able to move her to a nicer place once her money dried up and her for-profit guardian promptly bailed.

Marie's lawyers, Jon Kitchel and Patricia Gitre, worked for free for years, trying to stop the bleeding and then to get some of her money back.

But a probate judge ruled that the attorneys and fiduciaries were justified in helping themselves to more than $1 million of Marie's money and the Supreme Court left the bulk of the judge's ruling intact.

The December settlement brought enough so that Marie would be able to live out her life comfortably. Sadly, she never got the chance to enjoy it.

She did, however, get the chance to change things. As a result of what happened to Marie, laws were changed and reforms were enacted in the hope of better protecting the Maries among us.

"We now have some of the tools that ought to help us prevent another Marie Long case," Kitchel told me. "My optimism is tempered because I know that the tools we had during Marie's case should have been enough."

Marie Long didn't get to fully enjoy her final years as she should have and that is such a shame. But the sweet old lady who spoke so softly was, at least, heard.

"I would like," she once whispered to me, "that this doesn't happen to anybody else."

Source:
Probate Victim Spoke Softly But Was Heard

See Also:
CBS: Guardianship Company Cost Woman Dearly

READ the GAO report:  Guardianships:  Cases of Financial Exploitation, Abuse and Neglect of Seniors

NASGA's "An Open Letter to Congress and the White House

Marie Long, a Widow 'Protected' into the Poorhouse, Gets Some of Her Money Back - Finally!

The elderly widow wasn’t asking for much. Just a little protection so she could live out her life as she’d planned.

So that she could go out to lunch with friends or buy a new hat or new teeth.

Instead, Marie Long was protected right into the poorhouse. In just four years, the woman who came into Probate Court with $1.3 million in assets was left penniless, her life savings sucked up by the very people appointed to watch over her — all as the judge looked on.

Or away, more likely.

As a result of what happened to Marie Long, laws were changed and reforms were enacted in the hope of better protecting the most vulnerable among us.

All that is, except for Marie.

Now, at long last — and with no thanks to the courts —Marie Long, at 92, has a little of her own back.

Marie had no children to look after her in her old age. Her daughter died of cancer long ago at age 16. The following year, her 20-year-old son was killed in Vietnam. When her husband, Cliff, died in 2003, Marie was in good financial shape.

But a stroke in 2005 and a family dispute over where and how she would live landed Marie under the “protection” of Maricopa County’s Probate Court.

By 2009, her $1.3 million estate was gone, much of it sucked up by attorneys and fiduciaries under the not-so-watchful eye of then-Commissioner Lindsay Ellis.

Ellis ruled that those attorneys and fiduciaries were justified in helping themselves to more than $1 million of Marie’s money. She lambasted Marie’s lawyers — Kitchel, Pat Gitre and Marie’s nephew Dan Raynak, people who for years volunteered their services to help Marie as her accounts dwindled.

Ellis wrote that their “venomous” attacks challenging the six-figure bills forced the fiduciaries and lawyers on the other side to defend themselves.

With Marie’s money, naturally.

Full Article and Source:
Widow ‘protected’ into the poorhouse gets some of her money back (finally)

See Also: (NOTE:  NASGA worked directly with CBS in 2010 on the report listed below.)
CBS Evening News- Guardianship Agency Costs Elderly Woman Dearly