Guardianship experts say put wishes in writing

 

Scott Cohn joins ‘The News with Shepard Smith’ to report how one man’s guardianship went wrong.

 

 

Source:

Guardianship experts say put wishes in writing

See Also:
NASGA profile: Lupe Olvera

AoJ Weekly #6– WWII Vet Exploited by Guardian pt. 2

Robert, Guadalupe & Becky

In second part of our two-part series about a corrupt guardianship in Nevada. We finish our conversation with Becky Schultz, whose father was exploited personally by Jared Shafer. We pick up right were we left off in part 1 and continue our conversation about Jared Shafer and his company that have been doing this in Nevada for over 38 years. Becky then talks about the articles that featured her father’s case in the New Yorker and Las Vegas Review Journal. 
 
As we move further in our conversation, we bring up the current Democratic Senator from Nevada and former Attorney General, Catherine Cortez Masto, who continually ignored Becky pleas and has still not addressed this problem, even today. We then ask Becky about her lawsuit and all the problems it has caused for her family. The last topic we discuss is anything different she would have done if it happened to her again and how to avoid it in your own life. Subscribe today and never miss an episode from Archangels of Justice!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Full Article & Source:

AoJ Weekly #6– WWII Vet Exploited by Guardian pt. 2

See Also:
ArchangelsOfJustice website
ArchangelsOfJustice Facebook Page

Judge Tierra Jones Dismisses Most Of Jason Hanson's Guardianship Fraud Lawsuit

LAS VEGAS - On Thursday, December 21, Clark County District Court Judge Tierra Jones dismissed without prejudice the majority of 28 year old cerebral palsy victim Jason Hanson's complaint against his Clark County Family Court appointed guardians, trustees, and attorneys.

Attorneys for Defendants private guardian Jared E. Shafer, attorneys Francis Fine, Elyse Tyrell, and Dara Goldsmith, and Clark County Public Administrator John Cahill, had argued at an earlier hearing that Hanson's case was time barred because he should have filed it when he turned 18 in 2007, not ten years later in 2017 when he first became aware his inheritance was missing.

Judge Jones agreed with the Defendants, then approved their motion to give them Judicial Immunity because they were all court appointed to care for Hanson by Hearing Master Jon Norheim, an unelected jurist appointed by Family Court Judge Charles Hoskin to help him with his case load. Prior to taking the bench, Norheim was the criminal defense attorney for known mob associate Rick Rizzolo.

Judicial Immunity is a form of legal immunity which protects judges and others employed by the judiciary from liability resulting from their judicial actions. 

Because the case was dismissed without prejudice, it can be reopened in the event new information becomes available. Attorneys for Hanson are considering appealing Judge Jones's decision to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Source: 

Steve Miller:  Judge Tierra Jones Dismisses Most Of Jason Hanson's Guardianship Fraud Lawsuit

See Also:
Jason Hanson Goes To Court

Steve Miller: Jason Hanson's Case May Have Been Compromised

Steve Miller: Jason Hanson Sues Jared Shafer And Others For Civil Racketeering, Fraud, And Embezzlement

Steve Miller: More Damning Evidence Uncovered Against Private Guardian Jared E. Shafer

In August, 2009, private guardian Jared Shafer and his CPAs, Bruce Garnett and Shawn King, avoided criminal charges by secretly agreeing to pay back money Shafer converted from the accounts of his Clark County Family Court assigned "wards" into an immense Utah based Ponzi Scheme.

Even though Shafer and his CPAs were caught red handed by the US Security and Exchange Commission, they were not criminally charged and were allowed to continue handling the assets of wealthy wards of the court if they returned the money. But by that time, most of the bilked wards had died, and their heirs were never informed of the disposition of their loved one’s assets after required financial reports were allowed to go unfiled by the guardian because Family Court Judges William Voy, Charles Hoskin, and Hearing Master Jon Norheim regularly allowed the omission of financial reports when it involved Jared Shafer.

Interestingly, the public had no right to know this information based on the "Confidentiality" clause in the following Settlement Agreement obtained exclusively by INSIDE VEGAS. (The source of this information is protected under NRS 49.275, the Nevada Reporter's Shield Law.)

FULL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT signed by Shafer:

http://www.stevemiller4lasvegas.com/ShaferPonzi%20Settlement%20Agreement.pdf

S.E.C. PRESS RELEASE:

BACKGROUND:

S.E.C. Complaint:  https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2008/comp20450.pdf

MORE INFORMATION:

http://www.stevemiller4lasvegas.com/ShaferFinancialRecords2.html

Source:
More Damning Evidence Uncovered Against Private Guardian Jared E. Shafer

The Perfect Crime

Hundreds of millions of dollars legally stolen from wealthy Las Vegas retirees and disabled residents!

All Complaints Against Jared Shafer Dropped
No Further Charges Pending - LVMPD

"Your case was concluded and closed last week with no criminal findings." - Sgt. Troyce Krumme,10/31/2017
 
"This case has already been processed in criminal court." - Sgt. Jerome Milton,11/7/2017

INSIDE VEGAS by Steve Miller
AmericanMafia.com
November 13, 2017

LAS VEGAS - "Its completely legal in Nevada." Those were the words of CBS Sixty Minutes senior producer Bob Anderson in September 2014, after spending the entire summer filming a comprehensive Sixty Minutes segment on guardianship fraud in Las Vegas.

Anderson came to Sin City in response to my November 13, 2013 AmericanMafia INSIDE VEGAS column "The Grave Robbers," the story of the bilking of the estate of the late Leann Peccole: http://www.americanmafia.com/Inside_Vegas/11-18-13_Inside_Vegas.html

Sixty Minutes reportedly followed private guardian Jared E. Shafer around town, took statements from several of his victims, and interviewed Shafer's former assistant Patience Bristol in the Nevada State Prison. In the meantime, a cadre of CBS attorneys were researching NRS Chapter 159, the Guardianship Laws of Nevada, many authored or sponsored by Jared Shafer - https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-159.html - laws designed with no teeth or criminal penalties.

Several weeks prior to the October 2014 scheduled airing of Bob Anderson's Sixty Minutes segment, I received a call from him with the shocking news that the segment had been canceled. Anderson told me that his network's attorneys determined that everything Shafer does to his wards of the court is completely legal in Nevada as long as its approved by a Clark County Family Court Judge, and to the best of their knowledge, no Nevada laws were broken, so there was nothing to report.

I responded that that was the main story, for over thirty years Jared Shafer has participated in the drafting and passing of laws that decriminalized almost every immoral action a private guardian could imagine doing to his or her ward in order to enrich himself and his attorneys. I explained that Shafer, through his political advertising company, Signs of Nevada, Inc, and his fiduciary business PFSN, Inc., was very instrumental in picking and choosing what lawmakers and judges would win or lose local and state elections, and faithfully do his bidding after they won election or re-election with the help of his portable signs. Nonetheless, Anderson apologized, and I have scarcely heard from him since.
Shafer's political advertising signs

The CBS attorneys may have missed something.

According to a legal scholar consulted by INSIDE VEGAS, "The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has a war chest of criminal statutes they can charge the subject perpetrator(s) with, including, but not limited to: Nevada Revised Statutes 207.400 (Racketeering); 205.380 (Obtaining Money Under False Pretences); 200.5092, 200.5099 (Exploitation of Older/Vulnerable Person); 205.060 (Burglary); 205.0832 and 205.0835 (Theft). In addition, it can be argued that many more sections of NRS chapters 199, 200 and 205 are applicable to the perpetrator conduct currently masquerading as legal guardianship in Nevada."

"LVMPD, Nevada Attorney General, and the Clark County District Attorney have had these statutes and others at their disposal for decades. Together, they form a virtual arsenal of applicable criminal statutes, found in three separate chapters of the NRS, appropriately referred to as Crimes Against Public Justice, Crimes Against the Person, and Crimes Against Property."


During the years following Anderson's scuttled report, numbers of citizens have taken their complaints against Shafer to the local office of the FBI, the Nevada Attorney General, or to the Las Vegas Metro Police Abuse and Neglect Detail - to no avail. Recently, several of those who filed complaints against Shafer with LVMPD received the disappointing news that their complaints had been dropped with no Requests for Prosecution filed with the Clark County District Attorney or Nevada Attorney General. However, this may be a blessing in disguise because the lack of local criminal investigation and prosecution opens the door for the FBI and other federal agencies to step in, something federal law enforcement avoids doing unless called upon by local authorities while active local investigations are going on.

Though the LVMPD does deserve praise for requesting prosecution of the "low hanging fruit," specifically private guardians Patience Bristol, April Parks, and attorney Noel Simpson (Shafer's proteges), the police refused taking action against the mastermind who for over thirty years enabled the bilking of hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy local seniors and disabled persons who had the misfortune of falling prey to the Clark County Family Court system and their cartel of ultra greedy for-hire court appointed "guardians" and their lawyers. Notice I mentioned "wealthy," because poor people are not afforded the luxury of court sanctioned guardianship. Some believe the arrests of Patience Bristol, April Parks, and Noel Simpson indicated they were used as fall guys to distract attention from their mentor, Shafer, and make it look as though Metro was doing their job during their three year long cursory "investigation" of the guardianship racket.
The Last Time The Feds Intervened
Interestingly, this is not the first time I have predicted federal intervention in a politically charged local scam. In the early 2000's, an adult night club was busy paying off local politicians to turn their backs and allow the continuing beating and robbing of club patrons. The club, the Crazy Horse Too, was caught paying $5,000 per month to then-LV City Councilman Michael McDonald, and throwing lavish political fund raisers for then-Clark County District Attorney candidate, David Roger. The payoffs became so blatant that the Las Vegas Weekly, a subsidiary of the Las Vegas Sun, wrote this about our then-DA:


https://lasvegasweekly.com/news/archive/2007/may/14/the-rise-and-fall-of-crazy-horse-too/
In October 2002, one week after I broke the story of the crippling of Kansas tourist Kirk Henry over a disputed $80 Crazy Horse Too bar tab, I received a call from LV Metro Police Lt. John Alamshaw. He told me that Metro had completed thorough investigations of fifteen Crazy Horse Too employees, and filed five Requests for Prosecution with outgoing DA Stewart Bell. He said it would now be up to Bell, or his successor David Roger, to prosecute the thugs who beat and robbed Henry and so many other hapless Crazy Horse Too victims. I looked forward to the long awaited justice, and the closure of the strip club before anyone else could be harmed.


David Roger, now a partner in the law firm that once represented
the Crazy Horse Too, and once employed Family Court
Guardianship Commissioner Jon Norheim
In December 2002, I interviewed outgoing DA Stewart Bell and asked him about the five LVMPD Requests for Prosecution. He told me that he found probable cause to prosecute all the Crazy Horse Too employees named in the police complaints, but since he was leaving office to become a Clark County District Court Judge, his elected successor David Roger (above) would be the one to act on the police Requests for Prosecution with Bell's full recommendation that Roger proceed with the prosecutions.

On January 6, 2003, David Roger was sworn in as Clark County District Attorney. On January 7, the new DA discarded all five Requests for Prosecution of Crazy Horse Too employees which infuriated the dedicated street cops who conducted the investigation.

During that time, Kirk Henry was in the hospital trying to recover from the beating that left him a quadriplegic, and in 2017 took his life. When I reported that Roger had dropped all the Requests for Prosecution, I received a call from Mr. Henry. He asked for my suggestion as to how to proceed legally against the Crazy Horse Too. I recommended he hire recently retired U.S. Federal Prosecutors Stan Hunterton and Donald Campbell who had opened law offices in Las Vegas. I told Henry that I believed the two attorneys still had connections with the U.S. Dept of Justice, and might be able to inspire FBI investigations and federal criminal prosecution.
Three years after DA David Roger dropped all complaints, the FBI had succeeded in getting fifteen Crazy Horse Too employees and the club's owner convicted of federal felony crimes.

Skip forward to the present day. In the case of the botched LVMPD investigations of Jared Shafer, certain police officers, not the DA, are the weak link in the chain of justice. For over three years, these officers have ignored all mention of Shafer and kept the feds at bay, possibly on purpose. Current Clark Co. DA Steve Wolfson has said he would "enthusiastically" prosecute any private guardian brought to him for prosecution by the police, but no such requests were forthcoming while certain detectives bided their time.

Even with overwhelming evidence of guardianship fraud having occurred and state Racketeering charges appropriate, it appears to many observers that a favor has been done to keep Jared Shafer out of the headlines. A favor that only a few detectives in the LVMPD Abuse and Neglect Detail could have rendered. However, if my suspicions are correct, that favor may be about to backfire!

As was the case with the Crazy Horse Too and a compromised DA dropping all Requests for Prosecution, today its not the DA or state AG who may be compromised in the case of Jared Shafer, its the police officers who the DA and AG rely upon to do their job who may have dropped the ball, and possibly stalled justice for at least three years. You see, the DA or AG cannot do the work of police and initiate investigations. Both prosecutorial agencies must rely upon local police to bring Requests for Prosecution documents before they can act.

We have one of the finest police departments in the nation, and it is out of character for me to criticize the service provided by our dedicated police officers, but in the case of Jared Shafer being brought to justice, I have no other choice.

I believe that some Metro Abuse and Neglect officers are obliged to Shafer. My suspicions are based on the comments and possible actions of at least one Abuse and Neglect Detail detective. She reportedly criticized one of Shafer's victims for firing a Legal Aid Society pro-bono attorney who had refused to sue Shafer and his cronies, and again reportedly criticized the victim for hiring a new private attorney who filed the needed lawsuits. The same detective also reportedly criticized myself and Becky Schultz, daughter of Shafer's victim Guadalupe Olvera, falsely saying we were motivated by personal grudges against Shafer. The detective reportedly claimed that I was a life long friend of Shafer, and that we had a recent falling out, therefore I was trying to settle a score by writing about him. But the best evidence I have to date that the Abuse and Neglect Detail has been compromised is that confidential information only they possess was provided to Shafer's attorney. The attorney filed court papers in October 2017 identifying LVMPD as the source of private information about a plaintiff in a lawsuit against his client Jared Shafer, and the attorney had the information entered onto the record (against the wishes of the plaintiff's attorney).

Based on the above, I have reluctantly stopped recommending that victims of guardianship abuse and exploitation file complaints with this LVMPD detail, and that victims wait for a federal investigation to begin before providing additional information. I believe information given LVMPD Abuse and Neglect detectives in complaints against Shafer has been shared with him or his lawyers thereby further damaging exploited wards and their loved ones.

That said (painfully), I am looking forward to a new chapter in this ad nauseam story, a chapter where uncompromised federal criminal investigators take over from local authorities as they did in 2003, and bring about long awaited justice.

The coast is finally clear to go after the mastermind in a federal venue. A strong legal example can now be set.


MORE INFORMATION: http://www.stevemiller4lasvegas.com/ShaferFinancialRecords2.html

Full Article & Source:
The Perfect Crime

UPDATE: Jason Hanson's Case Makes Its Way Through Court System

by Steve Miller

LAS VEGAS - Guardianship exploitation victim Jason Hanson, 28, went to court on Tuesday, October 24, to seek a Summary Judgment in his Breach of Fiduciary Duties lawsuit against attorneys FRANCES-ANN FINE; DARA GOLDSMITH; and ELYSE TYREL; along with private guardian JARED E. SHAFER and his business PROFESSIONAL FIDUCIARY SERVICES OF NEVADA, INC.; and Clark County Public Administrator JOHN CAHILL

District Court Judge Tierra Jones heard lengthy oral arguments from Hanson's attorney Jacob Hafter, and from five attorneys representing the defendants.

In Hafter's opening statement, he gave the judge a summation of his client's complaint against those who were appointed by Clark County Family Court Hearing Master Jon Norheim to care for his physical and financial needs. Hafter told the court that after Hanson, a cerebral palsy victim, turned 18 years of age in 2007, a cadre of guardianship insiders, under color of law, mishandled or misappropriated his inheritance and estate leaving Hanson penniless and a burden on the taxpayers.

Attorneys for the defendants told the court that it was Hanson's fault, that he should have asked the Family Court for relief upon reaching legal age in 2007, and because he did not seek relief when he turned 18, the statute of limitations expired and he is not entitled to sue. Defendant's also stated they were working pro bono, and somehow were not responsible for Mr. Hanson's losses.

After hearing all arguments, Judge Jones took the information into advisement and said she will issue a ruling October 31.

FULL LAWSUIT: http://www.stevemiller4lasvegas.com/JasonsAmendedComplaintWithCorrectNRS1.pdf
BACKGROUND: http://www.americanmafia.com/Inside_Vegas/7-24-17_Inside_Vegas.html

Steve Miller: "The New Yorker" Exposes Jared Shafer

October 9, 2017... From "How the Elderly Lose Their Rights" by Rachel Aviv

"Williams took records from Shafer’s and other guardians’ cases to the Las Vegas police department several times. She tried to explain, she said, that “this is a racketeering operation that is fee-based. There’s no brown paper bag handed off in an alley. The payoff is the right to bill the estate.” The department repeatedly told her that it was a civil issue, and refused to take a report. In 2006, she submitted a typed statement, listing twenty-three statutes that she thought had been violated, but an officer wrote in the top right corner, “not a police matter.” Adam Woodrum, an estate lawyer in Las Vegas, told me that he’s worked with several wards and their families who have brought their complaints to the police. “They can’t even get their foot in the door,” he said.

Acting as her own attorney, Williams filed a racketeering suit in federal court against Shafer and the lawyers who represented him. At a hearing before the United States District Court of Central California in 2009, she told the judge, “They are trumping up ways and means to deem people incompetent and take their assets.” The case was dismissed. “The scheme is ingenious,” she told me. “How do you come up with a crime that literally none of the victims can articulate without sounding like they’re nuts? The same insane allegations keep surfacing from people who don’t know each other.”

In 2002, in a petition to the Clark County District Court, a fifty-seven-year-old man complained that his mother had lost her constitutional rights because her kitchen was understocked and a few bills hadn’t been paid. The house they shared was then placed on the market. The son wrote, “If the only showing necessary to sell the home right out from under someone is that their ‘estate’ would benefit, then no house in Clark County is safe, nor any homeowner.” Under the guise of benevolent paternalism, guardians seemed to be creating a kind of capitalist dystopia: people’s quality of life was being destroyed in order to maximize their capital.

When Concetta Mormon, a wealthy woman who owned a Montessori school, became Shafer’s ward because she had aphasia, Shafer sold the school midyear, even though students were enrolled. At a hearing after the sale, Mormon’s daughter, Victoria Cloutier, constantly spoke out of turn. The judge, Robert Lueck, ordered that she be handcuffed and placed in a holding cell while the hearing continued. Two hours later, when Cloutier was allowed to return for the conclusion, the judge told her that she had thirty days in which to vacate her mother’s house. If she didn’t leave, she would be evicted and her belongings would be taken to Goodwill.

The opinions of wards were also disregarded. In 2010, Guadalupe Olvera, a ninety-year-old veteran of the Second World War, repeatedly asked that his daughter and not Shafer be appointed his guardian. “The ward is not to go to court,” Shafer instructed his assistants. When Olvera was finally permitted to attend a hearing, nearly a year after becoming a ward, he expressed his desire to live with his daughter in California, rather than under Shafer’s care. “Why is everybody against that?” he asked Norheim. “I don’t need that man.” Although Nevada’s guardianship law requires that courts favor relatives over professionals, Norheim continued the guardianship, saying, “The priority ship sailed.”

When Olvera’s daughter eventually defied the court’s orders and took her father to live at her seaside home in Northern California, Norheim’s supervisor, Judge Charles Hoskin, issued an arrest warrant for her “immediate arrest and incarceration” without bail. The warrant was for contempt of court, but Norheim said at least five times from the bench that she had “kidnapped” Olvera. At a hearing, Norheim acknowledged that he wasn’t able to send an officer across state lines to arrest the daughter. Shafer said, “Maybe I can.”

Shafer held so much sway in the courtroom that, in 2013, when an attorney complained that the bank account of a ward named Kristina Berger had “no money left and no records to explain where it went,” Shafer told Norheim, “Close the courtroom.” Norheim immediately complied. A dozen people in attendance were forced to leave.

One of Shafer’s former bookkeepers, Lisa Clifton, who was hired in 2012, told me that Shafer used to brag about his political connections, saying, “I wrote the laws.” In 1995, he persuaded the Nevada Senate Committee on Government Affairs to write a bill that allowed the county to receive interest on money that the public guardian invested. “This is what I want you to put in the statute, and I will tell you that you will get a rousing hand from a couple of judges who practice our probate,” he said. At another hearing, he asked the committee to write an amendment permitting public guardians to take control of people’s property in five days, without a court order. “This bill is not ‘Big Brother’ if you trust the person who is doing the job,” he said. (After a senator expressed concern that the law allowed “intervention into somebody’s life without establishing some sort of reason why you are doing it,” the committee declined to recommend it.)

Clifton observed that Shafer almost always took a cynical view of family members: they were never motivated by love or duty, only by avarice. “ ‘They just want the money’—that was his answer to everything,” she told me. “And I’m thinking to myself, Well, when family members die they pass it down to their children. Isn’t that just the normal progression of things?”

After a few months on the job, Clifton was asked to work as a guardian, substituting for an absent employee, though she had never been trained. Her first assignment was to supervise a visit with a man named Alvin Passer, who was dying in the memory-care unit of a nursing home. His partner of eight years, Olive Manoli, was permitted a brief visit to say goodbye. Her visits had been restricted by Shafer—his lawyer told the court that Passer became “agitated and sexually aggressive” in her presence—and she hadn’t seen Passer in months. In a futile attempt to persuade the court to allow her to be with him, Manoli had submitted a collection of love letters, as well as notes from ten people describing her desire to care for Passer for the rest of his life. “I was absolutely appalled,” Clifton said. “She was this very sweet lady, and I said, ‘Go in there and spend as much time with him as you want.’ Tears were rolling down her cheeks.”

The family seemed to have suffered a form of court-sanctioned gaslighting. Passer’s daughter, Joyce, a psychiatric nurse who specialized in geriatrics, had been abruptly removed as her father’s co-guardian, because she appeared “unwilling or (more likely) unable to conduct herself rationally in the Ward’s best interests,” according to motions filed by one of Shafer’s attorneys.

She and Manoli had begged Norheim not to appoint Shafer as guardian. “Sir, he’s abusive,” their lawyer said in court.

“He’s as good as we got, and I trust him completely,” Norheim responded.

Joyce Passer was so confused by the situation that, she said, “I thought I was crazy.” Then she received a call from a blocked number. It was Terry Williams, who did not reveal her identity. She had put together a list of a half-dozen family members who she felt were “ready to receive some kind of verbal support.” She told Passer, “Look, you are not nuts. This is real. Everything you are thinking is true. This has been going on for years.”

Steve Miller, a former member of the Las Vegas City Council, said he assumed that Shafer would be the next indictment after Parks, who is scheduled to go to trial next spring. “All of the disreputable guardians were taking clues from the Shafer example,” he said. But, as the months passed, “I started to think that this  has run its course locally. Only federal intervention is going to give us peace of mind.”

Read the full article in'The New Yorker"

How the Elderly Lose Their Rights

by Rachel Aviv
In the United States, a million and a half adults are under the care of guardians, either family members or professionals, who control some two hundred and seventy-three billion dollars in assets, according to an auditor for the guardianship fraud program in Palm Beach County. Little is known about the outcome of these arrangements, because states do not keep complete figures on guardianship cases—statutes vary widely—and, in most jurisdictions, the court records are sealed. A Government Accountability report from 2010 said, “We could not locate a single Web site, federal agency, state or local entity, or any other organization that compiles comprehensive information on this issue.” A study published this year by the American Bar Association found that “an unknown number of adults languish under guardianship” when they no longer need it, or never did. The authors wrote that “guardianship is generally “permanent, leaving no way out—‘until death do us part.’ ”

In Nevada, as in many states, anyone can become a guardian by taking a course, as long as he or she has not been convicted of a felony or recently declared bankruptcy. Elizabeth Brickfield, a Las Vegas lawyer who has worked in guardianship law for twenty years, said that about fifteen years ago, as the state’s elderly population swelled, “all these private guardians started arriving, and the docket exploded. The court became a factory.”

Pamela Teaster, the director of the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Tech and one of the few scholars in the country who study guardianship, told me that, though most guardians assume their duties for good reasons, the guardianship system is “a morass, a total mess.” She said, “It is unconscionable that we don’t have any data, when you think about the vast power given to a guardian. It is one of society’s most drastic interventions.”

Once the court approved the guardianship, the wards were often removed from their homes, which were eventually sold. Terry Williams, whose father’s estate was taken over by strangers even though he’d named her the executor of his will, has spent years combing through guardianship, probate, and real-estate records in Clark County. “I kept researching, because I was so fascinated that these people could literally take over the lives and assets of people under color of law, in less than ten minutes, and nobody was asking questions,” she told me. “These people spent their lives accumulating wealth and, in a blink of an eye, it was someone else’s.”

The opinions of wards were also disregarded. In 2010, Guadalupe Olvera, a ninety-year-old veteran of the Second World War, repeatedly asked that his daughter and not Shafer be appointed his guardian. “The ward is not to go to court,” Shafer instructed his assistants. When Olvera was finally permitted to attend a hearing, nearly a year after becoming a ward, he expressed his desire to live with his daughter in California, rather than under Shafer’s care. “Why is everybody against that?” he asked Norheim. “I don’t need that man.” Although Nevada’s guardianship law requires that courts favor relatives over professionals, Norheim continued the guardianship, saying, “The priority ship sailed.”

In the past two years, Nevada has worked to reform its guardianship system through a commission, appointed by the Nevada Supreme Court, to study failures in oversight. In 2018, the Nevada legislature will enact a new law that entitles all wards to be represented by lawyers in court. But the state seems reluctant to reckon with the roots of the problem, as well as with its legacy: a generation of ill and elderly people who were deprived of their autonomy, and also of their families, in the final years of their lives. Last spring, a man bought a storage unit in Henderson, Nevada, and discovered twenty-seven urns—the remains of Clark County wards who had never been buried

Full Article and Source:
How the Elderly Lose Their Rights

Jason Hanson Goes To Court

Federal Court Judge Rules In Favor Of Guardianship Abuse Victim

Overrules defendants 15 times, and remands case back to state court for an expedited trial

"You could feel the oxygen leave the room the moment Hanson rolled into court to take his place at the plaintiff's table."

Inside Vegas by Steve Miller
AmericanMafia.com
September 18, 2017

LAS VEGAS - On Friday morning, September 15, 2017, Jason Hanson made his first court appearance in an emotion charged exploitation lawsuit involving prominent Las Vegas attorneys, a disgraced private guardian, a defrocked judge, and the Clark County Public Administrator, all of whom are accused of conspiring to steal Hanson's inheritance and estate with the full cooperation of several Family Court judges.

Because of the logistics involved in transporting the 27 year old cerebral palsy victim to the Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse in downtown Las Vegas, Hanson arrived at his hearing fifteen minutes late.  When Hanson arrived in court, you could hear a pin drop while two court bailiffs helped him make his way to his lawyer's side. When United States Federal Court Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey resumed hearing the arguments of the five attorneys representing defendants Francis Fine, Elyse Tyrell, Dara Goldsmith, Jared Shafer, and John Cahill, all eyes were focused on Hanson instead of paying attention to the jurist's pleas to keep the case in Federal Court, and dismiss all claims against each of their clients.

Hanson arrived several minutes after his attorney Jacob Hafter had finished his opening statement telling the court why he believed his client would be better served in state court.  Hafter explained that he originally filed the case in the lower court because matters move at a much faster pace there, and that juries need only to reach a majority decision in state court rather than being required to reach a unanimous verdict in the federal court system.

With his client now by his side, Hafter successfully argued that one of the defendants, Clark County Public Administrator John Cahill, purposefully filed a motion to move the case from state to federal court jurisdiction for the sole purpose of stalling the case to give advantages to the defense, and that his client Hanson seeks swifter justice based on his physical condition.

Defendant's attorneys Robert Hernquist, Thomas Dillard, Jason Smith, Terry Brian, and Steven Parsons each argued unsuccessfully to have the case remain in federal court, and that Hanson's initial complaint filed in July 2017 was time barred because he became of legal age in 2007, and should have filed his lawsuit then.

Hafter told the court that in 2007, Hanson twice asked Family Court Hearing Master Jon Norheim to appoint him an attorney, and was refused.  Hafter explained that Norheim twice told Hanson to file his request for an attorney in writing, but Hanson's physical limitations prohibited him from doing so. Hafter also told the court that Hanson was not aware his inheritance was being stolen until 2016 when he confronted Elyse Tyrell, one of his court appointed trustees, at a Nevada Supreme Court Guardianship Commission hearing, only then learning she had been holding a check for him for over nine years without his knowledge.  Attorney Hafter plead that the statute of limitations began running in 2016 when Hanson first learned of the fraud, not 2007 when Hanson turned 18 and had no idea he was being robbed.

Several days after the 2016 Guardianship Commission hearing where Hanson appeared on local TV news demanding to know what happened to his inheritance,  a mysterious check for $5,530.74 was delivered to Hanson's group home.  Tyrell told reporters that it represented the entire remaining proceeds from the sale of Hanson's late father's ADA equipped condominium in a Las Vegas gated community that Jared Shafer sold for only $47,000.  Tyrell tried to explain that over $40,000 was used to pay "fees" generated by Shafer and his attorneys to facilitate the condo's sale.

Prior to what was called a "fire sale," Clark County Public Administrator John Cahill appraised the 1,200 square foot unit for $170,000 and charged his fee accordingly, then Cahill obediently transferred the title to his colleague Jared Shafer who purportedly sold the unit for much less, hence Cahill's inclusion in Hanson's lawsuit.  Prior to Cahill's election, Shafer held the same Public Administrator position, and helped Cahill win election to succeed him.  Shafer owns Signs of Nevada, the outdoor advertising company used by most Nevada politicians - including family court judges - and is the man to see for inexpensive political signs around election time. 

Jared Shafer has been referred to as the "Mastermind" in other guardianship fraud cases based on his ability to help certain politicians and judges get elected and re-elected, the same judges who have consistently appointed him legal guardian over wealthy wards of the court.

In court, Jacob Hafter told the judge, "Since I became Mr. Hanson's attorney, I get calls all the time from other guardianship victims seeking my help. They say they were all abused or exploited by the same group of players and judges," as he peered at the cadre of five discouraged looking defense lawyers sitting to his left with two of their clients, Francis Fine and Dara Goldsmith (Tyrell, Shafer, and Cahill were not present).  Hafter then said he will only represent Jason Hanson, and his client could easily win a unanimous verdict today if he were called as a witness and personally allowed to tell his story to any jury.


Attorney Jacob Hafter

..
.
          Defendants: Francis Fine, Dara Goldsmith, Elyse Tyrell, Jared Shafer, John Cahill
                     (Click on image of Jared Shafer to view KTNV TV News video)


                         Click on image to view KTNV News video

Hearing all she needed to hear, Judge Dorsey ruled in favor of Hanson thereby fulfilling his request to remand his case back to state court and not honor the defendant's motions to dismiss their clients, or time bar the case.

After the hearing, a court observer told Inside Vegas, "Mr. Hanson attending the hearing made all the difference in the world. You could feel the oxygen leave the room the moment Hanson rolled into court to take his place at the plaintiff's table."

FULL LAWSUIT:
http://www.stevemiller4lasvegas.com/JasonsAmendedComplaintWithCorrectNRS1.pdf

MORE INFORMATION:
http://www.americanmafia.com/Inside_Vegas/7-24-17_Inside_Vegas.html
http://www.americanmafia.com/Inside_Vegas/2-1-16_Inside_Vegas.html
 
Full Article & Source:
Jason Hanson Goes To Court

See Also:
Steve Miller: Jason Hanson's Case May Have Been Compromised

Steve Miller: Jason Hanson Sues Jared Shafer And Others For Civil Racketeering, Fraud, And Embezzlement

In Memory of Reporter Dwayne "Deuke" Eukel: Reports on Jared Shafer

Dwayne "Deuke" Eukel
07/23/55 - 12/04/15

During the 1990's, I had pleasure of knowing and working with Dwayne "Deuke" Eukel. He was a highly skilled investigative reporter who worked briefly in Las Vegas for a weekly publication. During his tenure, Mr. Eukel authored the following articles that were recently discovered in his personal notes after his death in 2015.
- Steve Miller

"Criminal Extraordinaire"
By Dwayne "Deuke" Eukel
Senior Editor, Las Vegas Tribune, Monday, December 8, 2008

Seven years after writing a series of articles in the Las Vegas Tribune, about the abuses of former Clark County Public Administrator/Public Guardian, Jared Shafer; many individuals are contacting me asking for help to call attention, once again, to what they consider (as would any reasonable person) to be the continued abuse of certain citizens that have fallen into Shafer's hands as a "court appointed guardian."

Shafer started a private "guardianship" (Fiduciary) business in Las Vegas, Nevada, and had his first "client," before he even left the Public Administrator's office in 2003. A hearing conducted by the Clark County Commission's Ethic's Committee looked into the charge that Shafer had used his public office to further a private career.

The results of the hearing determined that while Shafer was indeed still "officially" in office, he took on the clients, with the convenient misunderstanding that he was already out of office. Records show that he had received his last pay check only days before he left office, not to mention a $70,000 payment for all the "sick time" he never took.

Many believe that his paycheck and his "sick leave" payment, wasn't all he took home with him to his new and exciting business of private guardianship. Some believe that Shafer probably got away with hundreds of millions in cash, and jewelry and other valuable items.

Recently, individuals have surfaced to tell me that Shafer's abusive practices are still ongoing. One client, who wishes to remain anonymous, told me that Shafer sits in the back of Family Court, waiting for uncontested guardianship issues that involve wealthy seniors; looks to the judge "who seems to be in his pocket, or on his payroll" and has the judge appoint Shafer as guardian of those individuals.

The law requires that an inventory list of property and assets are to be reported within 60 days by the guardian. It is reported that Shafer has not complied with this requirement -- "ever."

Complaints about personal property being pilfered; cash, known to be in the homes of these wealthy senior citizens, being stolen; antiques, jewelry, and later, real property, becoming liquidated, are numerous. Complaints that his clients get no care, or low quality care is so prevalent that it is incredible he has not been charged with serious crimes.

Jared Shafer seems to have gotten away with more criminal behavior than anyone I know. It is my belief that he does so with the blessing of judges, and lawyers and ultimately, law enforcement agencies that have either turned a blind eye to his practices, or do not have "iron-clad" cases tied up in pretty little packages with neat little bows on top.

In my opinion, the Justice Department should be scrutinizing Shafer with a powerful magnifying glass. And folks, be it known that this kind of thing goes on all over the country. This is an ugly blight in America and ought to be stopped immediately. How about it President Obama - could you look into these charges please?

The following articles are being republished in this format. Originally, I wrote the articles as the Senior Editor for the Las Vegas Tribune from 2002 to 2004. I will add updates to this ongoing story as they come in, because sincerely folks, according to several sources, Jared Shafer continues his so called, "Legal thievery and abuse."

These sources have indicated that Jared Shafer is reinforced through a corrupt judicial system in Nevada; that he continues "confiscating personal property for personal gain, and seizes real estate belonging to families caught in his web of lies."

All of this, we're told, through attorney-driven maneuvering, which on the face of it, seems legal. However, as my investigation back then proved, and sources today still accuse, Jared Shafer, either directly or through "minions," continues elderly abuse, grand theft, and fraud. "It still boggles our minds that he has not been arrested and thrown into jail; if anyone deserves it, it is Jared Shafer," states a family member of one of his Family Court appointed wards.

These latest allegations toward Shafer, are under investigation.

*********************

The following news article was originally published June 16, 2002

A News Story That Should Not Go Away
By D. "Deuke" Eukel
(former) - Las Vegas Tribune  Senior Editor

There are some news stories that just won't go away, especially when it involves serious events and determined individuals. Others in high places wish these particular stories and the persons writing them -- would just go away.

Anna Marie Gaule

The story of a wealthy elderly widow named Anna Marie Gaule, 70, and her son Thomas, who have been lifetime residents of Las Vegas; and of the story of Thomas, who was almost murdered by hired thugs, (they used 100,000 volt tasers on him), November 25th 1998, "Because," he said, "Since 1996, I have desperately been trying to rescue my mother from the hold of the public guardian’s office - namely Jared Shafer."

This intertwined story bears more scrutiny than most. Thomas told the Las Vegas Tribune that his mother, Anna Marie, was "abducted from her home by persons associated with the public administrator, Jared Shafer." And he added, "They have used their power and influence to steal every dollar they can get their devious hands on...and now they're trying to kill her with drugs and serious beatings."

The events surrounding Thomas and his mother -- is one of those stories that refuse to fade away. In a recent Las Vegas Tribune article, Thomas Gaule accused Jared Shafer, the retiring public administrator, and formerly public guardian, of being a "thief and a murderer." Gaule is not alone in his accusations. He said he "feels alone though...in his court battle, against the public administrator," which he says, have been able to "control courts, police and even the FBI. None of these entities have lifted a finger to help, or even care," Gaule said.

"This is what we have come to. Police won't take reports, charges aren't filed, courts won't listen to evidence and the FBI has decided not to investigate public officials’ criminal actions any longer," stated Gaule.

Gaule added that, "Maybe if Dan Rather were here... or that show, 48-Hours came to Vegas to look into these events, then people would listen to the emergency cries for help and get off their tush and look into what’s happening here. It’s as if we're screaming and there is no voice. It’s like everyone’s in a coma.... People say, oh that’s terrible, but what they don't realize is that it has been happening wholesale for years. You think my mother is the only one this has happened to? There are thousands of elderly people that have no family that have been taken by the public administrator’s office, stripped of any dignity, raped financially and then eventually drugged to death."

When asked to explain his volatile accusations, Gaule presented the Tribune with documents which gave proof of potentially lethal drugs that were being administered to his mother by at least three doctors in Las Vegas, who according to Gaule, "were being subtly contracted by the public administrator’s office. While in the ‘care’ of facilities controlled by Shafer," Gaule said.

He has continued an ongoing court battle -- "....to at least get judges to look at the evidence of Shafer’s pilfering of financial accounts, and blatant abuse by employees in at least one Las Vegas nursing home. If the employees at the nursing homes aren't beating her up, the psychiatrists are slowly killing her with drugs. If I hadn't had three different psychiatrists removed because of the drugs they had prescribed to her needlessly, she'd be dead...." Gaule said.

He added, "Look at this," he said, producing pharmaceutical documents, which describe various drug manufacturer's warnings. The pages explained the lethal dangers involved with the intake of particular drugs -- prescribed to persons with certain disorders.

"These are what psychiatrists were giving my mother...she has a minor illness that these drugs have exacerbated and that are slowly killing her," said Gaule.

Gaule then stated, "First it started as high doses of Ibuprofen," (an over the counter drug, which slows the circulation and oxygen to the brain) "... Then they gave her, Zyprexa, Mellaril, Effexor, Paxil and other drugs. All these chemicals have one thing in common: they harm specifically, women, the elderly and those with specific illnesses. There are descriptions of, Sudden Death Syndrome, and in several, unbelievably can create Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and other diseases. Also that 'death may occur' - due to respiratory and circulatory depression."

Gaule pointed to another portion of the startling information: "You see this, it's the telltale; ‘no known antidote,’ which is at the tip of the iceberg," he said. "The result of ingesting these drugs and others in certain patients is the same – the cause and conditions and diseases they are supposed to stop, can cause other diseases or death."

Thomas has been in court so often he says he has an in-depth understanding of how the system is working against the victim instead of protecting their rights as the courts should be, "especially here in Nevada," he told the Tribune.

"I have been to the so-called, ‘Family Court’ so many times that I could draw a picture of the stains on the walls." In two separate court hearings, Judge William Voy and Judge Diane C. Steele told Gaule -- that they "saw nothing wrong." Even after viewing pictures of Thomas’ mother, which depicted the results of several beatings she has suffered at the hands of caretakers employed at the now defunct Blanca Retirement Home often used by Shafer.

When Thomas discovered the brutality, he called police, (who filed no charges), and then had her removed and taken to the El Jen Center, where he says, "abuse has continued to take place there also."

A brutal attack on Thomas in 1998 was spotlighted on local TV news, but "....No one except the Las Vegas Tribune has done anything to publicize this story about my mother and Jared Shafer’s involvement, up till now. It was the whole reason for the attack on me. The two attackers were caught in my home riffling through my mother's personal files. Where was the RJ or the Las Vegas Sun then?" Gaule asks. "Reporters did not delve into the probable involvement of the Public Guardian's office," stated Gaule. "The only things taken were my mother's real estate and financial documents."

Though he has power-of-attorney, the courts and attorneys who seem to be controlling the affairs of his estate and his mother have turned a deaf ear, and are accused of violating many of Anna Marie and Thomas' Constitutional rights. "There seems to be no remedy," he said resigned. "If we could only get people to be angry enough for my mother and for the hundreds of others like her..." Gaule said. "They have seen shows, read newspaper stories, heard about the abuse that takes place all over the country. And in our own back yard, here in Vegas, there is an elderly woman, my mom, taken from her home, robbed of her estate, all because she became disoriented one day in 1996. And (formerly) the public guardian, now public administrator literally laughs in court at the injustice he has personally caused. He used my mother’s minor illness as an avenue to proclaim her ‘incompetent.’ He created the original document that had her forged signature on it that put her in guardianship in the first place. Her signature was completely different on the document than her actual signature. Its so tragic," stated Gaule, "That was the document that led to her eventual demise and death."

Gaule continued, “Shafer has taken money directly from our accounts, and, I believe, tried to have me killed, and my pleadings are completely ignored by the police and court. Why aren't people storming the halls of the courthouse? Are they afraid? Of course they are. Have they forgotten what it was we founded this country on? Most likely. and probably because they don't even know the history -- Is America no longer America? Maybe. But I can't believe people have become so callous or afraid that they will let these bullies, who have used a system of Machiavellian law to abuse us and steal our lives from us," Gaule said.

Last year, Anna Marie Gaule was taken to Summerlin Hospital from the El Jen Center from what appeared to be another beating at the Blanca Retirement Home controlled by Shafer. She was going "in and out of consciousness and having seizures," a doctor at the hospital told Gaule later.

Shelly Cher, a caseworker at the public guardian’s office called Thomas and asked him if he wanted his mother to be taken from life support. "I was shocked. I got to the hospital and talked to the doctor on duty and he told me that he 'didn't like what he saw. Dr. Lindsay Hansen, Anna Marie Gaule’s doctor, called the hospital to gloss over the incident at El Jen," according to Gaule. Dr. Hansen explained to the doctor at Summerlin Hospital that Mrs. Gaule was being prescribed Dilantin for her seizures. The Summerlin doctor was so angry that he refused to receive anymore calls from Dr. Hansen. I told the doctor that my mother was having the seizures from being beat up...tell them to just stop beating her," Thomas plead.

Thomas Gaule asked in court for an injunction against El Jen Center and Dr. Lindsay Hansen, to discontinue prescribing and administering ‘Dilantin’, which Gaule pointed out on the manufacturer’s label that it actually, "caused seizures." The Family Court judge refused.

Dilantin is the trade name for Phenytoin, which in the Merck Manual (so-called, chemical bible) states: "causes seizures." But, according to Gaule, under the guise of the public administrator’s office (Jared Shafer) and the El Jen Center, they refused to stop administering the drug, "which attacks the brain and stops blood to the brain of the elderly – with side-effects that could kill a horse.... Dilantin is primarily used to treat epilepsy, even though my mother never had the disease.”

"I thought with all the evidence, the District Court would certainly stop this nightmare. So I went to Judge Mark Gibbons -- where he told me his court only heard injunction cases." But on the day of the hearing, Gaule was told that the case should be sent to the probate court, even though Mrs. Gaule was still alive.

A new hearing in ‘Family Court' is set for Wednesday, June 19, 2002.

"Tell your readers, if they don't believe this is happening, show up in court and see it for themselves," Gaule concluded.

***********************

"Public Enemy Number One"
-- Jared Shafer –
By D. "Deuke" Eukel
(Former) - Las Vegas Tribune Senior Editor
Originally published September 11, 2004

A formal complaint was filed with the Clark County Commission in Las Vegas, Nevada, which names retired Public Administrator Jared E. Shafer as responsible for a bevy of crimes allegedly perpetuated by him and staff members while he was the Public Guardian.

The complaint, which was handed personally to Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera by Thomas Gaule, the son of Anna Marie Gaule, who is considered one of many victims of Shafer’s “exploits against the elderly,” names Shafer as the responsible party in the “abduction and exploitation” of Anna Marie Gaule, as well as being responsible for many other crimes concerning the Gaule estate.

Jared Shafer

Court documents show that several lawsuits have been filed against Shafer over the past 23 years, which claim that through his direction as Public Guardian and Administrator, “estates have been pilfered and exploited, beneficiaries discredited, and elderly persons have been drugged needlessly....”

In a previous article published in the Las Vegas Tribune, Shafer was accused by former Clark County employees of ordering that several savings bonds, which were already made out to family beneficiaries, be stamped with the Public Administrator’s seal and then cashed. Shafer has given no comment in that matter, and refuses to answer calls directed to his office.

Gaule calls Shafer, “Public enemy number one,” as do many others. In a letter addressed to Nevada officials, and media sources, Gaule writes: “If the elderly were treated as well as criminals, they would have more rights than what is allotted to them as 'wards of the State.' I ask, what has become of justice? These so called professionals take their victims by force silently out of their homes and imprison them and then poison them for what they say is 'their own good.'” According to Thomas, the very next business day it is down to the routine of stealing, pilfering and ripping-off all the victim’s finances and everything else under the sun, right down to their prepaid burial plots. The victims are warehoused in ‘unmarked group homes,’ or discreet secret facilities....

And then there are the "premature deaths" which occur as the inescapable result of being "under the care and custody and control, of Jared Shafer as the Public Guardian," according to Thomas Gaule.

According to Gaule's documents, Anna Marie is officially number 17,772 in real numbers that are now above 25,000 persons who have become “wards of the State," and in control of the State of Nevada, (and formerly, Jared Shafer.) And there are no more than 500 alive at any time with as many as 3,500 new potential victims added per month. Gaule added that the “cast of crooks" include, attorney Patricia Trent, Shafer’s public and private attorney, "who plays both sides of the fence against all victims." Gardner Jolley, Shafer’s personal and corporate attorney, "who stealthily steals every penny he can get his hands on under the veil of the Wells Fargo Bank," stated Thomas.

When Thomas went to Wells Fargo to withdraw over $2.3 million that was in his family trust account, attorney Gardner Jolly allegedly told him “sue us.”

“There are also judges that come into play from the head States Supreme Court to Family Court Judges, along with a cadre of crooked attorneys," according to Gaule.

In a telephone conversation with then-Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, who is also a partner in the law firm Gardner Jolley, Woodbury, he told the Tribune that if a complaint was filed with the County Commissioners, it would be their practice to “turn it over to the County Manager or the DA, if the complaint is deemed to be serious enough.”

When asked if the County Manager’s office had investigators that would independently check out the allegations, Woodbury said that as far as he knew the County Manager would use whatever means he had to investigate the complaints, including using detectives at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Asked why the County Commission had been ignoring the allegations made by several “victims,” when reports of the abuses had been turned over to the FBI, the U.S. Attorney, the Nevada Attorney General’s Office, and other official entities – Woodbury said that though he knew of articles in the Las Vegas Tribune, as well as other media sources, there had been “...no formal complaints filed recently with the Commission. "It's my understanding that the U.S. Attorney or other law enforcement agencies would have jurisdiction,” stated Woodbury.

When told of the NRS statutes that explain that the County Commissioners were the investigating authority in any complaint brought against a county official, Woodbury paused and said that he would look into the matter when presented with a formal complaint.
___________________________________
Thomas Gaule filed an official complaint. Other persons who claim to be “victims” of Jared Shafer’s “criminal actions,” told the Tribune they would be filing formal complaints as well.

(Editor's note: On April 22, 2015, the Clark County Commission began taking complaints from guardianship victims and their families. The Commission's action resulted in the removal of Family Court Judges Charles Hoskin and his appointed Guardianship Commission Jon Norheim from all guardianship cases. More Information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFNlNNS-vGs )

Steve Miller: Jason Hanson Sues Jared Shafer And Others For Civil Racketeering, Fraud, And Embezzlement

LAS VEGAS - 27 year old cerebral palsy victim Jason Hanson, after waiting since April 2016 for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Abuse and Neglect Detail to present Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson with Requests for Prosecution of the persons who stole the majority of his inheritance, on July 17, 2017 took the next step and filed a Civil Racketeering and Embezzlement lawsuit against his exploiters in Nevada State Court.

"I decided to take matters into my own hands," responded Hanson when asked by KTNV TV Contact 13 Chief Investigator Darcy Spears why it was taking the police so long.

Hanson hired Las Vegas attorney Jacob Hafter to determine if he had grounds to sue private guardian Jared E. Shafer of Professional Fiduciary Services of Nevada (PFSN), Clark County Public Administrator John Cahill,disgraced ex-judge Francis Fine, attorneys Dara Goldsmith and Elyse Tyrell after waiting over nine years to receive his inheritance that they collectively controlled, an inheritance that once included a Special Needs Trust fund of over $100,000, and a handicapped equipped 1,200 square foot two bedroom condominium in a gated community in southwest Las Vegas.

In winter 2017, it had been nine years since he reached legal age of majority and was taken off guardianship, however, Hanson had yet to receive a dime of his inheritance that was looked over by the defendants in his lawsuit, and an incompetent, or collusive, Clark County Family Court system.

When Jason turned 18 in 2007, and his youth guardianship automatically terminated, Francis Fine and the other Trustees NEVER refiled to be guardian over him as an adult, and never had him mentally evaluated, rendering the whole guardianship over him for the next 8 years non-existent! Had they had him mentally evaluated, they would have learned that he's intellectually gifted, and was not in need of guardianship. For this he repeatedly asked the court to appoint him an attorney, and was repeatedly refused.

In January 2016, Hanson testified before the Nevada Supreme Court Guardianship Commission where Shafer's lawyer Elyse Tyrell was somehow appointed as a Commissioner. He confronted Tyrell on local TV news about the whereabouts of his money. Several days later, Tyrell coughed up a one year old check in the amount of $5,530.74 that she had kept secret from Hanson. When asked about the year old check by reporters, she represented that it was the total remaining balance from the sale of Jason's house after Shafer and his attorneys finished deducting their fees. It was later learned that while on Tyrell, Fine, Goldsmith, and Shafer's watch, Jason's original guardian Susan Rousselle stole $39,000 from his $100,000 trust. No thanks to Tyrell, et. al., It was only learned after the woman confessed to the crime in a plea bargain. The remaining $60,000 in the Trust was never mentioned by anyone purportedly looking out for Jason, and only recently was discovered in the unclaimed funds account of the Pennsylvania State Treasurer, the state where Rousselle lived before being caught.

In the meantime, Hanson has been living at taxpayer expense for almost ten years.

Full Article and Source:
Jason Hanson Sues Jared Shafer And Others For Civil Racketeering, Fraud, And Embezzlement

See Also:
READ Jason Hanson's lawsuit

Steve Miller: Isolate, Medicate, Steal the Estate

Three Secrets Behind The Ongoing Stories Of Guardianship Fraud In Nevada And The Political Corruption That Enables The Scams To Continue Unabated

When INSIDE VEGAS stories get stuck in Nevada's judicial or political mud and progress seems at a stand still, I sometimes reveal a few behind the scenes secrets to try to jump start long needed action. This is one of those times.

In the ad nauseam story of local private guardian Jared E. Shafer, and the Clark County Family Court judges who enable him, many readers keep asking the same questions; "Why haven't these guys been prosecuted by the Clark County DA, Nevada AG, or US DOJ for (allegedly) exploiting wealthy court appointed elderly and disabled wards? And where's the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission when we need them to go after the judges?" The following information may help answer these questions, but don't expect to be satisfied.

SECRET #1, Shafer's private files:
In October 2013, sixty pounds of original documents reportedly disappeared from the office of Professional Fiduciary Services of Nevada, Inc. (PFSN) on Pecos Road in Henderson. Without my prior knowledge, the documents packed in large cardboard banker's boxes mysteriously appeared on the public sidewalk in front of my house. When I first saw the unsealed boxes sitting there, I looked inside. They contained what I as an investigative commentator considered to be a treasure trove of potentially incriminating evidence about Jared Shafer whom I had been writing about since 1999. Included was an extensive file about what appeared to be an exploitative guardianship of multi-millionaire heiress Leann Peccole Goorjian. I never met Ms. Goorjian though I knew her late father Bill, and several of her closest friends, so I was very intrigued.

The documents and their source (whom I later confirmed) are protected under NRS 49.275, the Nevada Reporter's Shield Law.

I have waited until now to reveal the document's existence based on whether my having shared portions of them with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Abuse and Neglect Detail, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, and federal law enforcement authorities would hopefully inspire comprehensive investigations into what I believe is wide spread criminal guardianship fraud perpetrated against wealthy Southern Nevada retirees and disabled people. So far, the criminal investigations that have occurred were only local and yielded prosecutions of lower level operatives (low hanging fruit), while those who many believe are the masterminds - including several judges - have been allowed to remain unscathed.

The boxes placed on the public sidewalk contained hundreds of what appeared to me to be highly incriminating documents from Shafer's office including canceled checks, handwritten notes, and bank statements pertaining to the court ordered guardianships of a number of hapless, but wealthy, Las Vegas residents including the files of Leanne Peccole Goorjain who died in 2008 at age 51 while under the guardianship of Jared Shafer. After her death, his private records reflect a total of $432,043.00 Shafer paid to himself in "fees" starting with his first self-payment of $294,543.00 on August 4, 2009, eighteen months after Leann passed away,along with two payments of $12,500.00 each, one on March 28, 2013, and another on April 19, 2013, again for "fees." This does not include tens of thousands of dollars Shafer paid over a five year period to his personal attorneys including $4,230 to Elyse Tyrell, accountants, business partners, and other cronies for their "services" to the deceased woman. Here are just two examples of confidential documents from Shafer's office

Based on my knowledge of the Peccole family's good name and Leann's esteemed relatives who included a Clark County Commissioner and Sheriff, Nevada State Senator, and a billion dollar family owned land development company, and after the documents revealed that the majority of her personal holdings including a two million dollar hillside home somehow became the property of Jared Shafer, with full documentation in hand, I confidently authored the November 18, 2013, INSIDE VEGAS column "Grave Robbery Under Color Of Law."

SECRET #2, It's all legal if a judge approves:
Several months after my column appeared on AmericanMafia.com, I received an unsolicited email from CBS Sixty Minutes Senior Producer Bob Anderson.

He said he wanted to speak with me in confidence regarding my Leann Peccole Goorjian column.

The day following our brief phone conversation, Anderson flew to Las Vegas where we met for lunch. He asked me to promise not to talk about our meeting until after an initial Sixty Minutes segment on guardianship fraud had aired.

At the Macaroni Grill on West Sahara, Anderson grilled me about the Peccole case and specifically about her guardian Jared Shafer. Off the record I revealed that I had copies of confidential files from Shafer's office regarding the Peccole case and a number of others, and agreed to share copies of any pertinent documents with him and associate producer Aaron Weisz. Several weeks later, a CBS crew arrived in Las Vegas from New York. Their arrival did not escape local notice. I received a call from George Knapp, a reporter at the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas asking if I knew why Sixty Minutes was snooping around town asking about Jared Shafer. I said I had no comment.

Anderson and I secretly met several more times during the spring and summer of 2014 where he told me of his progress. He said he had obtained an in-prison interview with Patience Bristol, Shafer's assistant who had been convicted of elder exploitation, and was planning a possible "ambush" interview with Shafer at his Pecos Rd. office, a tactic Sixty Minutes is famous for. I was very excited to be a part of exposing what I considered immoral and illegal behavior, and eagerly awaited the planned October 2014 airing of Anderson's first-in-a-series Sixty Minutes story.

In September 2014, I received a call from Anderson. He sounded very despondent. I was told that the CBS News attorneys in New York thoroughly vetted his story and advised that no Nevada laws had been broken in any of the examples he planned to cite on Sixty Minutes. That in each case Anderson investigated, a Clark County Family Court Judge had signed off on Shafer's actions. ...

SECRET #3, "Shafer Laws," and those who passed or enforce them:
At this point you must be asking how this can take place in a civilized society?

Full Article and Source:
Isolate, Medicate, Steal the Estate