Broken system allowed theft, exploitation, isolation and abuse to continue
Broken system allowed theft, exploitation, isolation and abuse to continue
Earlier this year, former professional guardian Traci Hudson pleaded guilty to 19 felony charges involving exploitation and abuse of elderly people under her care. The ABC Action News I-Team has been reporting about Hudson and her guardianship cases for years. Her cases shows systematic failures within Florida’s professional guardianship system, which was designed to protect the state’s most vulnerable residents.
By:
Adam Walser
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Earlier this year, former professional guardian Traci Hudson pleaded guilty to 19 felony charges involving exploitation and abuse of elderly people under her care.
The ABC Action News I-Team has been reporting about Hudson and her guardianship cases for years.
Her cases shows systematic failures within Florida’s professional guardianship system, which was designed to protect the state’s most vulnerable residents.
Sentence came seven years after her first crime
Hudson’s first guardianship case was assigned in April 2016.
Records show she stole from one of her wards starting in August 2016, just four months after her first appointment.
It took seven years for her to finally stand trial and plead guilty.
“She’s gonna be receiving an eight-and-a-half-year Department of Corrections sentence followed by 20 years of probation,” Richard McKyton said in sharing the sentencing agreement in open court on July 10.
That hearing was delayed because Hudson was found unresponsive in a local hotel after what police reports describe as a suicide attempt in April.
Several family members of her former wards and guardianship reform advocates attended the hearing in which Hudson entered her plea.
“Eight and a half years is not enough for what she’s done to so many families,” Lesa Martino said.
“I made quite a few complaints to the office of public and professional guardians about Traci Hudson—only to be called a conspiracy theorist, that none of this was going on,” said guardianship reform advocate Hillary Hogue. “Until thankfully, with, of course, Adam Walser of ABC Action News in Tampa, uncovering the crimes that were being committed.”
Gun thefts date back to 2016
Hudson was charged with stealing guns and other property owned by her ward, Robert Moore, in August 2016.
“She totally destroyed my family,” Ryan Moore told the I-Team in a 2021 Zoom interview after we reached him at his home in Hawaii.
Ryan says Hudson neglected his elderly father’s needs but stole his gun collection.
Records from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office show Hudson sold the guns at multiple pawn shops in Pinellas and Pasco counties.
Police reports say Hudson whited out the guns from her original inventory report and submitted fraudulent documents to the court.
“I asked her about the guns, and she said all the guns had been stolen except for one, and it was in a police evidence room somewhere,” Ryan said.
Father was isolated, daughter loses home
“My father was exploited, isolated while Traci was the guardian of my father,” Lesa said.
In 2017, Lesa reported to state agencies that Hudson abused and financially exploited her father, Roland.
She also wrote disparaging remarks about Hudson on social media.
“Traci filed a libel/slander lawsuit against me in 2018. And this is when she was committing crimes already, and so I ended up losing the case, and I ended up losing my house to Traci,” Lesa said.
The I-Team was there in February of 2022 when Lesa was thrown out of her home and most of her belongings were taken to the dump.
“I was a witness to the corruption and then I get punished,” Lesa said at the time.
Hotel owner put into guardianship after selling property to relative
The I-Team reported extensively on Genyte Dirse.
“My great aunt ran her business for many years until the guardianship process started,” Gedi Pakalnis said on the day we first met him at a guardianship reform protest in St. Petersburg in early 2019.
A realtor petitioned the court to put Dirse into guardianship after Dirse sold part of her hotel for a below-market price to her great-nephew Pakalnis, who lived with her and helped her for 15 years.
“He was taking property from Mrs. Dirse for less than fair market value,” Pinellas County Probate Judge Pamela Campbell said during a hearing in which Hudson tried to reverse the sale of the property.
Hudson filed an eviction against Pakalnis and used Dirse’s money to sue him.
“She’s trying to get her hotel back. She didn’t sell it to him,” said Hudson, who was known as Traci Samuel at the time.
Hudson moved Dirse to assisted living and obtained a no-contact order from Judge Campbell, which prevented Pakalnis from visiting or calling her.
“She doesn’t want him to see her. I’m respecting the privacy of her,” Hudson said.
The I-Team tried to visit Dirse to determine whether she had the capacity to live independently after an attorney assigned to represent her recommended she not be put into guardianship, but Hudson denied our request.
During court proceedings, Judge Campbell praised Hudson, who went by the last name Samuel at the time.
“I know Ms. Samuel to be a good and professional guardian. She’s on a number of the cases that I have,” Judge Campbell said in response to complaints from Pakalnis about the treatment of his relative.
Dirse died alone in an assisted living facility in 2020 from COVID-19.
Her estate paid more than $287,000 in guardian and attorney fees.
Pakalnis didn’t get to see or talk to his great-aunt during her final two years.
“We wish that the last two years away from her family and away from her home would not be lost to her. That things could have been different for her,” Pakalnis said during a memorial service on the beach near Dirse’s beloved home.
Pattern of thefts, lies and abuse uncovered
In November 2019, Hudson was arrested after investigators say she took $541,000 from a 93-year-old dementia patient under her care.
Investigators discovered she used a power-of-attorney agreement to pay herself $1,600 from his bank account.
Hudson used the money to buy tickets to Tampa Bay Bucs games, purchased clothes and jewelry and closed on a 4,800 square-foot home in Riverview, which she later sold for a $250,000 profit.
Hudson was president of the Guardianship Association of Pinellas County at the time of her arrest.
“That case that she was charged with is a power of attorney case. Totally different from our guardianship cases,” Judge Campbell said at a hearing the day after Hudson’s arrest.
Campbell ordered the Pinellas County Clerk’s Office to investigate Hudson’s 45 guardianship cases in Pinellas County.
She also was assigned cases in Hillsborough County at the time.
Hudson resigned from all her cases after her 2019 arrest.
“If there are any red flags that are brought to our attention, then we will address that at that point in time,” Campbell said.
Three years later, a 77-page report filled with red flags not only exposed problems with Hudson’s cases but also with the guardianship system.
“What it produced was just evidence of flagrant fraud,” said retired Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge Linda Allan, who previously served as a probate judge.
“There’s very little direct oversight of what the guardian does,” said Pinellas County Clerk of Court Ken Burke, who oversaw the report.
The report shows Hudson was paid $406,000 from her wards’ assets.
Seven times she billed for working between 25-and-39 hours in a single day.
“There was not just a single instance but many instances of billing more than 18 hours in a day,” Burke said.
The report says she paid realtors who served with her on the guardianship association board commissions of up to 16% and sold homes without appraisals at below-market prices.
One home, which belonged to one of Hudson’s wards, sold three times in a single day.
The first time, it sold for $30,450, the second time for $37,000 and the third time for $57,984.
That represented a 90% increase from the first sale to the third, but the ward didn’t share in any of that money… the realtor and first two buyers did.
“There was jewelry missing, savings bonds worth $20,000 missing,” Burke said.
That investigation led to additional charges in 2021 and 2023.
Replacement guardian finds evidence of neglect
After her arrest, evidence emerged that she not only stole from her wards but also failed to properly care for them.
The guardian appointed to replace Hudson found that Dirse, who had several medical conditions, had not been to a doctor or a dentist while under Hudson’s care.
On a report filed in court records about her first visit to Dirse’s home, the new guardian wrote, “Nothing has been done, not even food out of the refrigerator. Speechless!”
Hudson failed to fix a broken window at Dirse’s home, resulting in $250-a-day fines from the City of St. Pete Beach.
The fines eventually totaled $45,750.
Hudson got permission from Judge Campbell to transfer $100,000 from Dirse’s investment account to pay for repairs, but they were never done.
Hudson's attorney: "There's very little oversight"
Hudson will be 83 years old when she completes her prison time and probation.
The same age as many of her victims.
“That is not a perfect system, if you will. There’s very little oversight,” Hudson’s defense attorney Richard McKyton said outside the courthouse after her sentencing.
McKyton says his client wasn’t the only one to blame for what went wrong in so many of her cases.
“None of these choices get made until the attorney for the estate or the guardianship reviews the request, whatever that might be. And not until an actual judge signs off on those things,” he said.
“She blames the system. But she’s part of the system, and she had to know that what she was doing was wrong,” said Martino.
We contacted Hudson at the Lowell Prison Annex, where she is serving her sentence, and requested an interview.
We have not heard back from her.
You can find the I-Team’s decade-long investigation into the many problems with Florida’s guardianship system by viewing our entire “Price of Protection” series.
If you wish to make a complaint about a professional guardian in Florida, contact the Office of Public and Professional Guardians.
If you have a story involving abuse or exploitation by a professional guardian in the Tampa Bay area, please email adam@abcactionnews.com
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2023 conviction of professional guardian shows flaws in the system and families' complaints were ignored
