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

Three states make elder-financial-abuse reporting mandatory starting Friday

Laws in Alabama, Indiana and Vermont that go into effect Friday, July 1, will require financial advisers to alert state authorities of suspected financial abuse of the elderly and other vulnerable adults.

The measures were approved earlier this year by each state's legislatures and signed into law by their governors. In addition to mandatory reporting in situations involving people older than 65 or who are disabled, they also allow advisers to stop the disbursement of funds from client accounts and give advisers immunity from civil liability.

In Louisiana, elder-protection legislation signed into law on June 16 will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2017.

Each of the measures tracks to varying degrees a model rule approved earlier this year by the North American Securities Administrators Association Inc. The organization, comprised of state regulators, has made protecting seniors from financial exploitation a priority.

“This law will help our investment advisers and brokers to partner with us in Vermont to tackle this problem that is pervasive,” said Michael Pieciak, Vermont deputy securities commissioner.

An Indiana adviser welcomes his state's new law because it gives him “more tools” to help clients who may be fraud victims.

“That's exactly the kind of thing we applaud,” said Michael Kalscheur, a senior financial consultant at Castle Wealth Advisors. “I now have a legal [leg] to stand on. That's a great additional benefit we can use to help protect people.”

Before the NASAA model rule came out, three other states had enacted elder financial abuse laws: Delaware, Missouri and Washington.

On the federal level, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has written legislation that would give advisers immunity for reporting senior exploitation.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. and the Securities and Exchange Commission also have targeted elder financial abuse in their examinations and enforcement.

The focus on this issue is a natural result of the burgeoning number of retirees and their wealth, said Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission. He made an analogy to Willie Sutton, a notorious thief who once said he robbed banks “because that's where the money is.”

“Guess where the money is these days,” Mr. Borg said. “It's with the folks over 65. It's the senior population that has the assets.”

Finra and the states have diverged on the way to address the problem. A proposed Finra rule does not require reporting but rather allows advisers to designate a third party who they can inform of suspected problems.

But Mr. Borg said the Alabama law for advisers had to be consistent with other state statutes that require the reporting of physical and emotional abuse of seniors.

“It made no sense in my state to make it voluntary,” he said. “If it was mandatory for them, it had to be mandatory for us.”

The provision that allows advisers to stop cash flows out of an account also was crucial, according to Mr. Pieciak.

“The second that money is gone, it's very hard to get it back,” he said.

Many state legislatures had so-called short sessions this spring. More of them may take up senior financial abuse laws in 2017.

“We hope to see the broad adoption of legislation consistent with the NASAA model when state legislative sessions convene next year,” NASAA spokesman Bob Webster wrote in an email. 

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Three states make elder-financial-abuse reporting mandatory starting Friday