Press Release: Serious Flaws Surrounding Maricopa County Probate Court

ABC15 Investigators: Greed v. Guardianship

The ABC15 Investigators have spent most of 2010 exposing serious flaws surrounding Maricopa County Probate Court. Families accuse the court of allowing victims to be isolated and heavily medicated while their assets are liquidated.

While these stories take place in probate court, they are really about families, Families torn apart, families devastated and families victimized.

Our investigation led us to a professional fiduciary called the Sun Valley Group (SVG). The company was guardian or conservator for the people in our reports.

After our first report aired, many people wrote us with their stories. As our report continued, we found that SVG is being investigated by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Organized Crime Unit. Then a taskforce was ordered by the Arizona Supreme Court to look into probate court.

Sunday, December 5th, The ABC15 Investigators expose even more powerful and disturbing information involving probate court. A Valley couple forced to divorce. Their home and belongings sold off by the very people trusted to take care of them. See inside their battle, and how some of these devastated families are starting to win.

Source:
Serious Flaws Surrounding Maricopa County Probat Court

Abuse Investigation at Florida Senior Living Center

Two elderly men say they were abused at a senior living center in Cape Coral. One had to be treated at the hospital after reports that workers at Clare Bridge on Santa Barbara Boulevard had gotten violent.

In a police report filed on November 16, the families of two male residents at Clare Bridge claimed the men were bruised and abused.

One man says his 89-year-old father-in-law was found at the facility with bruises on his nose and face.

Another man reported his father complained of an employee grabbing his thumb, then refusing to let go.

The families even say one resident was sent to the hospital after being punched in the chest.

Dotty St. Armand, Director of the Lee County Elder Abuse Prevention Partnership, says she often hears similar stories of abuse all over Southwest Florida.

"As they grow older and more frail and isolated, they are easily targeted for scams and exploitation," she said.

Now, the state is looking into the claims of abuse.

Full Article and Source:
State investigating Abuse Claims at Cape Senior Living Center

Caregivers Charged with Theft

Two Greeley-area multiple sclerosis patients have accused their caregivers of stealing thousands of dollars from them and — in one case — force-feeding her raw food and threatening to withhold care unless she agreed to write checks for cash.

Rhonda Cheri Aab, 38, has been charged with 57 counts of forgery and one count of theft from an at-risk adult, both felonies, after allegations that she stole checks from the Kersey woman she had been caring for in the past two years.

Kathy Jo Villanueva, 37, and Angel Rojas, 18, have been charged with extortion, theft from an at-risk adult and contributing to the delinquency of a minor in a case involving forcing a woman to sign checks to them by threatening to stop caring for her.

Both cases allegedly involved the caregivers writing checks for their patients, who could no longer write checks themselves.


Full Article and Source:
Two Greeley-area MS Patients Allege Caregiver Crime

Ginger Franklin FREED!

A Nashville woman who fought for nearly two years to get out from under a court-ordered conservatorship was set free Thursday.

Ginger Franklin had a conservator, or guardian, appointed to handle her affairs after she tumbled down the stairs at her house in 2008 and suffered a brain injury. After she recovered, she tried to regain control of her life but found it to be a long and draining ordeal involving multiple court hearings.

On Thursday, Nashville Probate Judge Randy Kennedy dissolved the conservatorship after reading a new doctor's report that says Franklin had fully recovered.

“It’s hard to take it all in,” Franklin said. “I’m a free woman. I can drive. I can work. I can get married. I can vote.”

They are things that most Americans take for granted, but they are things that people under a conservatorship are not allowed to do for themselves.

Franklin said she hopes to get her job back and start her life over.

"I'm going to celebrate by celebrating my life every day," Franklin said.

Source:
Woman Free From Conservatorship

See Also:
Struggle Against Court Overshadows Injuries

South Carolina: Is System Draining Our Seniors Assets?

The Charleston County Probate Court appointed a guardian and a conservator to take care of Virginia Manos in 2004 because of reports that the 89-year-old woman who lived alone couldn't take care of herself and might be exploited.

Over the next four years, until she died in July 2008, the court approved spending $150,000 of her available money on lawyer, guardian, conservator and court fees -- almost one out of every four dollars spent for her care.

Manos' case is not alone. It is among many in which the Probate Court, set up to protect incapacitated elderly people from neglect, abuse or financial exploitation, allows lawyers, guardians and conservators to profit off helpless elderly wards.

Lucia Morfesis does not understand how it all happened.

She is her mother's only child, but they were not close. "I loved my mother deeply," Lucia said, but a barrier existed between them that she could not penetrate despite her efforts.

Her mother, Virginia Manos, lived alone on Folly Beach in a house one block from the ocean. As Manos' health faded in 2003, her daughter did not realize anything was wrong other than the typical pains that inflict an 89-year-old woman.

In early 2004, Folly Beach police learned that she could barely walk without assistance, couldn't maintain her house and showed confusion. They contacted Charleston Elder Support, which then petitioned the County Probate Court to declare her incapacitated. The court appointed a conservator and a guardian, who placed her in an assisted living home.

Morfesis said she would have taken over her mother's care, but she never realized the court might give her that option. "It was never explained to me."

Her mother would live four more years, during which the conservator sold her beach home for more than $700,000 to get money for her care.

When she died in July, 2008, the $700,000 from her house was down to $266,000. More than $150,000 of her money had gone to pay for lawyers, guardians, conservators and court fees.

"We have been crying over this for years. It is horrible," Lucia Morfesis said.

The case of Lee Belle Murray stands out. At a recent hearing, five attorneys debated her future while their fee clocks ticked on. Three attorneys sat on one side of the courtroom, one each to represent Elder Support, the conservator and Lee Belle Murray. Also in the courtroom sat Murray's present and her former guardians, one of whom is a lawyer.

The five charge fees ranging from $75 an hour to $175 an hour. Over the day-long hearing, they could easily rack up combined fees in excess of $5,000 -- most of it billed to Murray's estate.

The hearing was called because Murray's daughter, Ellen, thought the Court overreacted in 2008 when it appointed a guardian for her mother.

Ellen Murray argued that the court had no real reason to remove her mother from her care. And she contended that the court-appointed guardian had unnecessarily taken her mother from her home and placed her in a costly nursing home where the guardian restricted her visits with her mother.

In a June 15 e-mail, the guardian told Ellen Murray, "You may visit once a week in my company for one hour."

Full Article and Source:
Is System Draining Our Seniors Assets?

'The Price of Living'

In South Carolina, the increase of people 65 and older is expected to exceed the national rate. By 2030, the state will have 1,134,000 such citizens.

This senior tsunami comes as no shock. Numerous studies and federal reports have warned for years that, as the baby boom ages, the number of elderly who are subjected to neglect, abuse and financial exploitation will surge. Despite the warnings, little has been accomplished in most states and nationally to remedy the failings of courts set up to protect the incapacitated elderly.

Just in September, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, released a study revealing that "there continue to be instances where some guardians have taken advantage of the elderly people they are supposed to protect." Lack of training and monitoring contribute to such failings, the report said.

The study said that similar warnings from the GAO in a 2004 report had resulted in only sporadic improvements in a few states. Lack of money remains one of the big problems for a court that's generally at the lower end of the feeding trough.

Jean Toal, Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court, which oversees the courts, said she too is concerned with how the courts deal with the elderly in general and the fee issue in particular. She appointed a task force last year to evaluate the impact of the elderly on the courts and what the court needs to do to meet their needs. The state's Bar Association also is considering recommending revisions to the state's probate code.

Toal's task force recommended earlier this year that the Probate Courts use volunteers to check on vulnerable elderly persons and serve as guardians and conservators, a move that, if enacted, would dramatically cut fees billed to the estates of the elderly.

In high-risk situations, Charleston County's Probate Court usually relies on Family Services, a local nonprofit, to serve as conservator. The nonprofit charges a varying flat fee of 4 or 5 percent a year for most of the cases. The vast bulk involve estates of less than $50,000, ones that for-profit companies usually won't handle, or that consist of just month-to-month social security benefits.

Full Article and Source:
Special report: The Price of Living: How Can Courts Protect the Elderly?

Another Maricopa County Case

Bess Christiana's probate case was a routine one - uncontested and with a modest estate.

Christiana, who fell ill in 2009, needed someone to sell her house, pay her bills and manage her health care.

Over nine months, from February through October, the total charges billed to the Sun City West woman's estate for her care came to $101,259, including $35,441 for a private fiduciary. The fiduciary fees were far higher than she would have paid in probate courts in Austin and Tampa.

Christiana's entry into Maricopa County Probate Court began when the elderly and ailing woman became too much for her daughter, Paula Wright, 63, to care for on her own. Wright said her mother needed more care than she could provide during her visits.

Wright selected Premier Advocacy and Management Services, a for-profit private fiduciary, to take charge of her mother's affairs. She also selected her mother's care home, Freedom Inn at Sun City West.

Christiana's assets, including her house, totaled about $300,000, and her income averaged $3,500 a month, enough to cover the cost of her private room and nursing care for the rest of her life.

The only problem was the first fiduciary bill. From February through October, the private fiduciary charged Christiana $35,441 or an average of $3,938 a month.

Wright said she was "taken aback" when she received a copy of her mother's fiduciary bill, but has neither the finances nor the emotional strength to fight it. "It seems very high," said Wright, who took care of her mother's finances for two years. "I thought it was excessive."

Nine employees of the private fiduciary business billed hourly rates ranging from $65 to $115 to handle Christiana's finances, billings show. These employees included three licensed fiduciaries, an accountant and five clerical assistants. Christiana's costs also included a service company to manage her health care at $90 an hour, a client assistant to run errands and a certified public accountant to complete her taxes.

For the same nine months, the fiduciary's attorney also billed Christiana's estate $4,175.

Premier Advocacy and Management Services is co-owned by Pamela Johnston, a member of the Arizona Supreme Court probate committee looking at whether courts should impose more controls on fiduciary fees. Johnston also is a member of the state Fiduciary Board, which licenses and regulates fiduciaries.

Johnston said she could not talk about Christiana's or any individual case, but said the first year of caring for any new client is always going to be the most expensive year and, in most cases, her fiduciary fees decrease after the first year.

"It depends a lot on the circumstances, family dynamics and the placement of the ward," Johnston said. In a written statement to the judge, Johnston said the estate required "extraordinary services," including preparing Christiana's house for sale and moving personal items to Freedom Inn.

Full Article and Source:
Maricopa County Probate Court - More Safeguards in Other Cities

Cost of Guardianship More Expensive in Maricopa County

If Bess Christiana of Sun City West lived in Austin or Tampa, she would have more cash in her bank account today.

Over nine months in 2009, Christiana, 85, who suffered from dementia and couldn't take care of herself, paid $35,441 to a court-appointed private fiduciary to manage her health care and finances.

An examination of the fiduciary's itemized billings by The Arizona Republic indicates Christiana would have paid significantly less for fiduciary service in Austin and Tampa, where probate courts limit fiduciary fees paid by the incapacitated.

In Austin, the charges would have been about a tenth of what she paid in Maricopa County. In Tampa, they would have been 26 percent to 43 percent of what she paid.

The differences illustrate how Maricopa County Probate Court lacks certain safeguards found in other states that prevent significant charges from being run up by fiduciaries and attorneys in cases involving incapable wards of court or the deceased.

The measures, regarded as models by some national experts, include:

- Capping fees charged by court-appointed attorneys and fiduciaries, who manage a person's care or finances when no family member is available or willing to do so. Such caps can take the form of a limit on fiduciaries' hourly rates or a maximum percentage of a dead person's estate. Another approach is to require fiduciaries to establish and meet an annual budget.

- Court personnel who help judges control fees by red-flagging problems in billings, such as a run-up of charges caused by a family dispute.

- Computerized tracking of how an incapacitated person's money is spent, to spot patterns of abusive spending. Minnesota is rolling out an electronic tracking system next year.

Full Article and Source:
Maricopa County Probate Court - More Safeguards in Other Cities

Maricopa Co. Probate Court - Monitoring for Exploitation Remains a Challenge

In most states, it is impossible to quickly track a ward of the court's finances and determine how family members, volunteers or fiduciaries spend the money. Most states and counties require an annual accounting of a ward's finances, some still using pencil and paper, said Brenda K. Uekert, researcher for the National Center for State Courts. The completeness of the data varies, she said. "The quality of data we get is so poor that we have no faith that any number we can provide is reliable," Uekert said. "Nationwide, there is a black hole."

What Arizona courts do
Arizona is at least two years away from implementing a sophisticated data system that allows the court to quickly audit the accounts of fiduciaries and spot a change in spending patterns, such as a sudden increase in fees or an increase in a ward's rent payments, said Jennifer Liewer, Arizona Supreme Court spokeswoman. Arizona's 15 counties use three different electronic programs for tracking wards' accounts.

The Arizona Supreme Court Fiduciary Board randomly audits public and private fiduciaries, but no state courts audit the accounting of family members.

What other courts do
In January, Minnesota will implement the country's most sophisticated statewide electronic system to track what happens to a ward's assets.

Minnesota expects the system will allow court employees to rapidly audit accounts and detect possible exploitation by private fiduciaries or family members.

The court will be able to track patterns of accounting discrepancies, such as missing money, unneeded expenses or double billing by fiduciary companies.

Texas also is tracking fees charged by attorneys and fiduciaries, but with limited success. In 2009, Texas courts created a statewide database of attorney and fiduciary fees approved by county judges, including probate judges, each month in civil cases. The data is made public, but the lack of consequences for county clerks who don't report, their staff turnover and funding problems have made the collection of data hit or miss, said Angela Garcia, a spokeswoman for Texas court administration.

Full Article and Source:
Maricopa County Probate Court - Monitoring for Exploitation Remains a Challenge