MO: Columbia Woman Charged With Financial Exploitation is Sentenced to Prison

A Columbia woman who pleaded guilty in October to financially exploiting a person with a disability will serve four months in prison and will then be placed on probation so she can begin to pay back the woman she bilked out of tens 0f thousands of dollars.

Deanna Harris received a sentence of eight years in prison but will spend 120 days in prison, after which Circuit Judge Christine Carpenter will review the case to see if probation is warranted. When Harris is released, she will be required to pay at least $400 a month in restitution to Luana Harrison, the victim of the crime. If she fails to make the payment, she will be sent back to prison.

"I think it would be very beneficial to Ms. Harrison to receive some of her money, but I just don't trust you," Carpenter said in Boone County Circuit Court on Monday in explaining her decision to send Harris to prison for some time.

Harris borrowed thousands of dollars from Harrison between April and September of 2010 under false pretenses and didn't pay her back.

Harrison testified last month that she would like to see Harris given the maximum possible sentence.

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Columbia Woman Charged With Financial Exploitation is Sentenced to Prison

Lawless America: Mary Claire Connors

NOTE: The "NASGA.org" link mentioned in the video is incorrect. The correct link to "NASGA" is as shown above: www.StopGuardianAbuse.org.

Source:
Lawless America: Mary Claire Connors
See Also
NASGA: Grace Connors, Pennsylvania Victim

Nebraska Woman Fighting Guardianship Law

A Nebraska law designed to prevent abuse of vulnerable citizens by their guardians has gone too far, according to Margaret Smith of Broken Bow, and she wants it repealed.

“This law is very cruel and unnecessary,” Smith said. “It made no allowances for people who had been married for a lifetime. It has the same regulations as if being a guardian for someone you didn’t even know.”

LB157, also known as the Guardianship Reform Act of 2011, passed unanimously in the Nebraska Legislature. The author of the bill was District 27 Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln. Gov. Dave Heineman signed the bill in February 2011, and it took effect in January.

Margaret has been the guardian for her husband, Bob, since March 2006 when he was hurt while working at a cattle sale in Broken Bow. He hit his head on the concrete and even though he regained consciousness two months later, he remains physically and mentally disabled and lives in a nursing home.

At the time of the accident, Margaret already had power of attorney for her husband’s medical care, but because he couldn’t sign his name to grant her power of attorney over his finances, she did the only other thing she could — she got a guardianship of him. With that, she could continue to manage the couple’s business.

In February, when Margaret went to the judge’s office to turn in her annual report regarding her husband’s condition, she was given a large stack of papers containing new regulations and forms she needed to fill out.

“I got as far as the paragraph that said I would need a court order to take any money out of our joint accounts and took it all to my attorney,” Margaret said.

Some of the 16 mandates of LB157 include that funds of the guardian and ward should not be co-mingled. A guardian will take no money out of the shared accounts by any means, for any purpose without a court order, and guardians are required to use specific forms downloaded from the Nebraska Supreme Court’s website. In addition, guardians are required to pay a $5 fee to file required reports.

Until this law passed, Margaret said she didn’t have a problem. Now she said believes she needs a court order to buy a tube of toothpaste from the joint bank account she shares with her incapacitated husband.

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Broken Bow Woman Fighting Guardianship Law

Realty Firm Accused of Fraud and Elder Abuse

Argus Realty lured investors with commercial real estate securities it touted as "institutional grade," but it was "a rigged game in which the sponsors made millions in fees while taking savings from people earned over a lifetime," 11 plaintiffs claim in court.

Six LLCs, led by ARI-NBCC 2, and five people sued Argus Realty Investors, Argus Realty, and several affiliated companies and people, in Orange County Superior Court.

"The sponsors and entities behind this offering gorged themselves on unconscionable fees and costs associated with the offering and the management of the properties while placing the investors in a hopeless, fraudulent investment structure that had no chance of providing a reasonable return," the complaint states. "While the investment was touted as 'institutional grade,' it was anything but institutional grade. This TIC was no investment in any sense, but a rigged game in which the sponsors made millions in fees while taking savings from people earned over a lifetime.
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Realty Firm Accused of Fraud and Elder Abuse

High Court Concerned, Just Not Enough

The old widow wasn't asking for much. All she wanted was a chance to plead her case to an unbiased judge, a fresh eye to decide whether the people charged with protecting her were justified in sucking up her life savings.

Two courts, after all, had said the probate commissioner overseeing her estate acted unethically, that the court-sanctioned siphoning of her bank account was "inexcusable."

The widow's story prompted no less than the chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court to convene a committee to consider reforms to the Probate Court. "I've read your columns," Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch told me in 2010. "They cause concern."

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

All, that is, except for Marie Long.

The state Supreme Court dashed her hopes recently by refusing to consider her appeal.

"It's a very sad day for Marie Long," attorney Candess Hunter wrote after being notified that Berch's court denied Marie's request to take a look at what happened.

Marie Long was worth $1.3 million when she suffered a stroke and came under the "protection" of the Probate Court in 2005. By 2009, she was destitute and dependent upon taxpayers for support, her savings sucked dry while the Probate Court looked the other way.

In 2010, then-Commissioner Lindsay Ellis wrote that the attorneys and fiduciaries were justified in helping themselves to well over $1 million. As for the lawyers who tried to stop the bleeding -- the ones who were volunteering their time to help Marie -- Ellis laid into them, charging that their "venomous" attacks challenging the six-figure bills forced the other side to defend itself.

With Marie's money, naturally.

Two months after Ellis' ruling, we learned that Ellis had her assistant slip an advance copy of her ruling to one side -- the side that wound up with Marie's money.

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High Court Concerned, Just Not Enough

See Also:
Guardianship Agency Cost Elderly Woman Dearly

Probate Judge Indictment Thrown Out

A judge has thrown out the indictment against Franklin County Probate Judge Eddie Fowler.

Fowler was indicted in September on one count of misdemeanor sexual battery after being arrested in late August.

During a hearing November 29th in Franklin County Superior Court, Fowler’s attorney Daniel Moore asked the indictment be quashed.

Moore said by law his client was to have received written notice from the District Attorney’s office of their intent to take the charges before the grand jury and he was also to receive a written copy of the charges against him 15 days before the case went before the Grand Jury.

Moore told Senior Court Judge Robert Adamson Fowler received the notice of intent, but not the written copy of the charges.

The judge agreed and in a ruling issued December 5th overturned the indictment. That ruling was made public this week.

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Probate Judge Indictment Thrown Out
See Also:
Associate Probate Judge Named in Franklin County

Caretaker Charged With Bilking Elderly Madison Couple Of Several Hundred Thousand Dollars

On December 6, 2012, the Madison Police Department, with the cooperation of the Milford Police Department, arrested Linda Correira for one violation of Connecticut General Statute 53a-122: Larceny in the First Degree.

Correira’s arrest comes after nearly a year-long investigation by the Madison Police Department into unauthorized withdrawals from multiple bank accounts belonging to an elderly Madison couple. Correira allegedly bilked the elderly Madison couple out of several hundred thousand dollars, during the time period of July 2011 through December 2011. The missing funds include some service fees as well as unauthorized withdrawals. Correira accessed the couples various accounts while working as an in-home caretaker for the two Madison residents.

Correira has numerous past arrests for larcenies and other crimes in Milford, Torrington, Winchester, Manchester, Stratford, and Fairfield.

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Caretaker Charged With Bilking Elderly Madison Couple Of Several Hundred Thousand Dollars

CT: Probate Fight Over Southington Farm Continues

In a nearly empty courtroom in Hartford on Monday, a half-dozen lawyers continued to fight over the dying wishes of a Southington woman who wanted to give her farm to the man who helped her care for the place for decades.

Incredibly, Sam Manzo, the caretaker, is still the loser in the Smoron Farm controversy. He lives in an unheated trailer on a farm he was supposed to inherit three years ago.

Instead of the probate court system making sure Manzo inherited the farm – what Josephine Smoron explicitly stated in her 2004 will – the controversy drags on, bouncing about dreary courtrooms, waiting for a judge to take charge and right a monumental wrong.

"My client is in desperate need to have this go forward,'' Eliot Gersten, one of Manzo's lawyers, told Superior Court Judge William H. Bright on Monday morning, complaining that bills aren't getting paid. "This delay is hurting my client. He is living without heat."

The case has landed in Judge Bright's courtroom because the man appointed as conservator for Smoron, Southington lawyer John Nugent, has refused to step aside and admit his error. Nugent still controls two trusts that he set up in 2009 — unbeknownst to the dying Smoron or Manzo — that contain the estate's assets.

The plan might have gone unchallenged if Manzo hadn't complained to court authorities, who eventually ruled that Nugent abused his position as conservator. The Southington probate judge who appointed him, Bryan Meccariello, was censured by the Council on Probate Judicial Conduct for allowing Nugent to set up the trusts, which circumvent Smoron's will. Meccariello did not run for re-election in 2010.

The trusts remain, and efforts to restore Manzo's inheritance have stalled.

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Probate Fight Over Southington Farm Continues

See Also:
Rick Green: Probate Court Mess Continues

FL: Wards of the State Depend on Their Guardian Angels

A decades-old photo of Santa Claus and a child in winter clothing sits on the dresser in a holiday-bedecked bedroom.

That little girl, who was developmentally disabled and had cerebral palsy, lived with her parents in Massachusetts.

Now, at 62, with no family left to see to her needs, Kathy lives in a Space Coast group home as a legal ward of the state’s Statewide Public Guardianship Office. At the request of her guardian and because of privacy concerns, FLORIDA TODAY agreed not to publish her last name.

Along with 82 other adults in Brevard who’ve been declared incapacitated, all aspects of Kathy’s care falls to Aging Solutions, a nonprofit appointed by the state as the Office of the Public Guardian here and in three other counties.

The often-sad stories of these wards are highlighted annually over the holidays through Aging Solutions’ “Elves for Elders” campaign, which provides basic gifts for the organization’s charges.

But how do these Floridians, most older than 60, land in guardianship in the first place? And how are their needs met the rest of the year?

Wards, many cognitively and physically impaired, wind up under state guardianship for diverse reasons. Some were exploited financially by caretakers or family. Some living in dangerous, unhealthy situations were referred by the Department of Children and Families; others by hospitals or neighbors. Those with sufficient assets often are put in a private guardian’s care. Those who are indigent can fall under the state’s protection.

All share a bond: They no longer can care for themselves and have no family or friends to step up and take the lead. For example, Kathy’s parents and brother are deceased, and though she has one aunt in Brevard County, the older woman is unable to look after her niece.

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Wards of the State Depend on Their Guardian Angels