Attorney, accused of multiple crimes, still working courthouse halls

Some call him the most troubled lawyer at the Dallas County Courthouse.

An attorney charged with multiple crimes including indecency with a child. And while he's awaiting his trial, many of his colleagues are outraged this attorney is still practicing law.

Two weeks ago, Dallas defense attorney Rayan Ganesh sat alone in a courtroom, for more than an hour, avoiding our cameras as well as serious questions about the charges against him.

In July of last year, Ganesh was arrested on two counts of indecency with a child for exposing himself at his law office. Then in February of this year, Ganesh was indicted on seven counts of barratry, which means illegally soliciting clients. But Ganesh is still practicing law while he awaits his own trial. So, the Dallas County District Attorney's office filed a motion a few weeks ago, asking a judge to keep him away from the courthouse by raising his bond. The judge in his case, Amber Givens-Davis did just that. Yet today he is free on bond, still working the courthouse halls. Presumably representing his more than 650 clients.

That's right, 650 clients.

"For somebody to have 500 active clients right now that gives me great concern that he's not acting in the best interest of his clients," said Dallas criminal defense attorney Peter Schulte. Schulte is just one of several lawyers who provided court testimony against Ganesh after allegedly catching him soliciting clients in the courthouse hallway.

He and other attorneys we talked to feel a normal defense attorney caseload is more like 50 to 100 clients.

Schulte feels more should be done to protect the public from Ganesh whom he feels is doing a disservice to too many clients. Two weeks ago, we found Ganesh pacing the Dallas County courthouse, apparently surveying the hallways for potential clients many of whom were sitting outside various courtrooms awaiting their case hearings.

We specifically watched him engage two individuals who later told us they had in fact hired Ganesh.

One woman, whose identity we agreed to protect, told us $800 to represent her, but only after he approached her.

Again, according to state law, attorneys cannot directly solicit business, even in the courthouse where the woman says she came for her hearing without an attorney.

Another defendant, Marcus Jackson, says Ganesh solicited him in the hallway as well. "He just walked up to me after I hung the phone up and passed me his card," said Jackson. "He literally solicited my business to hire him."

Jackson says he agreed to hire Ganesh, paid him, but was later arrested for not showing up for court. He says Ganesh never told him about the hearing. According to Jackson and a 27-page pleading from the Dallas County District Attorney, Jackson was thrown in jail for 5 days for "failure to appear". "I literally put money in his pocket for nothing," said Jackson. "That's money I could be paying to another lawyer proving my innocence with somebody who is going to help me and keep me free."

We tried to discuss the allegations with Ganesh ago after watching him approach multiple defendants in the courthouse hallway.

Ganesh ultimately chose not to discuss the matter with us at all. Officials with the State Bar say there is little they can do to pull Ganesh's credentials as long as his criminal cases are pending. His trials on barratry and indecent exposure are set for later this month.

READ MORE: Dallas County prosecutors' allegations against Rayan Ganesh.

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Attorney, accused of multiple crimes, still working courthouse halls

Doctors pressured this woman to die by euthanasia. One year later she is much better.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Candice Lewis

Last month Candice Lewis's mother received a disappointing response from the local hospital after sending an official complaint about being pressured by doctors who wanted Candice to die by euthanasia.

Mother upset after doctor urged her to approve assisted suicide for her daughter with disabilities.

An article by Stephen Roberts that was published in the Northern Pen newspaper on August 28 explained that Candice is doing much better after receiving excellent care from a hospital in St Johns's Newfoundland. The article reported:

According to her mom, Sheila Elson, Candice hasn’t been having any seizures, is now able to feed herself, walk with assistance, use her iPad, and is more alert, energetic and communicative since her stay in St. John’s. 

“She’s back to about where she was five or six years ago,” says Elson. 

After a two-week hospital stay, Candice, along with her mother, walked her sister Glennis down the aisle at her wedding in Dildo in August. 

She’s been able to do all this despite the fact that in 2016, doctors suggested that Candice might be dying. 

In September of that year, a doctor at Charles S. Curtis Memorial Hospital in St. Anthony had also suggested to Elson that physician-assisted death could be an option for Candice. 

What is satisfying her these days is her daughter’s health. Since returning to St. Anthony earlier this month, Candice hasn’t required a visit to the hospital. 

Elson believes Candice’s condition has improved because she is now on fewer medications.

Legalizing euthanasia (MAiD) gives physicians the right in law to lethally inject their patients. The doctors attitude toward Candice's "quality of life" were based on negative and discriminatory attitudes towards the lives of people with disabilities. The doctors thought that Candice was better off dead.

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Doctors pressured this woman to die by euthanasia. One year later she is much better.

Tonight on T. S. Radio: Mary Bush & Genevieve's Nightmare

Mary Bush continues to fight to free her mother Genevieve Bush from the ravages of the fraudulent guardianship her mother was sentenced to in 2011.

Chester County Pa Orphans Court continues to extract Genevieve's wealth to feed court appointed profiteers while disregardining multiple petitions filed by Mary for her mother's health care needs not being met. In January 2016 after Mary got her mother out of the nursing facility via 911 with broken bones and untreated heart problems, the nursing home and for profit guardian immediately retaliated by calling Mary a trespasser. Mary who lives about 15 miles from the locked in facility where her mother is, has not seen her mother since January 2016. Mary has since discovered and reported to Chester County Adult Protective Services that her mother again has not seen her cardiologist for a year and a half.

After filing another petition to the court to get her mother to her doctor, the court issued an order stating "I will not micromanage (Guardianship Services of Pennsylvania) care decisions absent compelling reasons". The court also ordered that Mary who is her mother's legal health care agent is to " cease and desist" "scheduling appointments for her mother". If guardianship is about protecting vulnerable older adults, then who is the Court really protecting?

LISTEN to the show live or listen to the archive later

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Alzheimer’s patient was sexually abused, state says. Now nursing home says it’s closing

Eagle Crest nursing home

A large Carmichael nursing home that was targeted for years by government regulators for poor quality care has decided to voluntarily close after state inspectors determined that a female resident was sexually abused multiple times by another resident at the facility.

For 37 months, the Eagle Crest nursing home, formerly known as Carmichael Care & Rehabilitation Center, was on the federal government’s consumer-beware list of troubled facilities. Other facilities nationwide came and went from the list, but Eagle Crest remained, supposedly operating under stepped-up scrutiny intended to nudge it back into compliance.

In June, the state had had enough.

Documents obtained late Friday from the California Department of Public Health show that the state recommended this summer that federal regulators drop the facility from its Medicare provider rolls, a drastic action that strips a nursing home of its critical government funding.

Instead, the nursing home’s owner acted first.

In a business move that will upend the daily lives of dozens of patients and their families – and significantly reduce the number of skilled nursing beds in the Sacramento region – Pennsylvania-based Genesis HealthCare Inc. recently notified the state it would voluntarily close Eagle Crest in October.

The company took issue with the state, though, noting that the 126-bed facility had self-reported the allegation of sexual abuse in February. The company disputed the state’s findings that an “immediate jeopardy” citation was warranted or even that the facility was out of compliance at all.

A finding of immediate jeopardy, known as an IJ, is a heart-stopper for nursing home operators and can carry among the steepest penalties. Immediate jeopardy is called when a provider’s noncompliance has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm or death to a resident.

In its investigation, the state found that the female patient, who had Alzheimer’s disease, had been fondled, kissed and abused by a male resident who was known to be a risk for inappropriate sexual behaviors and had a “history of inappropriate touching of a confused patient,” state documents show. Even so, the male resident, who the state report described as “cognitively intact,” was not receiving one-on-one monitoring, the report says.

The facility’s failure to safeguard the woman had placed all 36 female residents at risk for sexual abuse, the state found.

The facility had self-reported to the state that the man had been found in February in the woman’s room, pulling up his pants while she lay fully undressed in her bed, documents show.

On June 22, the state notified Eagle Crest administrator Harumi Hurrianko it was recommending that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services terminate its provider agreement. A month later, a lawyer for Genesis notified the state it would voluntarily close, calling the immediate jeopardy citation the “straw that brings us to make this difficult decision.”

The closure of one of the region’s largest skilled nursing facilities startled elder care advocates this week. They say they are worried about the loss of beds and the stress placed on vulnerable residents suddenly being forced to relocate, possibly out of the county. The single-story beige building is located along a busy stretch of Fair Oaks Boulevard, about a mile west of the boundary between Carmichael and Fair Oaks.

Over the years, Eagle Crest has had its share of notoriety, including a rash of state citations and fines, numerous federal deficiencies and generally poor ratings. Some recent inspection reports show the facility has been written up and penalized for inadequately treating or preventing bed sores, failing to self-report possible abuse and not attempting CPR on a resident who wished to be resuscitated.

But none of the health care advocates contacted by The Bee late this week was aware of the sexual abuse allegations that preceded the company’s decision to close.

“This really caught us off-guard,” said California’s long-term care ombudsman, Joe Rodrigues, reacting to the closure news. He noted that the local ombudman’s office first learned about the company’s closure plans around mid-August.

“This is going to have a big impact; it’s such a large facility,” Rodrigues said. “Where are we going to find homes for these people? And why are they closing this facility in the first place?”

A spokeswoman for Genesis Healthcare, Jeanne Moore, would not say why the facility was closing. But Moore offered assurances in an email that the facility is coordinating the closure with the California Department of Public Heath and “will comply with the requirements for closing a nursing center.” Closure will be around Oct. 20, she said.

“We will continue our day-to-day care and operations during this process until our last patient or resident is transferred and the center is closed,” she stated. “We will take all reasonable precautions to eliminate or reduce any negative effects that may result from the transfer.”

She specifically cited three other facilities owned by Genesis in Northern California that could take residents from Eagle Crest: American River Care Center in Carmichael, Creekside Center in Stockton and Willows Center in Willows.

Two of those facilities have had their own alleged quality issues, with both American River and Willows Center receiving “below-average” ratings in an ongoing statistical analysis of California nursing homes by the University of California, San Francisco. The database, which examines numerous aspects of facilities from staffing ratios to complaints to deficiency trends, was created to help consumers make long-term care choices.

Eagle Crest currently has an overall “poor” rating, while Creekside Center was deemed “superior” in the ratings available on the CalQualityCare.org website.

Of the 59 nursing homes in the four-county region, only 15, or about a quarter, have more licensed beds than Eagle Crest. Genesis informed the California Employment Development Department that 72 jobs also would be lost in the closure.

A spokeswoman for the California Department of Public Health, which licenses and inspects nursing homes, said the state approved the closure and relocation plan on Aug. 4.

Under California law, if 10 or more residents are likely to be moved due to a change in a nursing home’s operation, the facility must submit a proposed relocation plan to the state and cannot proceed until it’s approved. Whenever homes close, advocates worry about possible “transfer trauma,” in which the upheaval and separation from family, friends and known caregivers can cause serious harm and even death to fragile residents.

“People who live in nursing homes are extremely vulnerable,” said Michael Connors of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, based in San Francisco. “Separating them from everyone and everything they care about is cruel and traumatic.”

Transfer trauma has become a hot topic in California. Outrage erupted last year in Humboldt County over the prospect of widespread transfer trauma when the state’s largest nursing home owner, Shlomo Rechnitz of Los Angeles, threatened to close three of his facilities in the remote region. Before Rechnitz significantly modified his plan, some patients were facing the possibility of moving hundreds of miles away.

As a result, Assemblymen Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, introduced a bill that would increase the amount of advance warning that residents and others receive prior to a nursing home closure. AB 275 was signed by the governor on Friday.

Even before the Eagle Crest shutdown, the Genesis chain of nursing homes had been facing widespread regulatory and public-relations problems.

In June, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Genesis HealthCare Inc. would pay the government nearly $54 million to settle six federal lawsuits. The government alleged that companies and facilities acquired by Genesis had submitted false claims to government health care programs for medically unnecessary services, and “grossly substandard nursing care.”

A 2014 Bee investigation found that nursing homes operated in California by Genesis HealthCare received complaints of abuse at seven times the statewide average. The company is headquartered in Kennett Square, Pa.

The closure of Eagle Crest illustrates the difficulty regulators have in pushing operators to make improvements amid accusations of substandard care – even when they are publicly shamed by government inspectors.

Eagle Crest spent more than three years on the “Special Focus Facility List” maintained by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The list is a kind of improve-or-else warning program aimed at getting operators to correct serious problems, or lose their ability to collect government funding.

Special Focus Facilities are surveyed more frequently and, if problems persist, are subject to possible fines and other penalties, including termination from the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

On the latest list, updated Aug. 17, only one nursing home out of 118 nationwide that were publicly identified had been on the list longer than Eagle Crest.

“It’s a token enforcement program that’s done a poor job of turning around dangerous nursing homes,” said elder-care advocate Connors. “The question is, what’s wrong with the system if the worst of the worst are under all this scrutiny – then why aren’t they getting better?”

California, with 1,241 licensed skilled nursing facilities, currently has seven nursing homes on the feds’ consumer-beware list. One, in Fairfield, has “shown improvement,” the list reveals, while another in Los Angeles is said to have recently graduated.

The other California homes, including Eagle Crest, are defined by the government as having “serious quality issues” and have been assigned to the program to “stimulate improvements,” according to the government’s web page on its Special Focus Facility Initiative.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article170894757.html#storylink=cpy

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Alzheimer’s patient was sexually abused, state says. Now nursing home says it’s closing

Federal court dismisses lawsuit filed by woman accused of elder exploitation

BENTON – An Illinois woman charged with elder exploitation has lost her bid to sue Madison County after the U.S District Court for the Southern District of Illinois dismissed her lawsuit with prejudice.

Cynthia M. Crawford-Green held the health care power of attorney for her uncle, Carl Dickerson, and was the executor and beneficiary according to the terms of his will. He died in 2010. She was charged with exploitation of an elderly person and a warrant was issued for her arrest. The order states she was pulled over in Missouri in January.

According to Illinois Legal Aid online, “The Elder Abuse and Neglect Act assures that local agencies will be funded by the Illinois Department on Aging in order to offer help to persons age 60 and older who may be abused, neglected, or exploited by family, household members, or caregivers. Any person who suspects the abuse, neglect, or financial exploitation of such a person may report this suspicion to the designated local agency.”

Crawford-Green filed suit against Madison County over allegations that she had been deprived of her constitutional rights pursuant to pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The complaint alleged that the people of Madison County wanted her to pay her uncle’s medical bills after his death, and there was no probable cause to issue the warrant.

She sought a reversal of her state court sentence, plus compensatory and punitive monetary damages. After her arrest, she lost her job, lost her home to foreclosure, and her property was seized, the order states.

On Aug. 17, the case was dismissed by the district court. Judge J. Phil Gilbert ordered that the plaintiff would recover nothing and the case was dismissed on the merits with prejudice.

In its decision, the court notes that “The named defendant in this case is 'people of Madison County Illinois.' In order to obtain relief against a municipality or other local government unit, a plaintiff must allege that the constitutional deprivations were the result of an official policy, custom, or practice of the local government.”

Crawford-Green failed to prove her case, the court ruled.

“Plaintiff has not alleged that the deprivations she complains of were made pursuant to an official policy or custom, and has provided no facts that would make such an allegation plausible. Therefore Plaintiff has not adequately pleaded a claim against Madison County,” the memorandum and order stated.

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Federal court dismisses lawsuit filed by woman accused of elder exploitation

How to leave no doubt about how you want your money distributed when you’re dead or incapacitated

How to leave no doubt about how you want your money distributed when you’re dead or incapacitated from CNBC.

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How to leave no doubt about how you want your money distributed when you’re dead or incapacitated

Editorial: Red flags should matter in NM guardianship cases

Asleep at the wheel.

That’s a polite way to describe oversight by the courts and the Attorney General’s Office of New Mexico’s scandal-rocked guardianship system over the years – a point hammered home by the revelation that independent audits of Ayudando Guardians Inc. in 2011 and 2012 pointed to clear financial impropriety. That’s impropriety in the form of top company executives “borrowing” tens of thousands of dollars from client accounts.

“There is no justification for any organization to borrow money from clients,” said Wendy York, who chairs a commission appointed by the state Supreme Court to recommend ways to improve the state’s guardianship system.

The two independent audits filed with the AG’s Office also noted Ayudando hadn’t complied with generally accepted accounting procedures. The 2011 audit noted $72,321 in employee advances, with only $23,766 in repayments during the audit year.

But despite the fact auditors red-flagged Ayudando – and despite being delinquent in filing its annual AG registration every year since 2012 – there is no indication the AG’s Office did anything, and judges in New Mexico went right on appointing the company as guardians and conservators in charge of the lives and finances of people who had been declared incapacitated and unable to care for themselves.

Perhaps that’s because the system isn’t set up in a way that the needed information gets to those judges – some of whom previously have defended the system and dismissed complaints as coming from “emotional” family members.

It was York who asked a forensic accountant to look at Ayudando’s audits and then relayed findings to the commission. The AG’s Office says it is reviewing the issues.

And Ayudando was slick. A company representative even showed up at one of the commission hearings chaired by York to defend the system by pointing to the fact that – get ready for this – it was audited every year by the state.

Ayudando had more than 176 guardianship or conservator appointments outstanding in Bernalillo County District Court in July when federal law enforcement filed a massive money laundering and fraud indictment that named the company and its two top officials – president Susan Harris and chief financial officer Sharon Moore. Federal investigators have identified more than $4 million in client money that was allegedly diverted to finance a “lavish lifestyle” by the two women and their family members. The U.S. Marshals Office says the company had about 1,400 clients, some of whom received financial management or representative payee services.

One federal agent in a search warrant affidavit described the company as “permeated by crime.”
But there is hope.

York says there are important lessons to be learned from the Ayudando debacle, including the need for an accountant who reports to the court. Improving the annual forms required of guardians/conservators to include more detailed financial information would also help.

Those are among the many reforms under consideration by York’s commission.

And York has asked the state’s chief disciplinary counsel to weigh in because her research has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest and other ethical issues surrounding lawyers that can arise in cases involving third-party corporate guardians and conservators. That’s an important step in a system in which professional guardianships involve a relatively small group of insiders.

Going forward, the courts can make some meaningful reforms. Others will require legislative action. But in the aftermath of the Ayudando case, one thing is clear: We can no longer accept being asleep at the wheel.

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Editorial: Red flags should matter in NM guardianship cases

Keokuk woman sentenced to probation in theft case

Laura Hawkins

QUINCY -- A Keokuk, Iowa, woman must pay $18,000 in restitution for stealing from an elderly family member living in a Quincy nursing home.

Laura Hawkins, 56, was sentenced Wednesday by Judge Charles Burch in Adams County Circuit Court to 30 months of second-chance probation, a form of probation where a conviction will be removed from a person's record if probation is successfully completed. The terms were agreed to by Assistant State's Attorney Anita Rodriguez and Hawkins' attorney, Curtis Dial.

A hearing was expected to Wednesday to review restitution, but both sides agreed to the $18,000 in restitution. The probation will end early if Hawkins pays the restitution, and Burch agreed to let her transfer probation to Iowa.

Hawkins was found guilty of theft in a stipulated bench trial last month before Burch. Two counts of financial exploitation of the elderly were dismissed.

After Hawkins' arrest in February 2016, the Quincy Police Department said it was notified by Sycamore Healthcare of a 77-year-old resident who was possibly being exploited by a family member with power of attorney for the resident. An investigation found that several thousand dollars had been misused.

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Keokuk woman sentenced to probation in theft case

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Keokuk woman convicted on theft charge

Couple ‘churns' thousands from elderly clients

LAGRANGE, Ga. – The Livingstons have a picture-perfect family of five on Facebook—but the couple smiling in the photos with their three children have a secret, and it’s a secret that authorities said, have ripped off thousands of dollars in fraudulent insurance policies.

Independent insurance agent Amy Livingston, 34, and her husband, 48-year-old Matthew, were arrested Wednesday morning for exploitation and fraud scheme. A scheme that, Troup County’s Insurance and Fire Safety commissioner Ralph Hudgens’ said, likely reeled in more than $100,000.

Matthew, a former insurance agent himself, posted to his Facebook page: 0% LUCK. 100% HUSTLE.

It’s this alleged hustle, however, that landed him and his wife in jail, thanks to a consumer tip.

During a six-month investigation by the commission’s fraud division, the LaGrange, Ga., couple allegedly found that Amy was using the identities of Matthew’s former clients to create applications for fake life insurance policies.

According to Hudgens, those fraudulent applications collected $11,453 in advanced first-year commission payments through four different insurance companies. But, Hudgens said that he believes the duo has racked up more than $100,000 in their scheme.

“My fraud investigators discovered that the couple worked together to illegally obtain approximately $11,453 in commission fees by issuing fraudulent documents to insurance companies,” Hudgens said. “With additional evidence still coming in, we expect the amount stolen to increase to well over $100,000.”

This type of fraudulent activity is known as “churning.”

“[Churning is] taking insurance policies, existing policies, canceling them and then re-writing new policies so they could get an insurance commission off writing the new policies… converting these policies for their own personal use without the people that were being covered without their knowledge,” Hudgens said.

The Livingstons are accused of churning life insurance policies of their elderly clients—at least seven so far, but there could be more victims. Those clients who have had fake policies created in their name, may have further insurance issues down the road.

“Unfortunately, they are elderly and they're going to have a hard time getting new policies, maybe their health situation has declined and they are not eligible to get coverage again,” Hudgens said.
His agency, he said, is going to the insurance companies, asking them to restore the policy holders’ previous policies.

“Otherwise, what do they do? It puts these people, the victims, in a very, very precarious position, because they don't know whether they're going to have coverage if something happens… This is really a tragedy,” Hudgens said.

Troup County Sheriff’s deputies arrested the couple Wednesday morning at 9 a.m., in their driveway and took them to the Troup County Jail.

Amy was charged with seven counts of insurance fraud, five counts of exploitation of the elder, 12 counts of forgery and seven counts of identity fraud. Matthew was charged with three counts of insurance fraud and two counts of exploitation of an elder.

Amy, who has been licensed as a life and health insurance agent since 2010, faces possible suspension or revocation of her license. Matthew, however, has not been a licensed insurance agent since November 2016.

If found guilty, insurance fraud is a felony and the couple could face two to 10 years and a fine up to $10,000.

The investigation is ongoing. The couple remains in the jail. No bond has been set.

If you suspect an insurance fraud or if you were one of the Livingstons’ clients, call to verify your coverage with the insurance company listed on the policy, or contact Hudgens’ Consumer Services Division at (800) 656-2298.

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Couple ‘churns' thousands from elderly clients