COOKEVILLE, TN (WSMV)
-- The former operator of a Putnam County group home faces multiple
charges after a joint investigation between the Medicaid Fraud Control
Unit, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and multiple local and state
agencies.
During the course of the investigation, agents developed
information that from 2016 through 2018 Stephanie Butler, the then
operator of the Senior Lifestyles facility in Cookeville, was
responsible for financially exploiting several of the residents, using
their financial assets for her personal use.
Agents also
determined that she and Brian Richey, a nurse practitioner who provided
medical services for the residents, were involved in diverting
controlled substance medication that belonged to the residents for their
own personal use.
The Putnam County Grand Jury returned
indictments charging Butler, 44, with one count of conspiracy to obtain
controlled substances by fraud, one count of obtaining controlled
substances by fraud, 11 counts of financial exploitation, one count of
theft over $2,500, four counts of identity theft, six counts of money
laundering and one count of tampering with evidence. Richey, 36, was
charged with one count of conspiracy to obtain controlled substances by
fraud, one count of obtaining controlled substances by fraud, one count
of conspiracy to commit financial exploitation of an elderly/vulnerable
adult and one count of financial exploitation.
Butler was arrested
Wednesday and booked into the Putnam County Jail with a $150,000 bond.
Richey was arrested on Thursday morning and booked with a bond of
$40,000.
The estate of a woman who died at a Southside Assisted
Living Facility filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the facility and two
employees facing criminal charges regarding the woman’s care.
Joanna
Neal, representing the estate of her mother, Lois Pruitt, filed the
lawsuit for wrongful death against Assistcare, Inc., doing business as
Woodland Place Assisted Living, and against its administrator, Caroline
Renee Burton, and employee Brooke Tuck Ragsdale.
According
to the lawsuit, Pruitt had lived at Woodland Place since 2014. When she
was admitted, she suffered from dementia, but was otherwise in good
condition of physical health.
“She had memory deficits
and moderately impaired cognitive skills; however, she was able to
communicate and express her basic needs and enjoyed her life,” the
lawsuit states.
Neal paid the facility about $1,950 per month for assisted living services and care for her mother.
A
hospice care nurse was employed by a separate entity this year to
provide care and treatment while Pruitt continued to live at Woodland
Place. The hospice nurse provided a comfort care kit to be kept at the
facility, should Pruitt need comforting medications. It contained
morphine and other drugs and sedative medications.
On June 19, 2018, Neal visited her mother and found Burton
and Ragsdale in her mother’s room, along with the hospice comfort care
kit, the lawsuit states.
“Immediately thereafter, Lois
Pruitt’s health drastically declined,” the lawsuit contends. “It was
later discovered that Burton and Ragsdale had administered a large dose
of morphine to Lois Pruitt from the hospice comfort care kit.”
After administering the drug, neither Burton or Ragsdale attempted to contact medical professionals/emergency responders.
Neal
learned of the “over-medication” June 21, the lawsuit states, when a
Woodland Place employee informed her of the events and circumstances of
June 19. She called law enforcement June 21 and her mother was taken
that day to Gadsden Regional Medical Center. She died June 22, the
lawsuit contends, “as a direct and proximate result of the
over-medication of morphine and/or the delay of Burton and Ragsdale to
notify medical professionals/emergency responders of Lois Pruitt’s
declining condition.”
The police investigation into the
incident resulted in criminal charges against Burton and Ragsdale: both
were arrested June 22, charged with first-degree assault, and are free
on $50,000 bond.
It could happen to
your mother, father, or grandparents – there is no discrimination with
elder abuse and sadly the number of cases are piling up as the years go
on.
Irrespective
of financial, social or religious backgrounds, elder abuse is becoming
increasingly common and according to Bennett & Philp Elder Abuse Law
and Litigation expert Charlie Young, the abuse is often at the hands of
someone close to home.
Speaking to Starts at 60, the
lawyer said that as the Baby Boomer generation ages, the “elderly”
bracket of the population expands – meaning more people are at risk of
falling victim to abuse. Shockingly, the threat could also be closer to
home than many realise.
“Unfortunately,
it is common for perpetrators of elder abuse to be close to the victim,
or worse it can be caused by a trusted person,” he explained.
“I
also believe the elderly have planned for their retirement better than
previous generations so across the board the elderly have a higher net
worth, which can make them more susceptible to exploitation.”
On top of the obvious physical and mental effects it causes, there are also many legal problems that can be quite overwhelming.
“Often the elderly
person does not have the mental faculties to recognise, or give
evidence, as to what abuse is occurring, so it can be more difficult in
those situations to address the abuse,” Young explained. “Sometimes it’s
unclear as to whether an elderly person has the mental faculties to be
making their financial decisions, which can create an issue when others
believe the person is being exploited.”
Thankfully
though, Young said almost anyone, whether it be an elderly person’s
relative, friend, neighbour, carer or even an old acquaintance, can take
steps to stop an instance of elder abuse with proper legal guidance.
“The
types of elder abuse are far and wide. As to what can be done about it,
time limits can apply so it is important to obtain professional legal
advice at the earliest opportunity,” he explained.
“In
times where it might feel like there is no one who can help you or the
person you know is suffering, it’s important to remember that there are
qualified professionals ready to help you get through the situation, no
matter how small or big it might be.”
The lawyer first advised people to contact the police if the elderly
person has been, or may be, physically harmed. And as all cases are
different, it’s important to speak to the elderly person and find out
the extent of the abuse and if any of their assets have been stolen.
While it may seem a bit extreme to some, Young added that seeking assistance from a court or tribunal is always worthwhile.
“In
some circumstances, proceedings need to be initiated in a court or
tribunal depending on what the abuse is. For example, those proceedings
may be to freeze someone’s bank account, to recover the elderly person’s
stolen money or property, to have a contract reversed if an elderly person has unduly influenced,” he said.
And lastly, Young urged people to not make the mistake and think it’s too late when their loved one is gone.
“What
many people don’t realise is that steps can even be taken to rectify
instances of elder abuse discovered after the elderly person passes
away,” he said. “For example, it is not uncommon for family members of a
deceased to find that an attorney had previously been siphoning funds
from the elderly person’s bank account, or that the elderly person was
unduly influenced in preparing their last Will.”
CLARK COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18)– A Winchester man is in jail, accused of
taking more than $40,000 from an elderly woman, and knocking her over.
According to his arrest citation, 42-year-old Jonathon Bostic
starting using the woman’s debit card, her car, and taking her
medications without her permission about 6 months ago.
The victim told officers Bostic shoved her over three weeks ago, hurting her hip.
Documents state she also said he held her in her apartment against her will and threatened to kill her if she told anyone.
Bostic was arrested Friday and charged with adult exploitation and neglect charges.
Bail has been set at $30,000 each for two women accused of taking
more than $50,000 from an elderly relative — and prosecutors have filed a
similar charge against a man serving 49 years in prison for a deadly
2015 shooting that brought the reported exploitation to light.
Although the charges are not directly related
to the shooting, police said the investigation into that case spurred
them to look into the financial dealings of the man charged in Andrew
Maul’s death, as well as his wife and daughter.
Robert H. Gill, 64, was arrested in the Sept.
11, 2015, shooting and subsequently pleaded guilty. He now is charged
with financial exploitation of an elderly person involving a relative.
“Gill was the guardian for the [relative] and
it looks like he was removing money and putting it into his account,”
Police Lt. Doug Thompson told the State Journal-Register.
After Gill’s arrest, a family member raised questions about unusual transactions involving the purported victim’s finances.
Authorities maintain Gill’s daughter, Jewell
Maul, 38 — the ex-wife of Andrew Maul — and Gill’s wife, Joyce Gill, 63,
knew what was going on with the account and used it for withdrawals and
deposits, according to WLDS News.
Both were charged Monday with Class 1
felonious financial exploitation of an elderly person. They were being
held Tuesday in the Morgan County jail.
Financial exploitation of an elderly person
or a person with a disability becomes a Class 1 charge if “the value of
the property is $50,000 or more or if the elderly person is over 70
years of age and the value of the property is $15,000 or more or if the
elderly person is 80 years of age or older and the value of the property
is $5,000 or more.”
Robert Gill pleaded guilty in November to one
count of intentional murder in Andrew Maul’s shooting death and was
sentenced to 45 years. He was given another four years for one count of
aggravated residential arson after setting fire to the home of Andrew
Maul’s mother, Debbie Bartz, soon after the shooting.
As a part of the deal, three counts of murder and one count of residential arson were dismissed.
Special prosecutor Ed Parkinson is handling the exploitation case. He also prosecuted the murder and arson charges.
Marjorie Jones trusted the man who called to tell her she’d won
a sweepstakes prize, saying she could collect the winnings once she
paid the taxes and fees. After she wired the first payment, he and other
callers kept adding conditions to convince her to send more money.
As the scheme progressed, Jones,
who was legally blind and lived alone in a two-story house in Moss
Bluff, Louisiana, depleted her savings, took out a reverse mortgage and
cashed in a life insurance policy. She didn’t tell her family, not even
the sister who lived next door. Scammers often push victims to keep
promised winnings a secret, says an investigator who helped unravel this
sinister effort to exploit an 82-year-old woman.
Marjorie Jones.
Source: Courtesy Angela Stancik
Her
family didn’t realize something was wrong until she started asking to
borrow money, a first for a woman they admired for her financial
independence. But by then it was too late, says Angela Stancik, one of
Jones’s granddaughters. Jones had lost all of her life savings—hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
About one week after calling Stancik at the family business in Ganado, Texas, to borrow $6,000, Jones committed suicide.
That
was May 4, 2010. When family members went to her home, they found a
caller-ID filled with numbers they didn’t recognize and three bags of
wire transfer receipts in her closet. Jones had $69 left in her bank
account.
Some 5 million older Americans are financially
exploited every year by scammers like the ones who targeted Jones. The
elderly are also suffering at the hands of greedy, desperate or drug
addicted relatives and friends, among others. The total number of
victims is increasing as baby boomers retire and their ability to manage
trillions of dollars in personal assets diminishes. One financial
services firm estimates seniors lose as much as $36.5 billion a year.
But assessments like that are “grossly underestimated,” according to a 2016 study
by New York State’s Office of Children and Family Services. For every
case reported to authorities, as many as 44 are not. The study found
losses in New York alone could be as high as $1.5 billion.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drew attention to elder exploitation as a public health problem in a 2016 report, citing groundbreaking research two decades earlier by Mark Lachs.
Now co-chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at
Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Lachs says
elder abuse victims—including those who suffer financial exploitation—die at a rate three times faster than those who haven’t been abused. It’s a “public health crisis,” he warns.
“I knew these crimes were killing people,” says Elizabeth Loewy, who directed the elder abuse unit at
the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. As her exploitation cases
steadily rose to hundreds per year, she says, “so many family members
told me, ‘I can’t prove it, but this killed him.’”
Bente
Kongsore, a retired accountant in Creswell, Oregon, says her
parents’ mental and physical decline accelerated after an assistant
manager at a local bank, Susan Paiz, befriended
the octogenarians and subsequently stole $100,000 from them in 2014. To
hide the theft, Paiz pretended Kongsore’s father, who had been
diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 85, gave her the money. The lie soured
the last two years the couple had together, as Kongsore’s father
questioned himself and his wife questioned him. “It was a total
violation of the type of feelings we would want to share with each other
at the end of their lives,” Kongsore says.
Illustration: Rebekka Dunlap
By
2016, her mother had become bedridden, eventually dying in June of that
year. Kongsore’s father died in December 2017, just weeks before Paiz
was sentenced to 10 months in jail. Paiz was caught and convicted thanks
to a dogged detective in Bellevue and the King County prosecutor’s
office in Seattle, which had established an elder abuse unit in 2001.
When Kongsore saw Paiz in the courtroom, she says she thought
to herself, “How could you do that to older people who could not protect
themselves?”
Adding insult to injury,
the bank where Paiz worked, Union Bank in Bellevue, didn’t return the
money until Kongsore scanned and emailed a bank investigator an
incriminating letter Paiz wrote her parents, Kongsore says. She adds
that the bank still hasn’t formally apologized. Union Bank didn’t
immediately respond to requests for comment. Paiz couldn’t be
immediately reached.
Financial exploitation is “a huge problem in the sense that it’s so profoundly destructive,” says Page
Ulrey, a senior deputy prosecutor who became the Seattle unit’s first
member. The bulk of her cases are financial, involving victims who rarely get their money back. “They’re usually emotionally devastated as a result of having been betrayed,” she says.
In
many cases, it may appear the victim gave consent, but it’s often based
on manipulation or deception. Like Kongsore’s father, victims
often “have some level of cognitive impairment, which makes it really
difficult for them to figure out the truth of what’s going on,” Ulrey
says.
As a result, many of her cases hinge on
showing incapacity. “Obviously, you have the right to give your money to
who you want, even if your family disapproves,” Ulrey says. But when
you suffer from dementia, you may no longer have the ability to judge
whether another person has your best interests at heart, or to
understand the consequences of your decisions.
If an
evaluation shows a victim lacks capacity to make financial decisions,
“we potentially have a stronger criminal case,” she says.
But
capacity assessment by adult protective services investigators and
police is uneven across the country. “Law enforcement doesn’t have good
tools to assess capacity,” Ulrey says, adding that most jurisdictions
lack people who can conduct thorough evaluations. (Click to Continue)
The children of Delores
Green claim their mother was repeatedly sexually assaulted while being a
resident at Christian Care Home. (Credit: KMOV)
NORTH ST. LOUIS COUNTY (KMOV.com)-- The family of an 84-year-old
great-grandmother has filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Christian Care
Home in Ferguson, Mo.
The children of Delores Green claim their
mother was repeatedly sexually assaulted while being a resident at the
facility located at the 800 block of Chambers Road.
Kyle Green, a son, told News 4, "When I found out what happened to my mother I was shocked and I was traumatized.”
"They failed her, they failed my mother, they failed her totally," said daughter, Colette Green.
According
to the family, Green had been a patient at the nursing home for eight
years, but recently Colette noticed bruising around the rectum and
vaginal areas while giving her mother a bath.
Colette Green said
management at the nursing home turned a deaf ear when she raised
concern, so she took her mother to the hospital where doctors determined
the 84-year old had been repeatedly sexually assaulted.
"Raped,
sodomized. And no telling when it started or how long it's been going
on. But we know one thing, it has to stop," said attorney Willie Gary.
Delores
Green suffers from a condition that causes her arms and legs to draw
up. According to the family, she also suffers from Alzheimer’s and would
have been unable to defend herself or tell anyone what happened to her.
The
Ferguson Police Department confirms it’s conducting a criminal
investigation over the allegations. Attorneys for the family hope the
size of the lawsuit serves as a wake-up call to any nursing home that’s
guilty of abuse or neglect.
"Unfortunately the system has failed
and it's not just in Miss Green's case. The system's failed a number of
times across the country, and these are the people, the voiceless,” said
attorney Richard Banks.
News 4 reached out to Christian Care Home for a response to the lawsuit but were told the staff wasn’t permitted to comment.
“The false impression out there
blaming families and relatives for 90% of elder abuse means that
guardians can protect their own paychecks by maligning families in
court, which they often do. It also means that the public is
distracted away from looking at the larger entities abusing the elderly
right under our noses.”
Most people believe that elder abuse
is all about Granny surrounded by family predators who just want to grab
her money and throw her to the wolves. You’ll hear plenty of rumblings
claiming that families and people closest to elders are responsible for
90 % of all elder abuse.
The National Care Planning Council is one of many who quote this figure. The article is titled “ Perpetrators of Elder Abuse are Usually Family Members:” . Even AARP claims that
“ You’d like to think that elder financial abuse is committed mostly by
strangers. You’d be wrong. In reality, it’s more likely to come at the
hands of family members and caregivers”
Why does everyone blame families?
The latest 2011 study done by MetLife shows that in terms of dollars stolen from elders,
families are not the most likely to steal the most dollars: After
examining three months of national news feeds, plus other data,
researchers determined that businesses stole $205,243,400; Family
members and friends stole $11,515,737, Strangers stole $7,612,513, and
Medicaid/Medicare fraud caused the most damage–$306,105,093.)
NAPSA (National Adult Protective Services Association)
is another organization that blames families for most of the elder
abuse that takes place today. Their figure again is 90%. Adult
Protective Services investigates domestic settings. Since most of us
don’t have lawyers or financial advisors living with us at home, my
guess is that these culprits have been left out of the equation.
Families obviously do financially
abuse elders, often by way of Power of Attorney, but few experts really
talk about financial abuse by the larger “protection” industries that
surround elders. Those systems sometimes exert more leverage against
elders than you’d think. How about your state? There are hidden ways
in which elders are abused for profit in this country, and you won’t see
these described in any MetLife study.
Consider that just in the state of
Maryland alone there’s a 6% bed tax that applies to nursing homes. The
healthcare provider applies for and is reimbursed by Medicaid for that
tax. You’d think those funds would then be matched by the state and
used to support the elderly who are IN those beds. Not so. At least 35%
of all federal Medicaid funds received in Maryland for the purpose of
supporting nursing homes can be diverted for other purposes by using a
process called IGTs, or “intergovernmental transfers” which enable this
practice. Many states use the same tactics as Maryland, and some states
don’t properly match federal Medicaid dollars with state funds. This
problem slips by, unnoticed due to the underhanded tactics using
Intergovernmental Transfers. California raised 3 billion in hospital
bed taxes in 2013, and only 40 million went to hospitals. (Daniel L.
Hatcher, The Poverty Industry, p. 140-142,
New York University Press, 2016} The sad part is that one of the
richest states, Maryland, receives the same score as one of the poorest
states—Mississippi–when it comes to Nursing Home Quality of care. That
score is a big fat D! (Ibid. p. 140} The strategy used by state IGTs
to fill the general state coffers basically steals money from the infirm
and elderly, leaving them to suffer, drugged to ease the pain caused
by deadly bedsores, broken bones, lack of care, and financial fleecing.
This, I’m sure also applies to fleecing the mentally ill, disabled,
children in the foster care system, and prisoners.
What’s happening in U.S. nursing
homes due to funds not been used as they should be–to increase staffing
–is FAR more egregious than kids fleecing Granny, as awful as that
situation is. Think BILLIONS of federal dollars being siphoned away
from care of the elderly. Yet a Granny at home being fleeced for a few
thousand dollars might command far more attention by AARP who targets
elders as customers for insurance. I’m not saying family abuse doesn’t
exist. Of course it does and it’s a horrific problem.
Families, though, are often
considered the enemy by those who are in the protection industry, yet in
many of the financial abuse cases involving family, the state courts
and the people who systematically work in those courts use family
financial abuse cases to “save” elders by deeming them incapacitated,
and changing their lives forever—
This process can take place in 15 minutes behind the closed doors without the victim being present.
The elder, declared to be in an
“emergency” situation (hearsay is acceptable—there are no high standards
for evidence) is officially stripped of fundamental rights then put
under the care of a professional for-profit individual guardian or
company who then charges outrageous unaudited fees to the elder’s
estate. Victims can’t do a thing about it because now have no rights. (If you would like to read how this system works, here are 450 documented cases.
) Without fundamental rights to make decisions (Granny has lost the
right to hire an attorney, and her family has “lost legal standing”) she
can be held in place like a bug pinned to a wall. She is usually
drugged in a nursing facility after the guardian sells her home and
belongings to ensure a nice paycheck for “services.” The family is
completely shut out in many cases.
For decades, families of victims have
complained about this removal of rights for profit. I receive hundreds
of complaints on my facebook page, www.facebook.com/boomersbeware.
State and county courts are using gag orders to keep families of
victims quiet. Meanwhile, guardians and/or conservators with complete
control over these elders, fleece their estates without accountability
or monitoring. If you still find all of this unbelievable, please read the New Yorker article about it:
The false impression out there
blaming families and relatives for 90% of elder abuse means that
guardians can protect their own paychecks by maligning families in
court, which they often do. It also means that the public is
distracted away from looking at the larger entities abusing the elderly
right under our noses.
“For
many years states have used varied financing schemes, sometimes
involving IGTs (intergovernmental transfers) to inappropriately increase
federal Medicaid matching payments. Some states, for example, receive
federal matching funds on the basis of large Medicaid payments to
certain providers, such as nursing homes operated by local governments,
which greatly exceed established Medicaid rates. In reality, the large
payments are often temporary, since states can require the
local-government providers to return all or most of the money to the
states. States can use these funds—which essentially make a round-trip
from the states to providers and back to the states—at their own
discretion.”
We’re accusing families, friends and
neighbors of causing problems for the aging population when there’s a
humungous plot out there to use the elderly as cash cows, and it isn’t
caused by family dysfunction. In fact, the intention of a lot of these
organizations seems to be to separate elders from their families in
order to make money.
