Tonight on Marti Oakley's TS Radio Network: Terri LaPoint of Real News Spark

5:00 pm PST…6:00 pm MST...7:00 pm CST…8:00 pm EST

Tonight, Terri Lapoint. publisher of Real News Spark, joins us to discuss her recent coverage of the hastened death of Marian Leonard in an Alabama hospice. Intentionally deprived of food and hydration, chemically restrained, Ms. Leonard succumbed August 24th as a result of the maltreatment. Ms. Leonard was fully aware that they were killing her, as was her daughter. The reason given for forcibly imprisoning Ms. Leonard against her will? She was “old”. The 103-year-old retired schoolteacher set a record for the 50 meter dash in the National Senior Games in New Mexico.

“Marian Leonard died in a nursing home that she was forced into by a judge in early 2018. Last month, her court-appointed guardian Sidney Summey restricted her from having any visitors except a token hour and a half visit twice per month from her daughter – the woman that Mrs. Leonard had designated as her chosen power of attorney, not just once, but 3 different times over a 30 year period.

She died alone. No family or friends were permitted to be with her in her final weeks. The guardian had even taken her away from her roommate, whom Nancy viewed as her mother’s “guardian angel.”

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You Too Could Become a Victim of an Elder Financial Scam

By Mary West

Financial scams are rampant and have many forms, making it especially hard to avoid them. In a 2012 survey titled Financial Fraud and Fraud Susceptibility in the United States by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, 80 percent of the respondents reported that they had been solicited by a person making a fraudulent offer. Once solicited, older adults were 34 percent more prone to victimization than younger adults in their forties. The losses can be devastating: according to a 2014 study by Allianz Life, on average, victims of elder financial abuse lose $36,000.

Remember the old adage, "If something
sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Seniors’ heightened vulnerability to fraud is due to an array of causes. Two factors that play a prominent role are the tactics used by scammers along with the inability of older adults to recognize red flags that indicate an offer isn’t legitimate. Since at one time or another you’re likely to encounter one of these schemes, and being familiar with the dirty tricks of the trade can help protect you from losing your money to a fraudster.

Scammers Use Tactics that Incite Strong Emotions

When scammers make their pitches, they say things that generate strong emotions. The older people are, the greater the likelihood that these emotion reactions will lead to their victimization. A study conducted by the Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL) compared the effects of strong emotions in adults between 65 and 85 years old, to those between 30 and 40 years old. The participants underwent tests that elicited strong positive emotions such as excitement, strong negative emotions such as anger, and neutral emotions such as boredom or depression. Each participant was place in a situation intended to provoke, one by one, these three emotions and after each one, presented with fraudulent ads to ascertain their interest.

The results showed that the older adults whose reacting was excitement or anger were more likely to purchase the item promoted in the misleading ads than those experiencing neutral emotions. Conversely, younger adults who felt excitement or anger weren’t more likely to have an interest in the fraudulent offers than those with neutral emotions. Regardless of their feelings, unlike the older participants, the younger adults’ interest depended upon how they perceived the ads’ credibility: the more credible they rated the offers, the more likely they wanted to purchase the products advertised. In a study done by UCLA in 2012, it was discovered that the area of the brain which warns us that something is not quite right, begins to diminish as early as our mid-forties. Additionally, we begin to lose our ability to absorb information, simultaneously analyzing it based on multiple logical criteria (so called “Fluid Intelligence”), and reach a well-considered decision. This makes financial decision-making problematic.

Authors of the SCL study concluded that the elderly are more susceptible to scams that generate emotions like excitement or anger. It was clear that “high-arousal” emotions such as excitement lead to risky decision-making compared to “low-arousal” emotions such as boredom. Strangely, even when older adults suspected that an add was misleading, their frustration or excitement would never-the-less cause them to want to purchase the fraudulent products. Unsurprisingly, an appeal to these feelings is a major persuasion tactic used by scammers who target the elderly.

The authors recommended sharing the findings with older adults so they can recognize the tactics used by scammers. Fraudsters tend to create excitement about an offer by the following means:

• They make promises of inflated financial gains.
• They pressure targets to make a decision quickly.
• They falsely claim that trusted sources are a part of the endeavor.

It’s always best to postpone any decision until the company’s background can be researched to verify its legitimacy.

Be Alert to Red Flags of Guaranteed or Unrealistic Gains

In the survey on fraud susceptibility, a main takeaway was that many Americans are unable to identify red flags associated with scams, especially older Americans and older women make up a larger proportion of those... They aren’t knowledgeable about what constitutes reasonable returns on investments, which makes them prone to believe fraudulent pitches with promises of “guaranteed” or inflated gains. In reality, all investments carry some risk, but mentions of unrealistic returns are a commonly used means of ensnaring the scam prey.

When the survey presented the respondents with two pitches that were full of red flags, a significant percentage of the participants found the fraudulent claims appealing rather than suspicious. Below are some examples of statements that 48 to 59 percent of the respondents rated appealing:

• “It guarantees the safety of the invested amount and even pays a 5% referral commission.”
• “The program pays from 2% to 3.4% daily depending on the investment plan you choose.”
• “We guarantee you will not lose your principle investment with our company.”

Further questions to gauge the participants’ ability to identify red flags showed the following promises were the most appealing:

• “This stock has outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average each year for the last 5 years.”
• “The lowest return you could possibly get on this investment is 50% annually, but most investors have made upwards of 110% a year.”

You can see how the excitement generated by such claims might override an elderly person’s normal good judgement and induce him or her to take a risk. Widowed women in their late seventies and older are particularly susceptible because so often it was only their husbands who dealt with the family finances.

Elder Financial Scams are Vastly Underreported

The fraud susceptibility survey cited underreporting as a problem that prevents policy makers from having accurate data reflecting the scope of financial scams among the elderly. It estimated 60 percent of fraud cases are unreported because of various factors such as embarrassment or a belief that it won’t make a difference.

To get a true picture of the incidence of financial scams, the survey respondents were asked about their experiences in two ways. As in past studies, they were asked directly if they had been the victim of a fraud. They were also questioned indirectly by inquiring about their experiences with financial offers that are rife with fraud such as email scams, lottery scams, free lunch seminars, boiler room sales, penny stock sales, and pyramid schemes. This research method that involved both direct and indirect questioning yielded a fuller view of fraud susceptibility. The inescapable finding was that elder financial scams are more pervasive than earlier research indicates.

The bottom line is to avoid talking to strangers on the phone as well as to refrain from responding to unsolicited mail invitations or emails. Moreover, don’t give out personal information to a stranger or allow someone to rush you into a decision. Talk to your elderly parents about scammers. Put a pad and pencil next to their telephone and suggest that they jot down all the details and go over them with you or a trusted friend before making a purchase. Above all, remember the old adage, “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Full Article & Source:
You Too Could Become a Victim of an Elder Financial Scam

Previous survey citations allowed in medical malpractice nursing home case, court rules

by  Danielle Brown

A resident’s family suing a nursing home and hospice facility for medical malpractice and wrongful death can use records from previous state investigations, including survey citations, a court of appeals has ruled. 

The Louisiana Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday to make the investigation records admissible after the Naomi Heights Nursing Home & Rehabilitation Center and Guardian Hospice Care in Alexandria, LA, appealed a previous decision. Bloomberg Law first reported on the ruling.
 
The facilities argued the records from investigations conducted by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals were inadmissible as “hearsay evidence.”

The court disagreed, noting an exemption is an “investigation of a particular complaint, case or incident, including an investigation into the facts and circumstances on which the present proceeding is based.”

The Louisiana DHH conducted unannounced investigations of both the nursing home and hospice facility in 2013, and cited it for various deficiencies, including failure to treat pressure ulcers properly.

The lawsuit was filed by Yvonne Sawyers and Patricia Hall on behalf of their mother, who died in November 2013. They allege the providers’ lack of medical care led to their mother contacting a stage four ulcer and sepsis.

Full Article & Source:
Previous survey citations allowed in medical malpractice nursing home case, court rules

International telemarketing fraud sees man convicted for scamming the elderly out of $10 million

by Dylan Gibbons

According to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) press release on August 20, a telemarketer has been sentenced to 63 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his involvement in a $10 million telemarketing scheme that stole money from primarily elderly victims in the U.S. through his call centers in Costa Rica.

“Carlin Woods, 35, of Merrillville, Indiana, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn Jr. of the Western District of North Carolina,” the DOJ said. “Woods pleaded guilty on May 15, 2017, to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.”

As part of his plea agreement, Woods admitted to working in a call center where co-conspirators falsely posed as U.S. employees of various government agencies to convince his mostly elderly and vulnerable victims that they had won a substantial “sweepstakes” prize. He and his co-conspirators, then, fraudulently told victims that up-front payments were required for a “refundable insurance fee” before receiving their prize.

According to the DOJ, they used various applications, such as “Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology” to obfuscate their locations and make it appear they were calling from a Washington, D.C. area code.

Acting as an authority figure or masquerading as a loved one, such as a grandchild, is a common tactic many fraudsters targeting the elderly use to gain trust in such cases. In the former instance, an official sounding department is enough; in the latter instance, fraudsters often say they’re the elderly person’s grandchild and then play a game of ‘guess who’ with the elderly person until they can take on the identity of one of the elderly’s actual relatives.

To receive payments, Woods utilized a system whereby victims would send money to Costa Rica or “through people in the United States who collected money from victims and forwarded the payment to Woods and others in Costa Rica, he admitted.”

When he was sentenced, it was determined that Woods and his co-conspirators stole more than $1.5 million from victims as a part of a larger network.

According to the DOJ, since President Trump signed the bipartisan Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act (EAPPA) into law, the DOJ has been able to participate in hundreds of additional criminal and civil cases that “targeted or disproportionately affected seniors.”

The DOJ says that this law enabled the DOJ to undergo the “largest elder fraud enforcement action in American history” in March alone, wherein more than 260 defendants were charged with some form of elder exploitation in a nationwide elder fraud sweep.

Full Article & Source:
International telemarketing fraud sees man convicted for scamming the elderly out of $10 million

We Say We Will Never Forget But Have We Already Forgotten?

As grandparents, we are the last Americans left who have memories of family members who went to war to protect our world and instilled in us the understanding of the importance of a population who honours that which so many before us were willingly to fight and died to safeguard.

During the months and months of arguing over individuals refusing to stand for the National Anthem, not a single journalist or op-ed writer discussed the meaning of its lyrics.

After a night of heavy bombardment, from British ships during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812, 35-year-old Francis Scott Key awoke to see our flag, the symbol of freedom, flying triumphantly over Fort McHenry and was inspired to write the proud and grateful words of “The Star-Spangled Banner”

Over the generations, many millions of people, on other mornings in other cities—across Belgium, Holland, France, the camps of Nazi Germany, and so many other places far from our shores—have awakened to the hope and joy of seeing that flag borne by young soldiers willing to risk their lives to defend the freedom it stands for.

Now those freedoms are in peril. We seem to be more interested in tearing apart this country than protecting it.

Can’t we, as grandparents, help our grandchildren understand that though as a people we are not perfect, and neither is our system, there is great value in what those young people died to protect? That respecting the views of others, listening to what they have to say, and finding compromise is the only way to honor it?

If we cannot come together in agreement that there is something worth defending at the heart of America, then we will fall. And if we fall, the world will fall.

Full Article & Source:
We Say We Will Never Forget But Have We Already Forgotten?

The Elder Abuse Reform Now Project (EARN) Presents: The Unforgivable Truth: How We Have Turned America's Greatest Generation into America's Abused Generation

JOIN The EARN Project

Many view assisted living as just housing, not health care. That’s dangerous

By Ed Dudensing and Anthony Chicotel

A new therapeutic and healing garden was opened at the Eskaton Care Center Greenhaven for residents to use. California’s rapidly aging population, and the challenges posed by this so-called “gray wave,” have sparked much discussion among health care experts and policymakers. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Master Plan for Aging, scheduled to be unveiled next year, affirms the need for decisive and strategic action. Reforming the assisted living industry must be a part of this strategy.

The graying of California has been a boon for assisted living programs, as families look for alternatives to traditional nursing homes for loved ones who are living longer. Assisted living centers appear attractive because they more closely resemble homes than hospitals, with comfortable living spaces, social programs and other amenities.

But as the popularity of assisted living continues to grow – and with it the economic clout of corporate owners – oversight and sound health care standards and practices have lagged, imperiling vulnerable people. We can attest to this firsthand: Recently, one of us represented the family of a 77-year-old resident of the long-term care mega-provider Eskaton, who choked to death after she was given powerful sedatives to chemically restrain her.

The tragedy, which resulted in a record $42.5 million verdict against Eskaton by a Sacramento jury, raised questions that go to the heart of assisted living policy in California: Why was a powerful psychotropic drug, in this case Ativan, improperly administered? Why were staffing levels and training inadequate to ensure safe and effective care? Why was oversight lacking, both inside the facility and on the part of regulators?

The answer lies in our dangerous tendency to view assisted living as housing, rather than health care. The level of care required by some assisted living residents can be indistinguishable from the level of care required by some patients in skilled nursing facilities.

Yet staffing and training requirements are far lower for assisted living programs, which, for example, don’t require a physician or nurse on-site, and do not have any minimum staff-to-resident ratios. Rising demand has only intensified the workload for assisted living staff. And the drive for profits creates an incentive to keep staffing levels lean and training minimal.

Powerful psychotropic drugs of such as Ativan may in some cases have therapeutic benefits, but they also are potentially dangerous and must be used judiciously under a physician’s order and supervision. Even though assisted living programs are required to have a medical doctor sign off on a particular medication’s use, undertrained and overworked staff often are left to make real-time decisions, especially when a resident is expressing discomfort through unruly behavior or not following instructions. This has become an issue particularly in popular memory care units, where Alzheimer and other dementia patients reside.

Since the Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly Act was passed in 1985, there have been numerous efforts to bolster oversight. Unfortunately, most reforms have focused on industry issues such as licensing and liability, and less on quality of care. While there have been additions to the state Health and Safety Code to include tiered “levels of care,” implementation has not followed.

Assisted living has many advantages. But if we are to be successful in caring for our growing ranks of elderly citizens, California needs to reset how it regulates the industry, increasing training, staffing levels and physician and nursing involvement.

This may impact the bottom line, but business priorities can’t supersede delivering responsible long-term care. This is a challenge we all – the governor, Legislature, industry and individual citizens – must confront head-on.

Ed Dudensing is a former deputy district attorney for Sacramento County who represents victims of nursing home and assisted living facility neglect and abuse. Anthony Chicotel is a staff attorney for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

Full Article & Source:
Many view assisted living as just housing, not health care. That’s dangerous

See also:
Eskaton Verdict (based on original trial briefs)

Daughter ordered to pay restitution in Lawrence County exploitation case

 By Jeff Lehr

MOUNT VERNON, Mo. — A rural Cassville woman entered an Alford plea this week to a charge of financial exploitation of the elderly with respect to use of her mother's Social Security checks while she was in a nursing home.

Megan C. Curran, 33, entered the plea Wednesday in Lawrence County Circuit Court, where she had been scheduled to go to trial on the charge.

An Alford plea admits no guilt but acknowledges the likelihood of a conviction if the matter were to proceed to trial. Curran entered the plea as part of a plea agreement with the Lawrence County prosecutor's office that called for a suspended sentence and probation.

Circuit Judge Jack Goodman accepted the plea deal and assessed Curran five years for the conviction, but he suspended execution of the sentence and placed her on supervised probation instead for five years. The judge also ordered that she pay $775 in restitution.

A probable-cause affidavit states that the defendant's mother was placed in the Lawrence County Manor in January 2017 and that the defendant signed paperwork at the time committing all of her mother's Social Security income to payment of her bills there. The affidavit alleged that in four months' time, the defendant accrued $775 of her mother's income for other purposes. The document states that she told an investigator with Mount Vernon police that she used the money to buy her mother personal items.

Full Article & Source: 
Daughter ordered to pay restitution in Lawrence County exploitation case

David Really Can Slay Goliath But First He Must Show Up

Marcel Reid Definitely Showed Up

It has been more than 10 years since Marcel Reid attended a Whistleblower Conference conducted by the Government Accountability Project. She understood the important place the whistleblower plays in maintaining the safety and well-being of the American public and, though she never expected to become a whistleblower herself, the need for laws that will protect whistleblowers from retribution.

Sometime later, and most unexpectedly, Marcel herself become a whistleblower. This inspired her to take all that she had learned at the GAP meeting and, over the years following, to create her own organization. In 2012 they conducted their first summit with a very small audience, just a few whistleblowers, and the support of only three organizations. 

This July, their four-day summit will have 70 organizations supporting them and close to 1000 participants.

Since they began in 2012, more and more states are instituting laws to protect whistleblowers and the safety of the American public is in much better shape because of these heroic individuals. Marcel’s organization has done wonderful things in just seven years and we will watch with great enthusiasm their continued activities.

We encourage anyone who would be in or near Washington DC between July 29th and August 1st to attend. You will be glad you did!

Watch for a profile of Marcel and her organization in our September issue.

Full Article & Source:
David Really Can Slay Goliath  But First He Must Show Up

The Elder Abuse Reform Now Project (EARN) Presents: The Unforgivable Truth: How We Have Turned America's Greatest Generation into America's Abused Generation

JOIN The EARN Project

The Legal Dangers of Living Together

An estate planning lawyer's cautionary advice for unmarried couples

 By Brad Wiewel

For couples over 50, living together has a lot of appeal and is on the rise. In fact, the number of unmarried couples who are 50+ shot up 75% between 2007 and 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. One likely reason: many have experienced at least one difficult divorce, so they’re gun-shy about remarrying and potential legal entanglements if things don’t work out.

Unfortunately, however, as with many things in life, what seems simple — living together — is often quite complex. Unmarried couples, of all sexual orientations, can face a variety of problematic and emotionally difficult issues because estate planning laws are written to favor married couples.

Living Together: ‘Legal Strangers’

Consider for example, what will happen if an unmarried couple doesn’t plan for the possibility that one partner will no longer be able to manage his or her health care due to a serious medical issue. At that point, the law will treat the other partner very harshly.

Without appropriate advance planning, courts are generally forced to rely on blood kin to fill financial and medical decision-making roles.

For example, if a married person is rushed to the hospital unconscious and hadn’t prepared a health care power of attorney giving the other spouse the right to make medical decisions on his or her behalf, that husband or wife  will probably be allowed to make them anyway. But if an unmarried couple is in this same situation, the law will consider them to be “legal strangers.” Therefore, the partner who is not incapacitated will have no right to make medical decisions on behalf of the other.

Now, certainly there might be a hospital willing to bend the rules in this situation, but it’s unlikely. By doing so, the hospital would expose itself to liability issues should a blood relative of the incapacitated person — a sibling or an adult child, for example — challenge the medical facility’s decision.

When Money Is Imbalanced

Another serious financial problem could arise when an unmarried partner becomes incapacitated without proper estate planning. Say the couple consists of an older, wealthier partner and someone substantially younger and they have an understanding that the older partner will support their lifestyle. Then, suddenly, the older partner becomes ill and can no longer manage the couple’s finances.

Under such a scenario, unless the older partner had given the younger one financial power of attorney, that older partner’s assets will probably be frozen by his or her financial institutions; the younger partner won’t be able to access them. Furthermore, a court action might be necessary to unfreeze the assets, which would take time and money.

Without appropriate advance planning on the part of the ill partner, courts are generally forced to rely on blood kin to fill financial and medical decision-making roles. The younger partner would lose control of those assets and could even be evicted if the couple’s home is owned solely by the partner who is ill and no longer able to manage their finances.

Both of those scenarios could have been avoided if the unmarried partners had executed key estate-planning documents while they were healthy and competent, including a durable power of attorney, a medical power of attorney and a living will (which applies to end-of-life decisions). Many states call the latter two documents advanced health care directives or health care proxies. A living trust could also have helped avoid the problematic financial issues.

The Need for a HIPAA Release

Unmarried couples also need to get signed HIPAA releases. HIPAA is a federal health privacy law that prevents medical facilities and health care professionals from sharing a patient’s medical information with anyone not designated on the person’s HIPAA release form. You can find HIPAA release forms online, but it’s best to get them from estate planning attorneys to ensure they’re up-to-date and correct.

Unmarried couples can also face difficult legal situations when one of them dies. Without the proper legal documents, the surviving partner won’t be entitled to make decisions regarding the donation of the deceased’s organs or arrange for the person’s burial or cremation. These problems can be avoided either by pre-planning through a funeral provider or — if their state allows — by signing a document giving the other partner the right to make final arrangements on behalf of the deceased.

Living Together and Then Dying Without a Will

Here’s another potential problem for unmarried couples: If the deceased failed to write a will or set up a living trust, the state will distribute his or her assets and what are known as intestate laws (for people who die without wills) don’t recognize a surviving unmarried partner. Therefore, he or she won’t be legally entitled to inherit any of the assets. Instead, they’ll go to the deceased’s blood relatives, such as his or her children or siblings.

By contrast, if a married partner dies without a will or a living trust in a community property state, the surviving spouse is automatically entitled to inherit as much as half the value of the deceased’s assets. (Those states are  Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.) In other states, the surviving spouse would be entitled to receive an “elective share,” a part of the estate that the surviving spouse can “elect” or choose to receive.

Home, Not-So-Sweet Home

Then there’s the matter of a couple’s home.

Although laws in some states give a surviving spouse the automatic right to occupy the couple’s home for life, that’s not the case for a surviving unmarried partner.

An unmarried couple could avoid this problem if the partner who owns their residence gives the other this right by specifying it in their will or living trust. Also, in some states, if the unmarried homeowner has a Transfer on Death deed, the home would automatically go to the other partner. One caveat: if the owner partner became incapacitated, the only way the other one would have a legal right to remain in the home during the incapacity would be if this was spelled out in a living trust.

401(k)s, Life insurance and IRAs

What about retirement funds and life insurance proceeds?

Sadly, if an unmarried partner owned assets like a 401(k) or a employer-sponsored group life insurance policy and died, the other partner won’t be legally entitled to those assets unless he or she was designated as the beneficiary. Otherwise, the assets will go to the deceased’s blood relatives. Of course, if the couple were married, the surviving spouse would automatically be entitled to funds in the deceased’s 401k and proceeds from the life insurance, unless someone else was named a beneficiary.

Beneficiary designations also control Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and privately-owned life insurance. So, unless the unmarried partner is named as the beneficiary for those, he or she won’t be entitled to those funds either.

The lesson for couples living together: protect your finances and your emotional health by getting your estate-planning documents in order.

Full Article & Source:
The Legal Dangers of Living Together