IN Judge Peter Nemeth Sanctioned Before Retirement

The state Supreme Court has privately reprimanded a former northern Indiana probate judge.

The South Bend Tribune reports that Peter Nemeth agreed to the sanction last month, before he retired as St. Joseph County probate judge. Nemeth had served as a probate judge since 1993.

The Judicial Qualifications Commission filed a misconduct charge against Nemeth in August claiming he violated the code of judicial conduct during a 2011 guardianship hearing by suggesting it was inappropriate for taxpayers to pay for a sign language interpreter for a woman seeking custody of a deaf teenager when she "hadn't paid taxes for several years."

Nemeth has said he doesn't believe he did anything wrong.

Full Article and Source:
N. Ind. Judge Sanctioned Before Retirement

See Also:
Now Retired Judge Sanctioned During Last Weeks on Bench

Data Gaps Hamper Elderly-Abuse Review in VT

Vermont has made big progress in clearing up a backlog of investigations into reports of abuse, neglect and financial exploitation of the elderly and other vulnerable adults, according to both critics and defenders of the state’s Adult Protective Services system.

But there’s concern among some lawmakers and advocates that the division of the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living may be clearing the backlog, in part, by being too selective in taking new cases.

And the department’s commissioner acknowledged in an interview and in testimony to the House Human Services Committee that there are big gaps in the data used by lawmakers trying to measure the division’s performance.

The House Human Services Committee heard testimony Thursday that APS failed to intervene in a Bennington County case of an 89-year-old woman whose daughter was threatening to kill her.

Sandy Conrad, executive director of the Southwestern Vermont Area Agency on Aging, said repeated calls from her office to APS beginning at 1:13 p.m. on a Friday in November drew no response until the following Monday. After a cursory review, APS sent a letter to Conrad’s agency saying, “The available evidence indicated that abuse, neglect or exploitation did not occur,” she told the committee.

Despite appeals to more senior APS staff, there’s been “nothing to date that changes this decision,” Conrad said. “And that perpetrator still lives in that household and is still a threat to that situation.”

Full Article and Source:
Data Gaps Hamper Elderly-Abuse Review in VT

GA Woman Convicted of Elder Abuse

Former Cedar Grove Middle School secretary Bobbie Neil Ward is facing decades in prison after a DeKalb jury found her guilty of 21 of 25 counts of wide-ranging crimes against disabled and elderly victims on Jan. 16.

Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 25.

Ward was on trial on a 25-count indictment of abuse and exploitation of disabled adults, identity fraud, forgery, false imprisonment, and neglect and exploitation of an elderly person.

A grand jury said she committed the crimes between August 2006 and November 2011 when she claimed to own a home health care service but instead fraudulently used bank accounts, pensions and Social Security numbers of her clients.

During her trial, which began on Jan. 7, DeKalb Superior Court Judge Tangela Barrie severed two of the counts – one count for aggravated assault and one count for disabled adult abuse – from the indictment.

Ward will face those charges at a later date.

DeKalb District Attorney Robert James applauded the guilty verdict and said justice was served.

Full Article and Source;
Woman Convicted of Elder Abuse

Dear Abby:

DEAR ABBY - My husband's younger sister, "Cindy," is mentally ill. She has caused tremendous problems in the family. She has been arrested too many times to remember and is now on five years' probation for injury to a child. My in-laws continue making excuses for her and are the worst enablers I have ever known.

My husband once urged his dad to put Cindy into a group home or program that will take care of her because his parents are getting up in years. They refuse because it would mean they'd have to have Cindy officially committed, and they think there is still some magic doctor out there who will fix her.

Can my husband do anything as a last effort before something happens to one of his parents, or she winds up in jail?
~SAD IN TEXAS

DEAR SAD - Your husband should try to convince his parents to get some family counseling. It might help them accept that their daughter needs more help than they are equipped to give her. An outside, objective person should weigh in so that Cindy can get the professional help she so obviously needs.

If she is physically, psychologically or emotionally abusing her parents, Adult Protective Services can step in to be sure they are protected. When your in-laws pass away, if your sister-in-law becomes a danger to herself or those around her, a family member can request a commitment and psychological evaluation.

Source:
Dear Abby

Wife Accused of Fraudulently Collecting $100K + In Personal Care Attendent Salary

A Chisago County resident was prominently featured in stories by metro news outlets last year, describing her legal ordeal contesting end-of-life measures for her 85-year-old husband. In recent months, though, the story has expanded from a tale of human emotion to include alleged Medicaid fraud. Franconia Township resident Lana Barnes, is facing seven criminal charges of theft by false representation. She is accused of taking more than $100,000 from the system designed to compensate attendants who provide care for the seriously ill in their home. Barnes, (who turns 58 on Jan. 17) rather unceremoniously lost her guardianship rights in early 2011 concerning her frail husband Al.

The probate court reacted to Barnes having altered Al’s medical care directive papers, omitting two pages of the 1993 directive when she presented the papers to a hospital in December 2010. The statements omitted were contradicting her assertions that he’d stipulated aggressive, life sustaining care. The theft charges came March 2012 as a result of Chisago County Public Health and Human Services staff and state officials in the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the MN Attorney General looking into paychecks for Al Barnes’ personal care attendant (PCA). According to the criminal complaint Lana Barnes intentionally mis-represented to Nurse Staffing Solutions that her son Fred had provided personal nursing services for Al. Spouses are not permitted under Medicaid to collect wages as a PCA.

Other family members may, however, qualify as a PCA. The problem was that the son Fred, an over-the-road truck driver, was not at home on Quinlan Avenue but was driving when his PCA timesheets claimed hours from Nurse Staffing Solutions. PCA providers like Nurse Staffing Solutions, administer the attendants’ participation in the program and distribute wages to approved PCAs. The complaint also alleges that Chisago County social workers were concerned that some of the PCA hours submitted overlapped with when Al was hospitalized. Medicaid does not cover costs for a PCA when the client is hospitalized. The complaint alleges Barnes’ timecards covering about $22,000 in pay, between July 2009 and May 2010, coincided with Al’s hospital stays.

The complaint declares that when the state investigator contacted Fred he said he had been accepted as his father’s PCA in 2005. By 2006 he was driving truck, and his mother managed all the paperwork relating to his father’s care. Fred denies completing, signing or submitting any PCA time cards. He reportedly told the fraud unit investigator he knew Lana Barnes was receiving his PCA paychecks and he should not have let this continue, the complaint states. “Overpayments” based on Fred’s trucking logs and company payroll records between Jan. 2007 to May 31, 2010 amounted to $100,973. Due to the complexities of this case and the amount of the alleged fraud, Chisago County Attorney Janet Reiter said prosecution is being handled by the state, in court proceedings in Center City.

Full Article and Source:
Franconia Resident Accused of Fraudulently Collecting $100,000 Plus in Personal Care Attendent Salary

See Also:
Shocking Surprise in Al Barnes Case!

Editorial: Protect Against Nebraska Guardianship Abuses

In 2010, a World-Herald investigation found that more than 12,400 incapacitated Nebraskans rely on a guardian to oversee their health, a conservator to handle their financial matters or a guardian-conservator to handle both.

In some instances, The World-Herald reporting uncovered troubling abuses. Especially outrageous was the case of Dinah Turrentine-Sims, a court-appointed guardian-conservator who stole more than $400,000 from eight of her wards in Douglas County.

In response, a state task force proposed sensible changes. Key tools included requiring background checks, bond insurance for estates over $10,000 and quicker cataloging of assets. In 2011 the Legislature included those as part of a practical reform package, and the Nebraska judges and court personnel have worked hard to implement the needed safeguards.

In his annual State of the Judiciary address to the Legislature last week, Nebraska Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Heavican said the increased monitoring under the reforms “has uncovered further instances of theft and misuse of funds by guardians and conservators.”

In addition, he said, the Supreme Court is creating a permanent Commission on Guardianships and Conservatorships to provide an ongoing vehicle for maintaining the focus on this important issue.
A cautionary note is needed on one of the chief justice’s points, however. He said the new requirements involving guardianship forms and procedures have increased the workload of court staffers, and the Supreme Court is working with the Nebraska State Bar Association to see how the process can be simplified.

No one doubts the hard work by Nebraska’s courts, and if practical ways can be found to help court staff without lessening the safeguards to protect incapacitated Nebraskans, fine. But there needs to be no doubt on what the priority should be: maintaining the full strength of the protections for these vulnerable citizens, as set forth in the 2011 reform legislation.

Source:
World-Herald Editorial:  Protect Against Nebraska Guardianship Abuses

See Also:
Nebraska: Chief Justice:  Guardianship Initiates Show Success

Tonight on T.S. Radio: Meet Your Hospitalist!

This evening we will be discussing one of the newest booming medical industries; the Hospitalist and why you should avoid them at all costs in most cases.

Beverly will be discussing the Sarasota, Florida, sheriff department efforts to have people admitted to hospitals sign total waivers on their constitutional rights and their right to medical privacy. All of this just in time for the one-sided crackdown on prescription drug users. Of course no real effort will be expended to go after the manufacturers and distributors. And there certainly will not be any action taken against Doctors who prescribe chemical restraints for the elderly using drugs prohibited for use on the elderly.

This would be particularly handy in the case of elder abduction at the hands of professional predators. Not knowing what they were signing, they could actually be facilitating their own waiver of rights in every area….and would be declared incompetent immediately afterwards.

The law enforcement coding/billing system and the answer to why law enforcement will not report or respond to reports of abuse, kidnap and neglect of elderly individuals by family members.
Lots to talk about! We will be taking calls if you have something to add!  917-388-4520

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

LISTEN live or listen to the archive later

Guardian Charged After Disabled 19-Year-Old Allegedly Sold for Sex

A Woodbury woman has been charged with neglecting a vulnerable adult after she allegedly dropped off a profoundly disabled 19-year-old woman -- who was in the suspect's care -- at locations where she was forced to have sex with numerous men last summer, court documents say.

Cheryl Ann Tchida, 50, is charged with a gross misdemeanor, and on Friday police said more arrests are possible.

The Ramsey County criminal complaint says Tchida was sole guardian and caretaker of the 19-year-old, whose identity isn't being published because she's an alleged sex assault victim. She has the IQ of a 5- or 6-year-old and cannot tell time or manage most of her daily activities.

Tchida dropped off the victim at a Roseville motel and later at an apartment in the 300 block of Dale Street on repeated occasions for nearly six weeks, though the younger woman kept telling her guardian that she was being forced to have sex with men she didn't know. She was impregnated last summer but doesn't know by whom, court papers say.

The case is raising concerns as well about the victim's guardianship.
Washington County had allowed Tchida to become guardian of the victim after she turned 18, even though Tchida was earlier convicted of neglecting a baby who was abused in her unlicensed day-care center.
The 19-year-old victim is now in a group home.

Full Article and Source:
Guardian Charged After Disabled Woodbury Teen Allegedly Sold For Sex

Workers, Not Babysitters

Some very welcome news may break soon for the domestic workforce: the White House appears to be close to announcing a rule change to the Federal Labor Standards Act, finally including home health aides—those who bathe, nurse, toilet, and care for the elderly and disabled in their homes—in its protections. It may sound out of another century, and it is, but home health care workers had been excluded from federal overtime and minimum wage protections through a companionship exemption. It was designed to leave out only those who provided company, but had become so widely interpreted as to encompass a vital, booming workforce. The administration has long been sitting on the decision to change the rule, but outgoing Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis recently told The Nation, “there’ll be movement on that. We’ll shortly see progress made there.”

If and when this change is announced, this workforce will be formally recognized as “workers,” not babysitters making pin money.

Full Article and Source:
Workers, Not Babysitters