TBI case against Franklin County attorney appointed to conservatorship results in theft indictment

CHATTANOOGA - The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s case into a Franklin County attorney assigned by a court to be a conservator over the estate of a woman in failing health resulted in an indictment by the Franklin County grand jury. He surrendered to authorities this afternoon.

Joseph Bean Jr., 41, of Winchester, was indicted on one count of theft or property over $10,000. Between October of 2009 and March of 2012, Bean, who was the court appointed conservator over the estate of the victim, stole more than $42,000 from her conservatorship account. Bean made payments from the victim’s conservatorship account to his American Express account, Bank of America mortgage account, a Community Bank loan account and his Toyota Motors account. Bean was appointed the conservatorship of the victim’s estate due to her failing health. He was the sole party with authorized access to her account to pay her bills and other financial obligations. The victim of the theft is now deceased.

In May of 2013, the 12^th Judicial District Attorney General’s office requested TBI to investigate the theft after the attorney over the victim’s estate reported it to him. Bean was booked today into the Franklin County Jail on $7,500 bond.

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TBI case against Franklin County attorney appointed to conservatorship results in theft indictment

Petition: Mandatory Liability Insurance for California's Assisted Living Facilities

The State of California does not require an assisted living facility (also known as a residential care facility for the elderly (RCFE) to carry liability insurance, either at the time the facility is licensed or any time during the life of the business. Whether a licensee (RCFE owner) carries liability insurance is entirely at the discretion of the licensee.

YET, California allows RCFEs to care for increasing numbers of hospice, bedridden, and other medically needy residents, but does not require any skilled medical professionals to be employed by the facilities. Simply put – this is a recipe for neglect and abuse. And worse, there is no reasonable mechanism for residents and their families to obtain meaningful accountability from these facilities when the resident is injured, made sick or dies at the hand of the licensee.

A judgment against an uninsured facility sued for wrongful death due to the neglect or abuse of a resident, is useless if the facility does not carry liability insurance. The facility receives a monetary judgment, but because there is no liability insurance to pay the judgment to the aggrieved family, the facility owner unable to pay the judgment - files bankruptcy. Few civil litigators will take a contingency case against an RCFE if the RCFE is uninsured. In either case, the family is left holding an empty bag.

CARR’s findings are that 87% of facilities in its database do not carry liability insurance at the time they are licensed. The odds are high that most residents in California live in facilities that do not carry liability insurance at all.

California must do a better job of protecting the frail, elderly, and medically needy residents living in assisted living. The decision to protect the elderly and their families can no longer be left to the licensee.

Mandatory Liability Insurance for RCFEs is both NECESSARY and OVERDUE! for three reasons: Moral Imperative, Accountability and Fairness.
• Moral Imperative: Elders and their families are at the mercy of uninsured RCFEs when the elder is injured, made ill, or suffers death at the hand of the licensee.
• Accountability: Current state regulations afford limited avenues for the family to hold the licensee accountable for harm suffered.
• Fairness: Why are frail elders not protected against ‘defective’ care delivered by RCFE owners?

Every licensed driver in California must carry liability insurance. Yet, over 8,000 assisted living facilities in California, carrying for 200,000 frail and medically needy residents, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without benefit of skilled medical professionals being on the staff of these facilities are exempt from carrying liability insurance.

CARR says, ENOUGH. The time for accountability is now.

For the older adult in each of us, please join CARR in demanding this common sense consumer protection for all: Require that all California residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs) carry mandatory liability insurance.

CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS - SIGN THE PETITION!

Care giver charged with financial exploitation

HARRISBURG   — Harrisburg woman has been charged with stealing over $10,000 from an elderly person, according to a bill of information released by Saline County State’s Attorney Mike Henshaw.

Saline County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested Kimberly Jean Ital, 45, 23 E. Rose St., Harrisburg, 5 p.m. Sept. 18 on charges of financial exploitation of the elderly, theft over $10,000 and three counts of aggravated identity theft. She remains held at the Saline County Detention Center on $15,000 cash bond.

Ital was a paid care giver to Karen Phelps who is over 70 years of age. According to the bill of information the charges of financial exploitation and theft over $10,000 stemmed from Ital, being in a position of trust and confidence, obtaining through deception $25,675 from Phelps.

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Care giver charged with financial exploitation

Ex-District Judge Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison

BROWNSVILLE - A judge sentenced former district judge Abel Limas to six years in prison for one count of racketeering. Limas was also ordered to forfeit $257,000 in property he owns and pay more than $6 million in restitution.

Limas was the focus of a corruption case at the Cameron County courthouse. He pleaded guilty more than two years ago and has testified in four trials related to the case.

The ex-judge confessed to accepting bribes for favorable court rulings. He also admitted to taking more than $250,000 from four attorneys.

In court today, his defense attorney said Limas was rehabilitated and did everything asked of him. Limas apologized for embarrassing the judiciary system and his family.

He left the courthouse without any comment about his sentence.

Former Cameron County district attorney Yolando De Leon called the outcome "a good recognition of the damage done to many, many people, many institutions."

But Limas' attorney Chip Lews said, "I think it's exorbitant. Given all the assistance Abel Limas gave the federal government, one would expect a lighter sentence."

The former judge will report to federal prison in a couple of months. Until then, he is a free man.

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Ex-District Judge Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison

Prescriber Checkup: Lifting the veil on dangerous prescribing

Federal officials were skeptical two years ago when ProPublica asked them to release a database of prescriptions written in Medicare's landmark drug plan, known as Part D.

The data details the prescribing habits of more than 1 million doctors and other health professionals who treat Medicare patients. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had never allowed any outsider, let alone journalists, to have access to such records, which include identity codes for individual providers.

In the months that followed, ProPublica reporters argued that freeing this data could help patients assess the prescribing patterns of their health providers. The reporters pointed out that the stringent laws on the confidentiality of medical records were written to protect the privacy of patients, not doctors.

After months of high-level deliberation, CMS, to its credit, agreed to release the records -- and to unveil one of medicine's biggest secrets.

In examining the data, our reporters found powerful indications that Medicare has not done all it could to oversee its drug plan.

Some of our nation's most vulnerable citizens rely on this program -- the elderly and disabled. We found that some doctors were prescribing antipsychotic drugs to large numbers of seniors -- an age group for which such medicines are particularly hazardous. Others were writing unusually high numbers of prescriptions for painkillers and other dangerous drugs. Reporters systematically examined these cases, interviewing the doctors about their prescribing decisions. In some cases, they could explain their conduct. In others, they could not.

They all had one thing in common: None of the doctors whose prescribing habits stood out in our analysis had ever been questioned by Medicare officials. Government overseers, our reporters found, didn't consider it their job to examine these patterns or act upon them.

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Prescriber Checkup: Lifting the veil on dangerous prescribing

CPA Disbarred for Stealing from Daughter’s Trust Fund

The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday that its Office of Professional Responsibility has prevailed in seeking the disbarment of David O. Christensen after he was convicted of theft for misappropriating funds as the conservator of his daughter’s trust account.

Christensen’s CPA licenses in Washington and Oregon had been revoked previously as a result of his conviction.

In a final agency decision, the IRS administrative law judge declined to grant a request by Christensen to continue in a limited practice as a tax return preparer, and instead, disbarred him from all practice before the IRS. The judge found that Christensen’s conviction for theft, along with the revocation of his CPA licenses, constituted disreputable conduct under Circular 230.  Christensen had argued that he should be permitted to continue to prepare tax returns because his theft conviction resulted from a family matter that had nothing to do with his tax preparation practice before the IRS.

“OPR strives to protect the integrity of the tax system from unscrupulous and incompetent practitioners regardless of how those traits become known,” said OPR director Karen L. Hawkins in a statement.

Agreeing with OPR’s proposed sanction, the administrative law judge held that the seriousness of Christensen’s offense warranted disbarment from practicing before the IRS finding, that the “respondent has displayed a lack of integrity, including in his testimony at trial, in attempting to distinguish his professional actions from his ‘father-daughter’ relationship.”

Christensen is therefore prohibited from any practice, including tax preparation, before the IRS for a five-year period.

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CPA Disbarred for Stealing from Daughter’s Trust Fund

Rothstein Estate Gets Revenue From Versace Mansion Auction

Law360, Miami (September 18, 2013, 4:39 PM ET) -- Almost $700,000 of the $41.5 million sale price of Gianni Versace's former South Beach mansion will go toward the estate of Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein's law firm, an attorney for the mansion's owner told a Florida bankruptcy court Wednesday.

Lawrence Pecan of Marshall Socarras Grant PL told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurel M. Isicoff that the estate of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler PA would receive $692,109 of the auction proceeds under a deal hammered out in January settling a $4.92 million secured claim asserted by the law firm's...

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Rothstein Estate Gets Revenue From Versace Mansion Auction

This Man's Shocking Story of Elder Financial Abuse Will Make You Hug Your Grandparents

“I should preface this by saying that my brother has always been a sociopath,” Brian Litwak told me. “But I had no other choice than to trust him because the doctor had told him, but not me, that I was supposed to die in six months.”

 

A former teacher, he tells his tale in a nonchalant, matter-of-fact voice. At 78 he's wrinkled and pale, but his eyes still twinkle and his memory seems precise. I hear flickers of anger as he sits, cane in hand, in an armchair across from me.

 

He has reason to be upset. 

 

Brian is a victim of the financial side of elder abuse. His younger brother, he tells me, stole thousands of dollars from him when Brian moved into an assisted living home in Tucson in 2003..

 

He came to Tucson from California with about $250,000 and ended up with $12,000. The money, which Brian earned over 33 years as a teacher, started to disappear after his brother was granted a [pwer of attorney to take care of his health issues and finances.

Although his brother thought he didn't have much time left, Brian soldiered on. In 2008, he visited his technologically savvy son in San Francisco, who finally uncovered that Brian’s brother had lied to him about how much his California condominium had sold for (he thought it went for $139,000, he says it actually sold for $295,000).

"Feeling there was something wrong" when he returned to Tucson, Brian unsuccessfully tried to broach the subject with his brother. Things took a turn for the worse when he got a letter from Medicare that said that because he hadn’t paid his fees for five months and was suspended from the program. His brother, he said, had been neglecting these payments.

“That’s very scary for an old person, not to have medical coverage,”he said.

Brian is not alone. More than 500,000 adults will be abused or neglected annually, and that number is probably an underestimate because many people are likely too scared or otherwise unable to seek help.

This is especially concerning when you take into account that the elder population is rapidly increasing. By 2050, 20 percent of the population will be made up of people who are 65 and older, and the fastest growing portion of the population is people 85 and up.

Thankfully, Handmaker — the assisted living home where Brian lives — has a policy where if you’ve been living at their facility for at least three years and your money runs out, they don’t kick you out. Handmaker also doesn't look like your typical assisted living home. With long, wide hallways, tall ceilings and a plethora of windows, it almost has a university feel to it.

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This Man's Shocking Story of Elder Financial Abuse Will Make You Hug Your Grandparents

Family Court judge to face disciplinary hearing in December

The Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline has set a Dec. 2 public hearing in Las Vegas into allegations Family Court Judge Steven Jones mishandled a romantic relationship with a prosecutor who appeared before him.

The hearing had been scheduled for July 29, but Jones and his lawyers mounted an 11th-hour campaign at the Nevada Supreme Court and District Court to block it.

Both courts denied the judge’s bid, but the hearing had to be put off amid the legal wrangling.
Jones contended the judicial commission failed to follow its own rules when investigating him and violated his due process rights.

Commission lawyers maintained the judge’s rights were protected and his last-minute effort to derail the disciplinary proceedings was a ploy to avoid sanctions.

According to a 12-count complaint filed by commission lawyers in December, former Deputy District Attorney Lisa Willardson “actively litigated cases” in the judge’s courtroom while she maintained a relationship with him in 2011. Jones didn’t disqualify himself from her cases.

The Nevada State Bar, which regulates lawyers, declined to discipline Willardson, who was fired from the district attorney’s office after the relationship was revealed.

The professional organization sent her a “letter of caution” that suggested her conduct “undermined” public trust in the justice system.

Jones has denied the misconduct allegations, first brought to light in a 2011 Las Vegas Review-Journal story.

The judicial commission suspended Jones in November after a federal grand jury charged him with participating in a $3 million investment fraud scheme.

Jones, who is to stand trial in the criminal case March 3, has continued to receive his $200,000 annual salary.

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Family Court judge to face disciplinary hearing in December

See Also:
Judge Jones tries to stop discipline hearing over alleged mishandled relationship