Local Author Shares Troubling Experiences with Guardianship

Local author Teresa Lyles is sharing her experiences about guardianship and the rights of incapacitated individuals.

Teresa Lyles says she was very close with her mother, Carmen Tozzo, before 2011. Lyles says she was Tozzo's primary caregiver, until a family dispute ended in her siblings removing Tozzo from her custody. Tozzo was evaluated by Alachua County, in a competency hearing to determine her future.

Lyles says, "She was deamed incompetent, which means that you have no rights. She couldn't vote, she couldn't file a police report, she couldn't sue anybody. All of her constitutional rights were taken away, and she was put under a guardian."

Lyles says problems began with the guardian. "This permanent guardian literally started drugging her. Then she was drugged and removed from her home, and put in a lock down facility, also here in Gainesville."

Guardian care, Lyles claims, is what ultimately led to her mother's death. "She fell close to thirty times, while she was in both facilities. She was not given access to her money, she was not given access to her family."

Tozzo died at the age of 96, and Lyles says she didn't know how to cope. She eventually wrote a book, detailing their story, to bring awareness to situations like this. Lyles says, "What I want to do is raise awareness of this issue. It can happen anywhere, it happened here. I'm not the only that has gone through this experience."

Lyles explains her story more completely in her novel, "65 Minutes: A Tale of Torture and Murder in Guardianship."

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Local Author Shares Troubling Experiences with Guardianship

Lee Co. judges have to be present at Baker Act cases

Lee County judges have been ordered by the Florida Supreme Court to appear in person for Baker Act hearings.

The practice was halted in April when a judicial assistant for Judge Andrew Swett announced via email the judge would no longer be commuting to SalusCare and Park Royal Hospital but would instead chime in via a television screen.

The hearings in question relate to people who have been involuntarily committed for mental health reasons. The Baker Act, or the Florida Mental Health Act, is used to commit someone for 72 hours.  After three days, the individual can be released or the hospital can order a hearing where a judge decides whether to commit the individual for a longer period of time.

Kathy Smith, public defender for the 20th Judicial District, asked the court to intervene on behalf of people with mental disabilities.

The issue went to the Supreme Court after a panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled in September that nothing bars a Lee County judge from appearing via a screen in Baker Act cases, according to the News Service of Florida.

Kathy Smith, public defender - 20th Judicial District.

"We had found, as the attorneys of record, that conducting hearings in this fashion over video is very distressing to some of our clients that are experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations," Smith said.

The hearings held through screens left her clients wondering what was real and what wasn't' real, said Smith, who serves on the Supreme Court Task Force for Mental Health and Substance Abuse.

"When they are having those concerns it makes it all the more difficult for us to tell their story," she said.

Mental heath advocates, including the Disability Rights Florida Inc., filed a brief on arguing that appearing electronically was inappropriate in these cases.

A decision allowing for judges to telecommute would be adverse to people who have mental disabilities, the group states.

"They are one of the most vulnerable populations that we deal with as lawyers and sometimes that means going the extra mile to make sure they understand what's happening," Smith said. "It's important."

The court began to use telecommuting in mental health facilities "for the purpose of promoting efficiency, time management of limited judicial resources, and security concerns," said Sara Miles, public information officer for the 20th Judicial Circuit.

Judge Andrew Swett

Miles said it's important to note the law doesn't prohibit judges from using technology to appear remotely in these proceedings.

The technology used for appearing via teleconference is state-funded and "allows for clear visual and audio contact," Miles said.

"Due process is preserved," she said, adding that the patients receive prompt timely hearings.

A final decision has not been made by the Supreme Court, but until then Judge Swett will have to commute to the hospitals for the Baker Act hearings.

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Lee Co. judges have to be present at Baker Act cases

Bill Introduced To Prevent Financial Elder Abuse

Rep. Sarah Maestas Barnes

SANTA FE ― Rep. Sarah Maestas Barnes (R-Bernalillo) has introduced legislation to prevent financial elder abuse in New Mexico. Her legislation, House Bill 326, would enhance protections to shield seniors from fraud and financial exploitation. The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Nick Salazar (D-Rio Arriba).

The legislation, also known as the Protecting Vulnerable Adults from Financial Exploitation Act, clearly defines financially abusive acts, and it permits investment advisers to report suspected incidents of financial abuse to state agencies. It also grants immunity to investment advisers for disclosing information in good faith to state agencies or other third-parties. The legislation would give advisers the authority to delay disbursements if they suspect their client is being financially exploited, and it would require advisers to receive training in identifying incidences of financial exploitation.

“According to a recent survey, one out of every five seniors over the age of 65 has been the victim of financial fraud,” Maestas Barnes said. “Financial exploitation of elders has tragic consequences for seniors and their families. As policymakers, we should make every effort to protect vulnerable adults from fraud and financial abuse.”

The bill has been referred to the House Business and Industry Committee and the House Judiciary Committee.

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Bill Introduced To Prevent Financial Elder Abuse

Daughters conned dad while he was incapacitated from surgery: suit

A former king of New York City co-op conversions says a lawyer conspired with his own daughters to steal $6 million from a family trust fund while he was incapacitated by open-heart surgery.

Aaron Ziegelman, 89, had made a fortune converting apartment buildings into co-ops in the 1980s and ’90s and gave away $40 million to charity.

But a series of bad investments has left him destitute and facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in court-ordered judgments from former clients, according to his new Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.

After Ziegelman’s wife died last year, he turned to a trust that held money from her life-insurance proceeds, only to discover he had renounced his interest in the funds in 2012 while he was recovering from surgery and “cognitively impaired,” court papers say.

“I have a client who’s 89,” said Ziegelman’s attorney, Jason Melzer. “He doesn’t remember any reason why he signed that document. Why would he give up his interest in so much money for no reason?”

Ziegelman believes he was taken advantage of by his daughters — Jane Ziegelman of Brooklyn and Amy Avital of Tel Aviv, Israel — who were used to being supported by their father.

He’s suing the lawyer who handled the paperwork, Leonard Goldner, to overturn his renunciation in the trust.

Goldner and an attorney for the daughters did not return messages seeking comment.

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Daughters conned dad while he was incapacitated from surgery: suit

Is help on the way for advisers fighting elder abuse?

Advisers, brokers and financial firms may finally receive legal cover if they report incidents where they believe elderly clients might be the victims of financial abuse.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are trying to build momentum behind the Senior Safe Act, which also has the backing of organizations such as the Investment Adviser Association, SIFMA and the Insured Retirement Institute — trade groups that are not always aligned on other public policy issues.

What unites them in this case is a common challenge. Their member firms all work with senior clients who might be targeted by financial scammers. Regardless of a firm's business model, determining how to respond when an elderly client might be the victim of abuse is a tricky question. Too often, senior advocates say, those incidents go unreported.

The chairwoman of the Senate Aging Committee, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), is sponsoring the Senior Safe Act.

"One of the biggest problems we've had with financial institutions is making these reports," Diane Menio, executive director of the Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, said last week at a Senate hearing on elder financial abuse.

The chair of the Senate Aging Committee, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), is sponsoring the act which she reintroduced last month and is hoping to advance. The legislation cleared the House last year, but stalled in the Senate.

MOST-EGREGIOUS SCAMS

Collins released a report detailing the types of scams that are most commonly reported to the Aging Committee's fraud hotline (855-303-9470). Topping that list is the so-called IRS scam, where the scammer impersonates a federal agent and informs the victim that they owe back taxes, often threatening them with an imminent arrest if they don't immediately come up with the money, and sometimes coming back for more.

"The criminals who prey on our seniors are relentless," Collins says. "They will harass seniors over and over again until they have drained every penny."

The fifth-ranked scam on the committee's list will sound familiar to many advisers — elder financial abuse, defined as the "illegal or improper use of an older adult's funds, property or assets."

Often the perpetrators are close to the victim and occupy a position of trust, such as caregivers, neighbors or even family members. Like other forms of exploitation, that kind of abuse often goes unreported, making reliable numbers on the scope of the problem difficult to obtain. The GAO has pegged the annual costs of elder financial abuse and fraud at $2.9 billion a year, while other estimates have put the figure far higher.

Image: Bloomberg News

"The stakes are extremely high," Collins says.

SAFE HARBOR FROM LAWSUITS

The Senior Safe Act would seek to address the shortfall in reporting abuse by giving financial companies and their employees a safe harbor from civil lawsuits if they reported suspected abuse to the appropriate regulatory, law-enforcement or adult protective services. To invoke that liability shield, firms would have to administer training to their employees on spotting signs of elder abuse.
Supporters say that Collins' bill would provide a much-needed explicit statutory cover to protect financial firms reporting elder abuse.

A consortium of regulators, including the SEC and FTC, has sought to clarify an exemption for reporting elder abuse under existing privacy law. In 2013, that group issued guidance stating that "reporting suspected financial abuse of older adults to appropriate local, state, or federal agencies does not, in general, violate the privacy provisions of the [Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act] or its implementing regulations."

But many firms have still been reluctant to establish policies and training programs to spot and report elder abuse, according to Menio.

"We need to do something to make them feel better," she says. "We keep pulling out the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and saying you can do this — you're covered. But they still are not doing it."

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Is help on the way for advisers fighting elder abuse?

IRS impostor scam top hotline complaint

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s the top complaint to a U.S. Senate hotline for seniors: fraudsters posing as IRS agents, threatening arrests and demanding money.

Treasury Department official Timothy Camus told the Senate Aging Committee that more than 10,000 people have reported falling prey to the so-called “IRS impersonation scam” over the last several years — many of them elderly Americans.

Phillip Hatch, who is 81 and testified before the panel via video, told lawmakers how he received a phone call one day at his home in Portland, Maine. The caller told him there was a mistake on his tax returns and federal marshals were coming to arrest him unless he paid the money. Worried, Hatch did as instructed and went to the local CVS to purchase iTunes cards. He then read the numbers on the backs of the cards to the caller. After four hours on the phone with the caller, Hatch was out $8,000. He told the panel he wishes he hadn’t been “so cooperative.”

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the committee, says the criminals who prey on seniors are relentless. “They will harass seniors over and over again until they have drained every penny from their life savings,” she said.

Federal officials, from Treasury and the Federal Trade Commission, testified about efforts to combat the fraud on senior Americans.

Last October, more than 50 people were indicted in a scam that involved call centers in India and bilked thousands of victims out of more than $270 million. Camus, with the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration office, says it is the largest single domestic law enforcement action to date related to the IRS impersonation scam.

For some time, scammers had been duping victims into getting money orders. More recently, however, Camus says his office has seen a shift to iTunes cards because it’s easier to get the money since the scammers no longer need middlemen to convert the money orders. “They’re now selling the iTunes cards on the third party market and pocketing the money immediately,” Camus said.

The Senate Aging Committee has a hotline for seniors to call about fraud (1-855-303-9470). Last year, the hotline received more than 2,200 calls from people all over the country — more than double the number of calls from 2015. The top complaint was the IRS impersonation scam. That was followed by lottery or sweepstakes scams, in which callers promise a huge lottery prize that can only be awarded if taxes and other fees are sent immediately to the caller.

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IRS impostor scam top hotline complaint

2 N.J. nursing homes put on notice to improve care

Two New Jersey nursing homes now require more frequent inspections because they've amassed too many health violations, according to an update issued in late January by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Mount Laurel Center for Rehab and Healthcare, a 220-bed long term care facility in Mount Laurel, has been under increased scrutiny for 14 months, yet remains on a list of places "that have not improved," according to the report.

Meadow View Nursing & Respiratory Care in Williamstown, which has 180 beds, was added to the "Special Focus Facility" list two months ago.

"It's not a list you want to be on," said Mark Levine, a former nursing home administrator who now is a consultant in the industry. "It's the worst of the worst."

Nursing homes in the federal monitoring program have unannounced inspections every three months, instead of every 12-18 months, Levine said. They stay on that schedule until they can prove their progress is permanent.

If they don't get off the list, eventually they will be kicked out of Medicaid and Medicare - a death knell for this kind of business.

Most nursing homes will have some kind of "deficiency" noted in an inspection - just as health inspectors typically find small problems at restaurants, according to information provided by the monitoring program. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services says the average is 6-7 deficiencies.

But some places chronically have twice that number, bounce in and out of compliance, or have problems that carry a higher risk of harm to their residents. There are currently 86 nursing homes nationwide that require extra scrutiny.

The two New Jersey facilities have very different reasons for being on the list.

Meadow View, the center just added to the program, gets very low marks in the category of health inspections, yet maintains high marks for its staffing levels. Most importantly, it has attained the coveted five star Medicare rating for how patients fare there.

Those "quality measures" look at how many patients improve, how many get bed sores or infections, and how many report being in pain, among other things.

Those are important measures of patient health that can't be faked or fudged, Levine said, who has served as a court- appointed patient care ombudsman. By contrast, he said, the opinions of an inspector are can be more subjective.

To get five stars in any category, as Meadow View has, a facility must be in the top 10 percent nationally, Levine said.

However, Meadow View got only one star for its health inspection, which found many violations in building and kitchen maintenance: cobwebs, peeling sheetrock, dusty ceiling vents, a filthy microwave, and an emergency CPR cart stored behind "a large Christmas tree, some boxes, an organ, 2 large televisions, a podium, and a row of chairs."

Its report card meant it now has two stars on Medicare's "Nursing Home Compare" website.

The nursing home changed owners in late 2015, when it was acquired by Genesis Health Care in Pennsylvania, a company that owns nearly 500 health care facilities in 34 states.

Many of the problems occurred under previous ownership, said a Genesis spokeswoman. Since it takes two years for older inspections to drop out of the federal calculation, the current report "is not an accurate reflection of the care provided at Meadow View today," the spokeswoman said.

The facility has hired a new executive director and nurse executive since the acquisition, the spokeswoman said.

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2 N.J. nursing homes put on notice to improve care

Christie signs next of kin notification law to prevent family heartache

Lawanna Burks - Next of Kin

TRENTON -- A new law signed by Gov. Chris Christie puts all directors of senior citizen housing developments on notice: if one of their tenants die, they better notify the next of kin.

Violators will pay a $500 fine if the call is not made within 24 hours, according to the law that took effect Monday.

A Star-Ledger report about the death of Sheila Tolor, 65, of Washington Manor in Orange in 2014 inspired the legislation. She died at home and her body was taken to the morgue, where it remained for six days.

Her daughter, Lawanna Burks, only learned of her mother's death when she dropped by for a visit. The Orange senior citizen housing authority never called the family, and told the newspaper that it expected the police would notify the next of kin.

"When a resident of a senior facility passes on, there should be procedures in place to ensure that the individual's loved ones are notified in a timely manner," said Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex), one of the bill's sponsors. "This is a heart-breaking situation for a family. This law is aimed at making sure those kinds of tragic lapses in process do not occur and that the emergency contact designated by the individual is notified."

The legislation (S1131) applies to the administrator of any senior housing complex -- whether it is a rooming house, boarding house, residential health care facility, assisted living facility, nursing home, continuing care retirement community, or public housing complex. The administrator must collect emergency contact information for every tenant, and call the family within 24 hours in the event of the tenant's death.

Burks could not be reached for comment.

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Christie signs next of kin notification law to prevent family heartache

8 Causes of Memory Loss That AREN'T Alzheimer's

Worried About Dementia? There May Be Other Explanations


It's hard not to think of Alzheimer's disease when memory loss or a memory lapse darkens your day. After all, Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia are constantly in the headlines -- and of the more than five million affected Americans, 200,000 are under age 65. But many other situations can also produce this worrisome symptom.

Memory loss is just one Alzheimer's warning sign. Others, for example, include personality changes and problems managing money.

Your safest bet: "If you're concerned about memory issues, see a specialist," says psychiatrist Gary Small, director of the UCLA Center on Aging and author of several books about memory and cognition, including The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head. An evaluation will examine the type of memory loss, its timing, environmental factors (such as injuries or drug use), and other symptoms.

(See also Worried About Your Memory? 5 Signs It's Serious.)

The eight following conditions are among the non-Alzheimer's causes of memory loss to consider:

Memory Loss Cause #1: Chronic Stress

Why it happens: When the body goes on hyperalert to face a crisis, a series of biochemical changes takes place that fuels the fight-or-flight response system. The chemical cortisol increases in the brain, for example, to mobilize energy and alertness. That's great when a saber-toothed tiger is chasing you. But when tension and anxiety become chronic, as with work or family problems, the system is overloaded with substances that are intended for emergency use only.

Result: The brain actually loses cells and has trouble forming new neurons. This creates problems with cognitive thinking, especially with regard to retaining new information.

What else to look for:

• Is your sleep disrupted, or are you getting less of it? Sleep deprivation compounds the effects of stress on the brain, because memories are sorted and organized during normal sleep.
  
• Are you multitasking your way through a stressful period? Straining the attention system drains memory, too.  (Click to Continue)

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8 Causes of Memory Loss That AREN'T Alzheimer's