Phoenix funeral home took control of dead people's estates, then charged them excessive fees, complaints say

The families of Robert Heiskell and Carol Emma Carlson both filed complaints against funeral home owner Spencer McBride.(Photo: Courtesy Carlson family and National Personnel Records Center)

As the mail piled up at the man's house, neighbors began to worry.

The homeowner, Robert Heiskell, was a U.S. Navy veteran, a quiet and reclusive man whose wife had died years earlier.

A concerned neighbor called authorities, who on March 22, 2017, found the 80-year-old dead in his home.

Heiskell had no will, and no one claimed his body.

Abel Funeral Services, under a contract with Maricopa County for indigent burial, retrieved his body and placed it in refrigeration while they searched for the next of kin.

A meter started running on Heiskell's funeral bill.

When the county determined Heiskell had too much money to qualify for indigent burial, funeral home owner Spencer McBride received court approval to become the personal representative of Heiskell's estate and settle Heiskell's financial affairs. McBride had done this many times for other estates.

By the time he was done, McBride had authorized payments totaling $30,194 from Heiskell's estate to his funeral home, according to court records.

The median cost of a funeral and burial is $7,360, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.

Robert Heiskell served in 
the U.S. Navy.  
(Photo: National Personnel 
Records Center)

Arizona law allows funeral home owners to act as both executors and creditors of an estate. Most don't want the hassle. Now, the Arizona Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers, which regulates the profession, is investigating complaints that McBride assumed control of estates and charged excessive fees for funeral services.

Three complaints in the past year allege McBride did not try hard enough to locate next of kin while his funeral home charged estates excessive fees for funeral services. A fourth complaint didn't dispute fees, but the family of an Air Force veteran was upset over a delay in burial.

Heiskell's closest living relative, a cousin, questioned the bill and alleged in court records that all but about $8,000 of the charges were "excessive," including fees to refrigerate Heiskell's body for 115 days. The matter was settled out of court earlier this year for an undisclosed sum.

McBride has denied in statements to the funeral board of using his position as personal representative for profit.

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Phoenix funeral home took control of dead people's estates, then charged them excessive fees, complaints say

Longtime attorney arrested, accused of faking judge's signature

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. - Channel 2 Action News has learned a well-known attorney in Fulton County is now under indictment.

Elizabeth Vila Rogan has appeared in court many times as a veteran attorney and as a former Fulton County magistrate judge.

But she is likely to appear in court soon as a defendant indicted on a charge of first-degree forgery.

Rogan is accused of forging the signature of Roswell Municipal Judge Brian Hansford on a court document called an Order on Status of Firearms Rights.

"I think what these employees were saying is, 'We do not expect that person would be above the law.' In fact, I think what they were saying is, 'We would expect you to know better than anybody else,'" District Attorney Paul Howard told investigative reporter Mark Winne. "The lawyer in this case ... to present a document, trying to represent it as a judge’s signature is a serious matter."

A document Channel 2 Action News obtained indicates a Roswell police officer met with Kimberly Moody, the Roswell court administrator. Moody said Rogan came in to have an order stamped.

According to the document, Moody stated she asked Rogan when the order was signed. Rogan replied, 'This morning.’ Moody said she knew Hansford was out that particular day.

The document suggests Hansford texted that he did not sign the order.

“Fabulous lawyer, known her for a long time, very experienced, had a plethora of different jobs,” high-profile defense lawyer Manny Arora said about Rogan. “I’m hoping there’s an explanation for it.”

Rogan’s attorney, Mike Moran, suggests the case “does not involve the taking or misappropriation of any money. We believe the charge is predicated on a misunderstanding, a series of miscommunications and the truth is that there has been absolutely no crime committed. Ms. Rogan has an impeccable record as a judge, prosecutor and defense attorney. Quite simply, she submitted a clarifying order in the belief that she had authority to do so.”

A Roswell police document Channel 2 Action News obtained says, “Judge Hansford believes that Ms. Rogan became impatient with how court proceedings were moving forward so she signed the document herself.”

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Longtime attorney arrested, accused of faking judge's signature

How Medicare Stole My Mother’s Health and Life Savings

My very independent mom was aging right. Until she checked into the hospital

Marion Geoghegan Campbell

By Cat Stone

Some days it’s impossible to believe mommy’s gone.

But every day, it’s impossible to believe that she went the way she did: penniless and in pain—on every level. She spent her final years beating herself up for making the biggest mistake of her life. She wanted to support herself with the money she’d taken a lifetime to save. Instead, mom died embarrassed and heartbroken knowing the government had stolen her entire life savings and more because of a Medicare loophole.

Mom was puttering around her Florida apartment late in the spring of 2012 when without warning, she heard, then felt, a loud crack. Her hip fractured and sent her flailing backward onto the floor. In agony, she called out to her dear friend next door who dialed 911. She was rushed to the hospital.

My brother and I both lived out of state and mom didn’t want to worry us. So intelligent and capable (she had graduated from both high school and business school by age 16), she “took care of everything,” then called to tell us that she was already checked in.

Concerned about our mother’s health,  neither of us thought to ask how she had been admitted to the hospital.

In fact, we had no idea that there was a right or wrong way to be admitted.

Her American Dream

Born in 1924, my mother, Marion Geoghegan Campbell, began work in 1940 in the typing pool for Grace Shipping and quickly made her way up through the ranks, eventually leaving and becoming a paralegal. Marion helped set landmark cases in computer law.

She was also a Catholic who wrote her Pope annually. She trusted in the honor of our country, her fellow Americans, and the agencies that were meant to serve and protect her.

At 86 she was healthy and sharp and could sign her name with assistance (her eyesight was failing); she had all documents—from grocery lists to greeting cards—read to her. And she wasn’t shy about asking people to jump in to help.

Long before her vision deteriorated, Marion read everything she could about Medicare. She went into her senior years understanding how it worked. She even researched the skilled nursing facilities in town so she’d have a plan in case anything unexpected happened. She understood that with a three-day hospital stay, Medicare would pay for 100 days of skilled nursing or rehabilitation.

So when a doctor at the hospital told her that she had to sign the paperwork or leave, she signed. She told us that she was doing so well after the fracture that the hospital was just keeping her “under observation” and that she was relieved not to be “admitted.”

We all thought that was a good sign. Even though she was in pain, we assumed it meant she hadn’t been seriously injured.

The problem was that she was in no shape to understand or comprehend the hospital document she was signing. She was legally blind and a bit doped up, and it remains unclear whether or not anyone read her the fine print.

So my mother accidentally signed away her future because the papers she initialed said she understood Medicare’s special rule: that patients “under observation” do not qualify for skilled nursing care.

A Fateful Mistake

Six weeks later my fiancé and I sat in mom’s room at the rehabilitation facility to which she had been transferred. She had done her physical therapy daily and every afternoon we did  EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques, a form of acupressure) together over the phone.

The doctors were impressed with her progress. She worked hard because she wanted to walk down the aisle at her daughter’s wedding! We were finally going to take her home.

My mother held my hand and joked that my new engagement ring was so shiny she could now see clearly. She called each of her nurses and the rehabilitation staff into the room to show off the ring and her handsome future son-in-law.

Reports of my engagement spread like wildfire. Which is, apparently, how the billing manager discovered I was in the building. She barged into the room waving a wad of papers and demanded to see “the checkbook.” She said she’d “hate to put mom in collections…”

Cat and her mother, Marion

“My mother is fully insured,” I shot back. “We’ll take care of the paperwork at a more appropriate time.”

Suddenly, my mother was crying.

The woman who’d survived a world war cowered behind me, whispering that she didn’t know what she was going to do because the billing manager had been mean to her about the money for months. Assuming that there had been a mix-up, I ordered the billing manager to leave the room. Just then I turned and saw that my mother’s roommate was crying, too.

When I asked to see the executive director, I was told she wasn’t available. I went to her office anyway.

Apologizing for being so pushy, I explained that the billing manager had terrorized not only my mother but also her roommate. The director replied very politely that she would look into the behavior and assured me it was not their policy to harass patients.

I then turned my attention to the billing error. The director explained that since my mother had not been fully admitted to the hospital, Medicare’s 100 days of skilled nursing care had not been activated.

“Clearly there is some mistake,” I insisted. “Why would your staff admit my mother if she didn’t have Medicare coverage?”

“Your mother knew what she was doing when she signed our admission forms,” the director said. “She told us she has a savings account. She will be billed for our services.”

The walk back to mom’s room took a century. How was I going to tell her she’d made such a huge mistake? By the time I got to the room, I had resolved that we’d fight the system and do all we could to correct this terrible injustice. Mom was horrified to learn she’d signed away her rights and possibly her life savings but she too was confident we’d win in court.

The Dream is Broken

A week later we sat in the office of the best elder care attorney in town. Shaking his head in dismay, he told us that he hears stories like this several times a week. He was compassionate and gentle but advised us that there was indeed no mistake and there was nothing we could do except negotiate a better payment schedule.

I worked out a $100-a-month payment plan for my mother to cover the five-figure bill. The accounting department continued to send her phone calls and threatening letters. Unbeknownst to me, her spirit broken, mom finally wrote out a check to the nursing home for everything she had in savings, except for $1,000. But even paying the nursing home in a bulk didn’t begin to cover the total she owed for all the extra equipment and therapies they had offered her–and she had accepted–thinking she was covered.

So, for four years, instead of using her Social Security check to buy food, she spent it on her debt to the nursing home

When we visited, her house looked spotless, her clothes clean; she did appear thinner and weaker, but we chalked it up to age. Mom never let on to us that she was starving herself and isolating herself to pay her bills.

She grew apart from her church community because she couldn’t afford the cab fare to services. She became frail due to malnutrition and had trouble caring for herself.

Finally, a visiting nurse found my 91-year old mother collapsed on her tile floor unable to get herself up. When the nurse phoned me after calling for the ambulance, I insisted mom be rushed to a hospital that I had researched ahead of time that had a history of caring for the elderly. Then I called her primary care doctor and insisted he have her fully admitted. He took over her case and signed the papers himself. Mom was going to require permanent, long-term care.

Next, I called the executive director of the nursing home that had treated her for the fractured hip four years earlier. It was still the best in town. I politely, but firmly, told her that mom wouldn’t be returning in her current condition had the system not failed her and stolen her money. Placing the blame on the system and not the nursing home, I concluded by telling her that it was the facility’s ethical duty to help mom now in her time of great need.

This time the executive director offered compassion and care: Mom was admitted that same day.

Her Last Wish: to Help Others

Mom spent two years in the nursing home, often joking that this or that was hers, because after all, she’d paid for it with her savings. The truth was she was horrified to be on Medicaid—the federal and state program for those with low or no income or assets. But it was the only way we could get her care. She’d worked for decades, saved, voted, fought and prayed but she ended up living “on the dole”—a burden to society—despite all her best efforts.

My mother was a fighter but this is how it ended for her.

One day mom began to talk about how this situation had impacted her emotionally. She apologized for her mistake and what it had cost her and what it had cost us—the tens of thousands of dollars we pitched in for housekeepers and nurses so she could remain at home. Mom lamented that she was too old and frail to do anything about it, so she made me promise I’d tell everyone I could about this horrible Medicare rule and help others avoid her fate. At least a dozen times before she died I called her to say, “Mom! You saved another one!” and gave her the details of some friend or family member who had used her knowledge, her mistake to protect themselves. And she would say, “Well then, dear, my prayers have been answered and my pain has meaning.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOUR LOVED ONES

1. Understand the loophole Tell everyone. Shout it from the rooftops. Make sure your parents, siblings, friends, colleagues, and neighbors understand about the Medicare “Observation” loophole. Remind them to insist on being fully admitted should they or anyone they love be hospitalized. The rule: Medicare only covers skilled nursing facility care with a “qualifying” inpatient hospital stay. A qualifying inpatient hospital stay means your loved one has been a hospital inpatient, formally admitted to the hospital after their doctor writes an inpatient admission order, for at least 3 days in a row (counting the day of admittance as an inpatient, but not counting the day of discharge).

2. Protect your rights You have time to understand what you’re being asked to sign. You always have the right to have your attorney review any paperwork before you sign. Tests, medications, and assessments can, and often must, be administered before the doctor can choose the correct designation, that is, whether your status is “under observation” or “admitted.” Advocate for yourself or your loved one.

3. Understand your signature is permanent Changing the hospital stay designation after the fact is nearly completely impossible. The time to get it right is at the beginning, so understanding the process and taking the right actions up front is your best protection.

4. Make decisions from a place of calm Emotions are painful and powerful in the midst of a parent’s illness or injury. The worst decisions are made in overly emotional states. Learn processing skills like EFT, a self-applied acupressure technique, to help process stress and painful emotions like fear so you can make decisions from a calm, secure position.

5. Be prepared Engage an elder care attorney early. You will need one to create your power of attorney document when you need to take over the decision-making process for an impaired parent, but also so you have someone in place to handle a legal challenge if one arises. The phrase “my attorney will need to review” can be amazingly effective in securing the cooperation of medical and billing personnel.

6. Involve your parent’s primary care doctor Discuss the Medicare loophole with your parent’s primary care doctor ahead of time and make sure they will help obtain the proper designation if the need arises. The physician of record can sway things and if they have hospital privileges they have even more power. Have the same conversation with any specialists such as your parent’s cardiologist, surgeon or oncologist. At the time of hospitalization, call in all the troops and reference whatever issues or list of symptoms you can to secure the proper designation.

7. Review your hospitals Research local hospitals to determine how cooperative they are with admitting. Hospitals and doctors have quotas to meet and guidelines to follow if the doctor or hospital wants to get Medicare reimbursement. They are penalized for not obeying the rules. But different hospitals have different concerns about the rules. Same for doctors–who might be wealthy enough to forgo the reimbursement. Ask friends, your physician and even contact hospitals directly. Some will advise you about their policies up front. Write down the name of your designated emergency hospital on a card your parent can keep in his or her wallet. Make sure your parents know that if you are not there to advocate for them, they should insist on being brought to the designated hospital.

8. Confirm, confirm, confirm Check your loved one’s patient status daily until s/he is discharged. Sometimes doctors change the status, but sometimes hospital administrators press the issue forcing doctors to downgrade a patient during the stay. Remember, patients need to be fully admitted into the hospital for three days in order for Medicare to kick in. If that admission status changes at any time, the clock restarts.

9. Learn the lingo By law since March 2017, hospitals must advise you what the patient’s designation is and exactly what that means in terms of financial obligations and how that designation affects the patient’s insurance. But remember: the hospital isn’t there to protect your parent’s rights; it’s there to protect their requirements under the law and their own management. Terms like “downgraded to observation” could make it seem like the patient is getting better when in fact it simply means the patient has been switched to a lower status under Medicare. If they need to go to skilled nursing, they’ll have to pay out of their own pocket.

10. Work the system If you don’t get the proper designation, try again by checking out of the hospital and then in again a day or so later. A new hospital, another doctor or a new administrator might make all the difference. Or, sadly, a few more days might mean the condition has progressed enough to truly require more care.

11. Try again Even if your loved one does end up in a nursing home after an “observation status” hospital stay, voiding Medicare coverage, you can try to have them sent back to the hospital for a new stay and insist they be fully admitted. Once they are fully admitted for a three-day stay, the clock begins again and they can access their full 100 days of coverage.

12. What to do if all else fails Realize that skilled nursing care isn’t a stay at the spa and often it’s nothing you can’t do at home yourself. Exercises for the elderly are very simple; it’s the repetition that counts. Provided your loved ones can make bathroom visits themselves you might find taking them to your home or getting them in-home nursing is a better answer. Plus, many people find they heal better in their own home environment. If your loved one has no assets, many home-care services will be completely covered by Medicare or even Medicaid. Services such as bathing, wound care, meal prep and housekeeping can be obtained with just a few phone calls.
 
Full Article & Source:
How Medicare Stole My Mother’s Health and Life Savings

Podcast tells incredible story of a NY shrink who took over his patient’s life

Marty Markowitz showing off his apiary in the backyard of his Southampton home. (Debra Nussbaum Cohen via JTA)

SOUTHAMPTON, New York (JTA) — This is one of the strangest stories you’ll ever read, about one of the strangest stories ever told in a podcast.

“The Shrink Next Door,” rated No. 1 for three weeks straight on Apple’s Podcast charts, is about a Manhattan psychiatrist, Dr. Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf, known for treating — and name-dropping — an array of celebrity patients while becoming well known in US Jewish and literary philanthropic circles.

The podcast, written and hosted by Bloomberg columnist Joe Nocera, is mostly about Martin Markowitz, a longtime patient of Herschkopf, who says he spent most of his life – more than 30 years – under Herschkopf’s sway. In six episodes — a seventh comes out this week — Nocera describes how the psychiatrist isolated Markowitz from his friends and family and encouraged him not to pursue potential marriage partners.

There’s more: “Shrink” describes how Herschkopf became president of Markowitz’s theatrical fabrics business, created a charitable foundation almost entirely with Markowitz’s money, and got the foundation and his wife named in Markowitz’s will after his patient removed his sister and her children at the psychiatrist’s suggestion.

In the meantime, Herschkopf collected more than $3 million in fees from Markowitz over three decades, Markowitz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this week in an interview at his estate here.

It’s the same wooded, bucolic property that figures prominently in the podcast: Nocera lives next door, and while it belongs to Markowitz, Herschkopf managed to commandeer it and present it as his own for 26 years — relegating Markowitz to guest quarters at the back of the compound.

Herschkopf has claimed that Markowitz was a willing partner in everything, and Nocera’s wife speaks for many listeners when she says at one point, “It takes two to tango.” Markowitz admits he was vulnerable and willingly followed his psychiatrist’s instructions. Nevertheless, the podcast explores the professional ethics of a psychiatrist insinuating himself into the personal, family and financial life of a patient to the degree that Herschkopf did.

How a celebrity shrink allegedly conned himself into patients' wills https://t.co/3gZy2EBAix pic.twitter.com/ENyqu1dHT8

— New York Post (@nypost) June 8, 2019

Since the podcast debuted last month, Herschkopf has faced professional consequences.

Last weekend he disappeared from the New York University Medical School’s website. He resigned voluntarily, Herschkopf told JTA in a telephone interview.

Over the weekend Herschkopf also resigned from FASPE, the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics, on whose board of directors he sat, according to the board chair, David Goldman.

“We accepted his resignation. Please note that we did not do any independent investigation of the reporting contained within the podcast,” Goldman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

In response to a message, Herschkopf called back JTA three times.

“I resigned [from NYU and FASPE] to spare them the adverse publicity Nocera was going to visit upon them,” Herschkopf said in one of the calls.

He called later to question Nocera’s motivation for the podcast, noting the journalist plays tennis on Markowitz’s court.

“One would presume that would compromise his neutrality,” the psychiatrist said.

Herschkopf also said that “90 percent of the podcast is untrue or out of context,” and that Nocera “has had a vendetta against me for 10 years,” dating back to when the reporter began investigating Markowitz’s claims.

Nocera replied to JTA that the podcast was “rigorously reported and fact checked to a fare-thee-well by me and the people at Wondery and Bloomberg,” which jointly produced the podcast.

The podcast has created a stir in Manhattan’s tight-knit philanthropic and Modern Orthodox Jewish circles. Herschkopf famously hosted summer parties in the Hamptons that brought between 70 and 170 people on buses — chartered by Markowitz — to the house whose mailbox bore the name of “Dr. Isaac Stevens,” Herschkopf’s alias. Herschkopf had Markowitz prepare the compound for each party and stand at the barbecue roasting kosher fare and serving guests.

Although patients would often be invited to the parties and mingle with the other guests, guests with whom JTA spoke say they had no idea that Markowitz was Herschkopf’s patient. They believed – from the way Markowitz was dressed to the roles he served at the parties – that he was hired help.

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow attends the Tiffany & Co. Blue Book Ball at Rockefeller Center on Thursday, April 18, 2013 in New York. (photo credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

The parties drew celebrities, actors and writers, and the creme de la creme of Manhattan’s Modern Orthodox world. Gwyneth Paltrow, who was Herschkopf’s patient for a time, was among the guests, Markowitz says.

Other invitees included writer Shalom Auslander and New York Jewish Week Editor and Publisher Gary Rosenblatt. For years Herschkopf wrote columns published in The Jewish Week, most recently in September. One was about being beaten by his father, an Auschwitz survivor.

Rosenblatt said he knew Herschkopf only slightly.

“I had dinner with him a couple of times, and he seems to know everybody, but that’s about it,” Rosenblatt told JTA.

Auslander wrote a thinly veiled account of his time with his celebrity-obsessed shrink for The New York Times in 2006. Perhaps he was simply repaying the favor: Herschkopf wrote a letter to Esquire magazine in 2001 identifying himself as Isaac Steven Hersch, Auslander’s psychiatrist.

Auslander did not respond to several attempts by JTA to reach him.

Another famous writer, who asked that her name not be included in this article, said she never went to the Southampton parties, though she attended a Passover seder with Herschkopf and his family once at their Manhattan apartment.

“Does this come as a great shock to me? No,” she said. “There is something about him, his obsession with famous people, and he always seemed to be sidling up to famous literary people. I personally would never recommend him to anyone.”

Major Modern Orthodox rabbis and communal leaders were also invited to the summer parties: Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of the Ramaz School and Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun; Rabbi Arthur Schneier of Park East Synagogue; his son Rabbi Marc Schneier of The Hampton Synagogue; and Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, the author of many books on Jewish literacy and Jewish ethics.

In “Code of Jewish Ethics Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor As Yourself,” Herschkopf is the first person among dozens Telushkin thanks in his acknowledgments. Telushkin also cites the psychiatrist several times throughout its pages. Telushkin did not respond to email and voicemail messages left by JTA.

Psychiatrist Samuel Klagsbrun and his wife, writer Francine Klagsbrun, were invited to the parties.

“We may have gone. I don’t know him particularly well,” said Samuel Klagsbrun, who founded Four Winds Hospitals, which offer mental health services in upstate New York.

After being told about the allegations against Herschkopf, Samuel Klagsbrun said, “This is one of the worst cases I’ve ever heard of. To use psychiatry to manipulate people like that is all kinds of criminality. He should have his medical license taken away. He used whatever talent he has to manipulate people. The damage he did to Marty … and it besmirches all of psychiatry.”

Martin Markowitz’s Southampton house, which was the scene of boisterous parties, hosted by his psychiatrist, featuring celebrities and members of New York’s Modern Orthodox community. (Debra Nussbaum Cohen via JTA)

Pouring salt into open wounds

I visited Markowitz in the Hamptons on a breezy June Saturday, and he showed me around the sumptuous, sun-dappled property. There is a large pool complete with slide, full-size basketball court, the tennis court, hot tub and modern sculptures. That’s in addition to multiple koi-stocked ponds and a professionally designed 18-hole miniature golf course – one of only five installed at private homes in the country at the time, Markowitz said. It was all installed at Herschkopf’s direction and paid for by Markowitz, he told JTA.

Markowitz looks a decade younger than his 77 years, and is delighted to show me the apiary where he recently began keeping honeybees, behind which he plans to soon add a chicken coop. He is witty and calm, and dispassionate as he recounts the facts of his relationship with Herschkopf. He seems content.

But it wasn’t always that way. In June 1981 Markowitz, then 39, had recently lost both his parents and was unexpectedly running their large family business, Associated Fabrics. In 1980, Markowitz was sued by an uncle unhappy that his late brother had left 50 percent of the company to his son Marty. Just the year before, Markowitz had broken off an engagement when his fiancee refused to sign a prenuptial agreement. It was a stressful and painful time.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin speaking at the Lincoln Square Synagogue. (screen capture: YouTube/JBS)

He turned to his rabbi, Shlomo Riskin, at the time Lincoln Square Synagogue’s leader, who had brought Markowitz closer to Judaism. Riskin referred Markowitz to Herschkopf, then a young psychiatrist in his late 20s. Through his assistant, Riskin – who has lived in Israel since 1983 – said he “cannot offer any recollections, reflections or insights on the matter.”

Markowitz began seeing Herschkopf three times a week.

“Very quietly, over about an 18-month period, Ike started pouring salt into all of my open wounds,” Markowitz said. “He got my sister and her children and all of my blood relatives and close friends out of my life.

“A constant mantra from Ike was he’d say ‘you can’t handle the truth. You’re passive aggressive, you can’t handle confrontation, you’re going to screw up the business and lose customers,’” Markowitz recalled.

As he eroded what remained of Markowitz’s fragile confidence, Herschkopf gradually began insinuating himself into management decisions at Associated Fabrics.

Phyllis Shapiro, Markowitz’s younger sister by three years, then worked at the fabric company. In early 1983, Herschkopf “instructed me to serially lower Phyllis’s pay by $5,000, which I did several times.” Markowitz told JTA.

The psychiatrist told Markowitz to have a second bar mitzvah in May 1983, and not to invite his sister or her children.

Afterward, Shapiro flew to Switzerland, according to the podcast, and removed money inherited from their parents from a bank account held jointly with her brother, removed gold coins from a jointly owned safe deposit box and took bonds from Markowitz’s apartment.

“At Dr. Ike’s insistence I fired Phyllis from Associated Fabrics,” Markowitz wrote on a timeline of events he shared with me in Southampton.

Markowitz wrote a letter he said Herschkopf drafted stating that “no one in the family would ever inherit any of my money.” At the psychiatrist’s insistence he hired a messenger to deliver the letter, who left it with Shapiro’s then 11-year-old daughter.

After guiding Markowitz to cut off all those relationships, “Ike said, ‘you don’t have a family? Don’t worry. My family will be your family, my kids like your nieces and nephews and we’re going to make a social life for you,’” Markowitz recounted.

In February 1984, Herschkopf “instructed me to create the Yaron Foundation,” Markowitz wrote on his timeline. “Dr. Ike, Rebecca (his wife) and I are the officers and directors. Simultaneously he convinces me to execute a will leaving my entire estate to the Yaron Foundation. Dr. Ike is the sole executor of the will.”

That year Markowitz and his sister were at terrible odds. They agreed to let Rabbi Riskin settle their conflict and, after a beit din, or rabbinical court, to which both siblings brought lawyers, Riskin issued a ruling dividing the assets between them, which they both accepted.

After that, “I didn’t see my sister for 27 years,” Markowitz told JTA.

“I had a ring in my nose and he was leading me around,” he said of Herschkopf.

Asked if he felt any internal resistance to the demands his psychiatrist was making, Markowitz said, “I had to put my feelings down. If my sister contacted me, if she left a message or sent me a birthday or New Year’s card, he instructed [me] to ‘bring all those things into me.’ We would listen to it together and he would interpret it.”

‘I was choking to death’

At the time, Markowitz owned only the Southampton property that is now the guest house. In September 1986, Markowitz said, Herschkopf instructed him to buy the adjoining property. The properties were connected, and the first of what would become the legendary summer parties was held in June 1987 at the property Herschkopf began presenting as his own.

Framed photos of Herschkopf with celebrities covered every interior wall of the house. Herschkopf would instruct Markowitz to have them framed at his patient’s expense. He also had Markowitz type up every manuscript of the 12 books he wrote, most of which have not been published.

Dr. Isaac Herschkopf, shown at left in a photo with Henry Kissinger, who tasked his patient Marty Markowitz with curating the photos he took with celebrities. (Debra Nussbaum Cohen via JTA)

To the parties, “each invitation came from Dr. Ike and his family, with no mention of me,” Markowitz wrote on his timeline.

To be sure, this isn’t the only case in which a psychiatrist has been accused of manipulating a patient and creating family rifts and estrangements. The heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, who died Monday, experienced something similar with her psychiatrist, Dr. Christ Zois. Vanderbilt eventually sued Zois and won a $1.5 million judgment against him and an attorney who she accused of “preying on her wealth and emotional fragility.” It took many more years for her to reconcile with her estranged son Stan Stokowski.

Markowitz began feeling stirrings of discontent with his psychiatrist when the doctor insisted that he keep the business in Manhattan, in space he could no longer afford.

“I was choking to death,” he said. “We were four or five months away from bankruptcy,” both because of the rent and the fees he was paying his psychiatrist straight out of the business.

Markowitz said that in 1995, he also lost over $1.5 million he had invested, at Herschkopf’s recommendation, in the Bennett Funding Group, which filed for bankruptcy after the SEC filed fraud charges. At the time it was the largest Ponzi scheme in US history.

Markowitz said he broke away from Herschkopf in 2010 after Markowitz had a hernia operation and Herschkopf didn’t check in with his patient and supposed friend of almost 40 years.

“I was devastated,” Markowitz said. “I began to question the whole basis of our relationship.”

Using lessons learned from Herschkopf, Markowitz wrote a letter saying he wanted to take a break. The doctor wrote back warning that Markowitz was making a terrible mistake and would lose his business to manipulative employees.

In December, Markowitz reached out to his sister, Phyllis. When she answered the phone, she told him, “I’ve been waiting for this call for 27 years.”

Though it took some of her children a while to trust him again, they are now closer than ever.

Martin Markowitz and his sister, Phyllis Shapiro, reconciled after 27 years apart — a break, they both say, that was engineered by psychiatrist Isaac Herschkopf. (Debra Nussbaum Cohen via JTA)

In the years since 2010, brother and sister have biked together through Italy and traveled to China. Shapiro spends lots of time now at the Southampton estate, where she takes daily tennis lessons and plays competitively. The day I visited, neighbors dropped by – including Joe Nocera, who lives next door. The two first met years ago, when Herschkopf invited him to one of the summer parties and Nocera, like everyone else, thought Markowitz was the psychiatrist’s employee.

Seeking justice

Things have turned around for Markowitz.

“Once I started running the company totally by myself I got my mojo back,” Markowitz told JTA. “I’m a graduate of the Wharton School and NYU Law – I’ve got some serious CV going on!”

The business is smaller, but it’s turning a profit for the first time in many years.

“I’m the happiest I’ve been for many, many years,” Markowitz said.

According to Markowitz, two more of Herschkopf’s patients, with similar stories of being manipulated, also have stepped forward, though neither he nor Nocera would divulge their names or agree to contact them on JTA’s behalf.

Markowitz’s one remaining goal is to make sure Herschkopf is professionally disciplined for his ethical breaches. Complaints he filed with the New York State Department of Health in 2012 have gone nowhere. And Herschkopf resigned from the American Psychiatric Association, Markowitz said, after being notified that it was going to commence an investigation into his conduct.

A Department of Health (DOH) spokeswoman, Erin Silk, told JTA, “Consistent with Public Health Law, the Department cannot confirm or deny the receipt of any complaint or the existence of an Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC) investigation of a licensee unless charges have been posted on the DOH website or the Board for Professional Medical Conduct has taken a public action.”

In the podcast, Markowitz describes a conversation with an OPMC employee who informs him that the complaint is in process but offers nothing more.

A search of Herschkopf’s name on the OPMC section of the DOH website turned up nothing.

“I want justice to be served and to me, him losing his [medical] license is justice,” Markowitz said. “I just don’t want him to do this to anyone else.”

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Podcast tells incredible story of a NY shrink who took over his patient’s life

Woman accused of embezzling from father under her care

Kari Ann Yakes (Kent County Sheriff's Office)

By Michael Kransz

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A 44-year-old woman allegedly took thousands of dollars from her father, who she had guardianship over.

Kari Ann Yakes, of Lake City, was arraigned Friday, June 14, on a single felony charge of embezzlement by an agent or trustee more than $1,000 but less than $20,000. The charge carries a punishment of up to five years in prison.

Prosecutors say Yakes was granted full guardianship over her father in June 2018 by the Kent County Probate Court. Afterward, they allege, she spent thousands of dollars of her father’s money on herself and family members.

The case was brought by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office. Nessel stopped in Grand Rapids on Friday afternoon as part of her Elder Abuse Task Force listening tour.

Two others were arraigned Friday on misdemeanor, fourth-degree vulnerable adult abuse charges brought by Nessel’s office.

“These three cases illustrate the incredible importance of our Elder Abuse Task Force and the need for community awareness, dialogue and solutions to help eliminate elder abuse in Michigan,” Nessel said in a statement. “Residents living in nursing homes are inherently vulnerable, incredibly dependent on others, and deserve the best care possible, which includes following their care plans which are put in place for a reason. Guardians are entrusted to safeguard, not raid, the assets of those they have been appointed to protect.”

Yakes’ next court hearing is scheduled for June 25.

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Woman accused of embezzling from father under her care

Tips to fight elder abuse and exploitation

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day event held at the Larry R. Jackson Branch of the Lakeland Public Library.

LAKELAND — Patricia Henderson, outreach manager and community liaison for the Senior Connection Center in Tampa, said people are always asking what they can do to help fight abuse and exploitation of the elderly.

“You don’t have to see or prove it,” she said. “If you suspect it, report it.”

Henderson moderated the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day event held at the Larry R. Jackson Branch of the Lakeland Public Library on Friday.

“Check on your elderly family and friends,” Henderson said. Isolation is the number one risk factor for the elderly becoming a target of abuse or exploitation, including telephone scammers or fraudulent door-to-door salespeople.

Dick Fearnow, office manager of Seniors vs. Crime, a special project of the Florida Attorney General, used as an example area law enforcement over the years receiving complaints about vacuum salesmen whose main goal was to make their way inside a home and then not leave until the elderly person either purchased the $1,800 vacuum or called police.

High-pressure sales people make the elderly feel like they need to make a decision “right now,” Fearnow said. “Do not let the other party make your decision for you.”

“If you have a gut feeling, pay attention to your gut feeling,” he added. “Never do business with someone who comes to your door, knocking, uninvited.”

Other advice Fearnow gives to seniors is to not participate in contests or surveys. “You are giving information to someone you don’t really want to have it,” he said.

Common scams include the caller saying there is a problem with “suspicious” activity on the person’s social security number, where the caller asks for the person to enter their number. Other times, callers impersonate companies such as Microsoft, saying there is a problem with the software on their computer, and they will send a free update link. When the person opens the link, a virus is downloaded, then not long afterwards, a company calls to say they will fix that person’s computer.

Fearnow said there are about 15,000 people living in Polk County that have some form of dementia, and about half of them live by themselves.

Polk County Clerk of Courts Stacey Butterfield spoke to the group about guardianships for the elderly, and addressed the matter of free court records. Some people receive notices in the mail, she said, saying their service will offer property records for $87.

“You can get that for free,” she said. “I got one in the mail. It is not technically abuse, but an exploitation.”

Cindy Sharp, supervisor of the Lakeland Police Department’s Crime Service Unit, spoke to the isolation aspect of some elderly living alone. One LPD case, she said, involved a welfare check that opened when neighbors noticed that a man’s newspapers were stacking up outside his home. When the officer arrived, some neighbors said the man was a snowbird, someone said he was on vacation. But then the officer saw water trickling down the driveway. Forcing his way into the garage, the man was discovered, having been pinned between his car and the water tank.

As a result of that case, Sharp said, the Lakeland Elderly Assistance Program (LEAP) was developed, where the elderly register with the LPD so police can reach family or resources in a hurry.

The person is given a sticker with numbers on it to put on the outside of the home. Police enter the number from the sticker into their system, which pulls up the emergency contact and other information for the resident. Sharp said there are currently about 753 people in the system.

To register for LEAP, contact Angie Ellis at the LPD at 863-834-6960. To report elderly abuse, call 911 or 1-800-96ABUSE. To report a need for services or resources to help a elderly resident with meals or care, contact 1-800-96ELDER. To report Guardianship Fraud or waste, call the Department of the Inspector General’s fraud hotline at 863-534-7776.

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Tips to fight elder abuse and exploitation

Michigan AG launches Elder Abuse Task Force, wants guardianship laws changed in wake of 7 investigation

By: Heather Catallo

LANSING, Mich. (WXYZ) — Adult children separated from their ailing parents. Vulnerable adults being put into unlicensed group homes. Those are just a few of the guardianship problems 7 Investigator Heather Catallo has been exposing since 2017.

Now, the Michigan attorney general and several state Supreme Court justices have formed a new Elder Abuse Task Force.

For years, families in metro Detroit have been telling the 7 Investigators that guardians and conservators appointed by judges have devastated their families.

“I had watched those stories and I really struggled to understand how this could happen in our modern society,” Attorney General Dana Nessel told 7 Investigator Heather Catallo in an exclusive interview. “Your series of stories really helped to enlighten people… The problem is even greater than I thought.”

Now, Nessel is teaming up with Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget McCormack, Justices Richard Bernstein and Megan Cavanaugh, and four state lawmakers to form the Elder Abuse Task Force. Stopping over-use of court appointed guardians is a top priority.

“As an attorney I’m just horrified," Nessel said. "I see cases, frankly, where there are civil infractions for traffic tickets where there is more time and energy and effort put in by the attorneys and by the judge and by the witnesses than there is when you have a person made a full guardian of another human being. And that’s atrocious."

Nessel and Assistant Attorney General Scott Teter want to require professional guardians to be certified.

“You could go out this afternoon, have business cards printed up, stick up a sign and you’re a professional guardian," said Teter, who is the director of the attorney general’s Financial Crimes Division and project leader for the Elder Abuse Task Force. "That’s just insane that we would have a system where we would use the power of the court and put somebody else’s entire life under your control with zero training, zero qualifications, zero monitoring.”

In Michigan, 32,137 adults are under guardianship, which means someone else is making all of their medical and legal decisions for them. Conservators are also appointed frequently, and they control all of your finances.

“This is not a system designed to help; this is prison,” said Niki Disner in 2017 when the 7 Investigators interviewed her about the years of her life that were controlled by a court-appointed guardian.

The 7 Investigators have showed you case after case where family members say professional guardians have prevented them from seeing their loved ones.

Most recently, Marcie Mitchell and her family members were prevented by the guardian from visiting her ailing dad and step-mom in Utica. That guardian has since withdrawn from the case, and Mitchell is fighting to become the appointed guardian.

Now, the Task Force wants to change the law so visitation will be allowed.

Certification for guardians, basic rights for families of wards, and more accountability on the finances. Those are just a few of the things @MIAttyGen and @MISupremeCourt and the #elderabuse task force want changed in Michigan. Join us tonight at 6pm on @wxyzdetroit pic.twitter.com/ygtSNOafFn

— Heather Catallo WXYZ (@HeatherCatallo) June 20, 2019

“Making certain that if an adult child is not made the guardian, if there is a guardian put in place that there is a damn good reason for that," Nessel said. "And that the judge has to explain that in full. So even if the court deems that adult child not the appropriate person, not the best person to be a formal guardian for their parent, it doesn’t mean they should never see their parent ever again.”

Teter says the task force is also making a list of basic rights for family members.

“We’ve put together a list that we’re working on to make sure that they have not only the opportunity to challenge visitation, but the opportunity to present their information as to why they should be a guardian or a co-guardian," Teter said. "And the right to notice of the hearings, the right to see a copy of the Guardian ad Litem recommendations before we get to court – all of those things. And then that would be a separate notice available at the court so that when you come in, they hand you a list that says these are your rights in the system."

The task force also wants to require testimony from doctors in court prior to a guardianship being granted.

“I think medical testimony should be mandatory," Nessel said. "If you’re going to make an assessment that an individual can no longer care for themselves and has to have somebody there making their medical decisions and their financial decisions for them, you ought to have a medical professional who’s going to attest to that. And not just an attorney who says, ‘well, I went and I spoke to this person for five minutes and it seemed like they weren’t really capable of understanding what I said to them.’ That’s astonishing to me."

The 7 Investigators also exposed how some local courts use attorney general-appointed public administrators, whose job is to open estates after someone dies, as guardians.

“If we are able to corroborate information that these public administrators are not acting properly, I have no problem terminating their service,” Nessel said.

“We don’t supervise the guardianship side, that’s the courts responsibility," Teter said. "But we have repeatedly run into judges who use the language: ‘I’m appointing John Smith, the public administrator.’ And I assume that’s to lend some added credibility to that appointment, when they know that that’s absolutely legally incorrect."

State Senator Peter Lucido (R-Shelby Twp.), Rep. Brian Elder (D-Bay City), Senator Paul Wojno (D-Warren), and Rep. Graham Filler (R-Dewitt) are also on the task force.

“If the adult guardianship system is failing our moms and dads, we have to fix that,” said Chief Justice McCormack in a written release when the task force was announced in March. “That’s why I have asked Justice Bernstein and Justice Cavanagh to take the lead on this task force with Attorney General Nessel.”

Chief Justice McCormack also recognized investigation efforts by the media in this statement:

“The Court appreciates the work that the media have done to highlight families who have concerns regarding the guardianship system. Justices Cavanagh and Bernstein are actively involved in the Task Force, traveling the state, listening to families tell their stories. These families come to probate court at the most difficult times in their lives. They deserve a system that protects their rights, follows the law, and safeguards vulnerable residents. By listening to the public and working together, the Task Force is on the right track to make sure the system works for all our moms and dads.”

To report elder abuse, call 855-444-3911, or if you have questions for the Task Force they can be reached at 800-24-ABUSE.

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Michigan AG launches Elder Abuse Task Force, wants guardianship laws changed in wake of 7 investigation

Lessons on Living From My 106-Year-Old Aunt Doris

Love, meaningfulness and the power of connection don’t stop just because we get old.

Aunt Doris on her 106th birthday. 

Credit: Amy Eisenberg

By Barry Eisenberg

My Aunt Doris recently passed away, exactly two weeks before her birthday. She would have been 107.

I have been involved in health care for my entire professional life, as a hospital executive, consultant and professor of health care management. But the time spent with my aunt at the end of her life taught me more about living and dying than all my experience had prepared me for.

Doris lived in the same Manhattan apartment for seven decades. For years, she had stubbornly resisted moving into a relative’s home or assisted living community. When she was 103, she had a fall that landed her in the hospital, after which she agreed, reluctantly, to hire a live-in aide.

The aide was caring and capable, but over the next two years, Doris became exceedingly feeble and bedridden, her mind confused. Her breathing grew labored and her voice was practically inaudible when she told my wife, Amy, and me that she didn’t want to die with a “stranger,” whom we took to mean the aide.

When Amy said, “Doris, we would love for you to come live with us,” Doris, uncharacteristically, began to cry. With a look of gratitude, she whispered, “You would take me in?”

Doris seemed moments away from death, and we wanted to honor her wish to be with family. It felt simple, naïvely so in retrospect, uncomplicated by the implications of an open-ended period of caregiving.

Her doctor felt that time was of the essence. With the help of a local home hospice agency, we readied our guest room and arranged for Doris to be transported to our New Jersey home.

As the ambulette crew delicately shifted a fragile Doris from her bed onto a stretcher, she appeared more a collection of bones than a person. Would she even survive this trip? She was nearly unresponsive, her eyes vacant. I held her frail hand, hoping she wasn’t frightened.

At our house, she lay nearly motionless in the hospital bed provided by the hospice agency. We began the vigil we were certain would not last long.

We hung some family photos that we had taken from Doris’s apartment on the wall next to her bed and sat at her bedside, describing each one. A photo from the 1940s showed Doris in a dark high-buttoned dress with pronounced shoulder pads, a look she called “handsome.” In another, from the 1960s, she was on a palm-tree-lined beach in California, posing happily with a few cousins. There was little sign that our story-telling was penetrating, but we persevered, hoping to spark familiar memories, like the Third Avenue Hudson Place waffle fries she loved and the 1940s maritime décor that caught her eye.

Doris stirred a bit over the next few days, her eyes becoming a little more focused. Then something of a miracle happened: Doris began a slow but steady journey back to her old self. Over the next few weeks, her cognition was almost fully restored. She began to feed herself and, with help, use the commode instead of the diapers she hated.

As winter gave way to spring, Doris sat in her wheelchair on our backyard deck. Her vision was weak, but she could make out the trees and see birds fluttering about. We had lengthy talks about her life. She was most animated when talking about her childhood. The eldest of four, Doris was born in Poland where she and her mother — my grandmother — remained while her father came to the United States in search of work and opportunity. They joined him in the United States when Doris was 7.

Doris entered the work world right out of high school. She was industrious and ambitious, eventually becoming an executive in a finance company. She never married, pouring herself into her work. When she retired at 91, she looked for volunteer work, becoming a docent at the New York Public Library.

Doris and I had formed a friendship years ago, when I became a young adult. Later, our children also developed close relationships with her, admiring her strength of character and feminist perspective that was shaped in the 1940s when she joined her company’s exclusively male executive ranks. She inspired us all, recounting how she walked everywhere in New York City: to her job, her volunteer work, the opera at the Met.

Now, living with us, Doris was determined to regain her strength and walk independently again. She returned to the exercise regimen she had been doing for years, mostly leg lifts, stretches and self-massages. Soon, Doris was able to raise herself out of her wheelchair and walk with the aid of a walker. She had a disciplined routine, counting her steps and charting her progress. Then she would sit back in her wheelchair and gaze at the trees in the backyard. She giggled when the dog licked her ice cream cone and her face. She delighted in the reawakening of her senses, asking to smell the newly blossoming lilacs.

Doris’s intellectual curiosity blossomed as well. We sat on the deck and talked every day. When the weather turned cold, our conversations moved indoors. She kept up with politics and her investments. A small circle of relatives who had visited her in New York came to visit her in New Jersey.

At one point she looked at Amy and me and said, “I never knew life could be so beautiful.”

After 17 months with us, Doris’s cognition again began to fade. I would initiate a discussion about my father — her brother — with whom she always had a special bond. He had passed away 15 years earlier. She stared at me blankly, conceding she did not know who I was talking about.

I then remembered an anecdote she had once told me and I shared it with her: When my father was a newborn, Doris rocked him in her arms while their mother was busy with household chores. “Oh, George, of course, my baby brother,” she said with a pleased grin, recalling a memory that was almost a hundred years old.

It often took a while to find the right trigger, the portal into a memory clouded by age and confusion. But once there, her mental wherewithal returned in full form. It remains a great challenge for caretakers, helping our elderly loved ones experience life that, no matter the constraints and limitations, no matter the place they live, is purposeful and enriching. We have a richer vocabulary for talking with our aging relatives about their health than about their dreams. And yet, what I discovered is that Doris thrived when she could make choices about how to spend her time, maintain control over her life story, and feel that those around her respected whatever autonomy she was capable of exercising.

In “Being Mortal,” Dr. Atul Gawande reminds us that meaningfulness is central to what we yearn for, and this doesn’t stop just because we get old. I came to appreciate that meaningfulness involved dignifying Doris’s desires, feelings, memories and even aspirations. In the journal The Gerontologist, Melanie Mallers and colleagues summarize research indicating that “lack of choice and self-determination can lead to poor physical fitness, decreased social support, and depression.” The will to go on can weaken when one feels stripped of empowerment in decisions made about one’s own life.

Among the more valuable lessons I learned is that actualization is feasible for a person of even significantly advanced age. A story Doris repeatedly told me in her last few months opened my eyes to this point. It was about a vacation Doris and her mother took in the 1950s. The motel housekeeper entered their room and appeared ill. My grandmother asked why she hadn’t stayed home. She replied that she needed the money. After insisting that the housekeeper lie down in her bed, my grandmother cleaned all the rooms assigned to the housekeeper.

This story was important to Doris because she revered her mother’s altruistic nature. But it also gnawed at her, fostering lingering self-doubt. Doris saw herself as incapable of exercising kindness in the manner of her mother. Although she was generous with time, advice and financial support, she could be brusque. She lacked confidence in the softer ways we reach others, through touch and expressions of warmth. As much as the story helped Doris celebrate her mother’s memory, it was a troubling reminder that she might have fallen short.

So we talked about generosity, about what giving looks like. It comes in many forms, hers just as valued as any other. In the end, she became gracious in ways I never thought possible. She talked about family as being something to cherish, to nurture. She initiated hugs rather than stiffening through them. Her final words, as she passed from life to death, a transition of merciful seamlessness, were “thank you.”

Amy and I thought that Doris would be living with us for a very short time, and we had invited her to stay with us thinking we could lend comfort to her in her final moments. But it transformed into something none of us anticipated, bringing new meaning to her life, even at 106.

She thanked us for this gift. But in learning about life, love, aging, meaningfulness and the power of connection, the gift was all ours.

Barry Eisenberg, Ph.D., is an associate professor of health care management in the School for Graduate Studies at SUNY Empire State College and a former hospital administrator.

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Lessons on Living From My 106-Year-Old Aunt Doris

Boulder County woman set for trial in elderly exploitation case

 By Mitchell Byars

A Boulder County woman accused of exploiting an elderly couple for money is set for trial in October, though her attorneys anticipate she will reach a plea deal before that time.

Christine Grace Sparks-West

Christine Grace Sparks-West, 42, is charged with two counts of theft of $500 or more of an at-risk person and exploitation of an at-risk person. She also is facing counts of violating bond conditions and violating a protection order.

Sparks-West entered a plea of not guilty in Boulder District Court on Friday, but her attorney John Gifford said attorneys were “working toward a disposition” and that there was a good chance the case would be resolved before the trial.

For now, Boulder District Judge Thomas Mulvahill set both the exploitation and the bond violation cases for a two-day trial starting Oct. 7, though Gifford said he would likely file a motion to sever the cases if it did in fact go to trial.

Sparks-West was also set for a motions hearing on Aug. 6.

According to an affidavit, the named victims in the case are a couple who live in unincorporated Boulder County and are both in their 70s.

The man, who has suffered with memory loss and has slight dementia, met Sparks-West about five years ago when they worked together at a store in Boulder and remained friends, according to the affidavit.

Sometime in 2017, the man gave Sparks-West a debit card to buy materials to fix up his home’s basement and create a room that she could sleep in. According to the affidavit, he then became aware of unauthorized purchases on his account, and the bank told him that Sparks-West was buying items through a PayPal account she had set up using the debit card.

The man had authorized Sparks-West to open his PayPal account to order $51 worth of transformers, but from Nov. 17, 2017, through Dec. 21, 2017, the account listed 68 transactions totaling $5,162, according to the affidavit.

Police also said Sparks-West set up a PayPal account for the man’s wife without her knowledge and rang up a total of $963 in charges.

According to the affidavit, Sparks-West, who has an alias of Kristine Sparks-West, is a multi-state offender with a history including burglary, bank fraud, theft and production of false IDs.

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Boulder County woman set for trial in elderly exploitation case