The Kuwale Road property taken in forged deed scam
By Daryl Huff
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - A Waianae
family lost their disabled relative’s one-acre property to alleged title
theft despite working with attorneys to gain legal guardianship and
sell the home to pay for her care.
Betsy
and her husband lived together on the Waianae property until he died
and she became disabled from Alzheimer’s and dementia. The family rushed
to sell the property to generate money for her care, but alleged title
thieves acted first.
“The entire
situation was tragic,” said attorney Summer Shelverton, who was helping
the family members get guardianship in 2022 so they could sell the
property and four-bedroom house.
Fraudulent transfer discovered after guardianship granted
The family hoped the property was worth more than $600,000, but accused title thief Eldon Simer moved quickly.
Within a month of the family gaining
access to the property as conservators and guardians, they learned it
was fraudulently transferred.
The
title was clear on Aug. 1, 2022. Just 16 days later, Simer recorded a
forged deed with the Bureau of Conveyances. When the family discovered
the fraud in September, they filed a document hoping to block any sale.
But 11 days later, Iron Wood Finance of Texas paid Simer $350,000 for
the entire property.
“It was
constantly a case of catch-up,” Shelverton said. “As soon as we learned
the property was fraudulently conveyed, we’d go back and oh, it was now
inappropriately sold.”
Police said fraud wasn’t criminal matter
The
family had clear evidence. The notary said her seal was forged and she
hadn’t witnessed the signatures. Within days they called police and were
told it wasn’t a crime.
“They weren’t quite sure how to address and that their hands were tied,” Shelverton said.
The house mysteriously burned down a couple of months later.
“So to say that it was a shock, almost nothing was a shock at that point,” Shelverton said.
Simer
was investigated by the attorney general’s office and indicted for
insurance fraud for filing a $290,000 claim for the fire as well as
multiple charges for title theft of the Waianae property and two others
and is being held without bail.
State
House consumer protection chair and attorney Scot Matayoshi said
rightful owners on their own have little power to prevent a sale, even
from a fraudulent owner.
“If someone
wants to buy it, knowing that other action might be pending, people can
still buy the property if they’d like,” Matayoshi said.
On
its website, Iron Wood Finance offers “easy money” for real estate,
says it accepts 90 percent of applicants and can finish deals in as
little as 48 hours.
“I certainly think
that these quick acting companies are allowing these crimes to be
facilitated, but they’re doing it at their own risk too,” Matayoshi
said.
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Iron
Wood defended its title and sold the property last year for $425,000.
The family settled with the company, collecting far less money for
Betsy’s care than they had hoped.
Chicago hospitals funnel patients into long-lasting guardianships, angering friends and family
By Emily Hoerner, Christy Gutowski and Lisa Schencker
Gary Brown, shown in October, said he was taken by surprise when
Northwestern Memorial Hospital filed a petition to place his father,
Gary Ellis, under guardianship of the state. Ellis died before the
family could regain control. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
As Gary Ellis lay dying in August 2023, no one at the facility caring for him called his son.
Instead, staffers called Ellis’ court-appointed state guardian, who
had recently taken charge of all decisions related to the 69-year-old
man’s care. Not until it was too late did Gary Brown learn his father
had been at death’s door, Brown told the Tribune.
“When I went there the nurse was like, ‘We’ve been trying to call
someone all night but nobody answered the phone,’” Brown said. “All I
got was ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I’m sorry’ didn’t do nothing to help me or my
dad.”
The scenario was exactly what Brown feared when he learned, to his
surprise, that Northwestern Memorial Hospital had moved to appoint a
guardian for his father. The family said Northwestern had been treating the retired CTA bus driver for months, except for a brief stint at a rehabilitation facility, after he suffered a fall in April 2023.
Ellis’ family told the Tribune that by mid-May the hospital began
pressuring them to approve a transfer to a nursing facility, saying his
insurance coverage had stopped. Brown said he was still trying to
navigate his best option when a judge signed off on the temporary
guardianship petition, taking away Brown’s ability to decide anything on
his father’s behalf.
Putting someone under guardianship has profound consequences, often
stripping the individual of the right to make personal, medical and
financial decisions for the rest of their lives. Courts, government
officials and advocates for adults with disabilities say it should be an
option of last resort, used only when people cannot make their own
decisions and no less restrictive solution is available.
Gary
Brown holds a memorial card honoring his father, Gary Ellis, who died
under guardianship after a hospitalization. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago
Tribune)
Yet Chicago-area hospitals recently initiated hundreds of
guardianship petitions in just 18 months, a Tribune investigation has
found, sometimes to the dismay of family members or friends who did not
want people they loved to be placed under someone else’s control.
In many cases, guardianship eased the way for hospitals to discharge
patients to subpar nursing homes, sometimes bypassing family members who
disagreed with the hospital’s choice or were slow to make other
arrangements.
Many relatives or friends wound up battling on their loved ones’
behalf long after the hospital had solved one of its immediate problems —
a patient it wanted to discharge.
Some hospitals moved for guardianship over the objections of patients
who later successfully fought to regain their freedom, or in cases
where the patient’s rapid subsequent improvement raised questions about
the need for such drastic measures.
In cases where patients have little money, hospitals often seek to
place them with the publicly funded Office of State Guardian at the
hospitals’ expense. But if the patient does have assets, the Tribune
found, the hospitals and their hired lawyers almost always recommend a
certain private care management organization as guardian. That opens a
pipeline to the patient’s life savings, which can be rapidly drained to
pay for the care they receive as well as fees charged by the private
guardian and the lawyers working on the case.
The consequences of guardianship can be so severe and long-lasting
that some hospitals, even those that serve many low-income patients,
told the Tribune they try hard to avoid it.
Yet two of the area’s largest and most prestigious medical
institutions, the University of Chicago Medical Center and Northwestern
Memorial Hospital, had by far the most guardianship cases during the
period examined, even in comparison to other big hospitals.
The Tribune identified 369 hospital-initiated adult guardianship
petitions filed from January 2023 through June 2024 after combing
through thousands of pages of court records in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake,
McHenry and Will counties. Of these, 68 came from University of Chicago
Medical Center and 35 from Northwestern Memorial. By contrast, Rush
University Medical Center had six, John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital had five
and Loyola University Medical Center had none.
The
University of Chicago Medical Center filed 68 guardianship petitions in
18 months, the most by any hospital in the six-county Chicago area.
(Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
The University of Chicago Medical Center and Northwestern both did
not grant interviews and would not comment on individual cases, sending
written general statements instead.
Northwestern called guardianship a “compassionate solution” and a
“vital safeguard for individuals who are unable to make decisions for
themselves and who lack family, friends or legal representatives acting
in the patients’ best interest to advocate on their behalf.” The
guardianship process “plays a critical role in protecting vulnerable
patients,” said the statement from University of Chicago Medical Center,
and the number of guardianship petitions it files “reflects the medical
complexity and vulnerability of the patients we serve.”
Each hospital said guardianship is sought in only a fraction of cases
— or, for Northwestern, “0.000175%” of the more than 200,000 patients
the 11-hospital system discharged in a recent 12-month period.
For Ellis, his ordeal began when he injured his leg after falling on a
fire hydrant, according to Brown. His father chose Northwestern
Memorial for his treatment, believing it had the best care to offer in
the area, Brown said. The injury, plus heart problems, resulted in Ellis
moving back and forth between Northwestern and a nursing care facility.
Northwestern
Memorial Hospital filed the second-largest number of guardianship
petitions. A spokesperson called it a "compassionate solution" for some
patients. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
Brown said he tried to go to the hospital every day after work, and
before the guardianship he said he answered the phone at any time of the
day or night when health care workers needed permission to perform
procedures for his dad.
After learning of the guardianship petition, Brown sent an anguished,
handwritten motion to the judge, pleading to be appointed guardian
before the next court date at the end of August 2023. He had been in the
process of visiting nursing homes but “didn’t move fast enough” for the
hospital, the motion states.
“I don’t want my father passing in guardianship of the state when he
has a whole family that loves him,” Brown wrote. “I honestly don’t know
how they could say this when he’s had visitors almost every day
literally!”
Two weeks later, his father died under guardianship of the state, in a
long-term acute care hospital, with none of the people who loved him
there to bear witness.
‘They weren’t listening’
In the best-case scenario, a hospital files a guardianship petition
because there is no other viable option. Hospitals have a responsibility
to discharge their patients safely, and some people who cannot function
on their own do not have anyone close who is willing and able to take
charge.
But the Tribune found multiple instances where patients had people
who said they were willing to step in — or even held power of attorney —
but the hospital filed a petition nominating someone else.
For example, when the University of Chicago Medical Center filed a
guardianship petition for one patient in 2023 because of her cognitive
impairment, the petition stated she had no close family members who were
entitled to be notified regarding the guardianship.
But the patient did have a family, including her brother, William
Donaldson, who told the Tribune he had been visiting her at the
hospital. He said he was disappointed to find that his sister, 76, had
been placed under guardianship and discharged to a nursing home.
“They kicked her out of the hospital without telling me,” Donaldson
told the Tribune. “I had been going back and forth to the hospital to
see her. I called the hospital looking for her and she was gone.”
Donaldson has since gained guardianship of his sister after four
months in court with the help of an attorney. Of the situation, he said
simply: “It is a nightmare.”
In some cases, as with Gary Brown, a hospital’s decision on
guardianship had irrevocable consequences. Families saw the time run out
on their loved one’s life before they could regain control.
Kenya
Lawrence said she and other family wanted to take her grandmother,
Earsline Rose, home with them to the Milwaukee area. Instead, Rose died
in a South Side nursing home. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
Kenya Lawrence, a granddaughter of the late Earsline Rose, told the
Tribune she became aware of the University of Chicago Medical Center’s
temporary guardianship petition only after Rose’s family found the
paperwork in her hospital room.
Lawrence said she and her siblings showed up at a 2023 court hearing
on the petition for Rose, who was 90 years old, and tried unsuccessfully
to make the case that the family should be in charge.
“She had no business in the system; she has relatives,” Lawrence
said. “I fought tooth and nail; I fought very hard. They weren’t
listening to that.”
Rose’s grandchildren had hoped to take the nonagenarian home with
them to the Milwaukee area and care for her in her final days. Instead,
she was discharged to a poorly rated nursing home in Chicago’s South
Shore neighborhood, many miles away. She died there in July 2023, four
days after Lawrence formally petitioned a judge to take over as her
grandmother’s guardian, records show.
For Rose’s family, the process felt “shady,” frustrating and cruel.
“Everybody’s going to get old,” Lawrence said, “and you’re going to wish that doesn’t happen to you.”
"She
had no business in the system; she has relatives," Kenya Lawrence said
of her grandmother, Earsline Rose, shown in an old publication. (Eileen
T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
Though the University of Chicago Medical Center would not comment on
individual cases, it contended in its written statement that “the
medical center pursues guardianship … only after exhaustive efforts are
made to locate family or close friends.”
Joyce Anderson told the Tribune it came as a surprise when Chicago’s
St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital filed a petition naming a private
organization as the recommended guardian for her 81-year-old aunt, Betty
Robertson, instead of anyone who knew her.
It happened, Anderson said, while she was still working on finding an
acceptable facility where her aunt could live after discharge. As she
made calls and visited nursing homes, various family members continued
visiting the elderly woman at the hospital.
Once guardianship was in place, the hospital sent Robertson to a
nursing home that Anderson did not find to be acceptable for someone she
loved. Robertson has since died.
“They did not care, that’s the best way for me to put it,” Anderson
said of the hospital. “I understand financially, I understand about all
of that, but you should have just given us more of a chance to try to
find some place.”
Ascension, which owned the hospital at the time, did not answer
Tribune questions. Court records show that a nurse had acknowledged that
relatives regularly visited the patient but said the family was
“nonresponsive” regarding medical decisions.
Derrell Collier said he spent hours at his mother’s bedside after she
went into cardiac arrest outside a grocery store at age 69 in early
2023 — mainly at Loyola University Medical Center and then at Kindred
Chicago Lakeshore, a long-term acute care hospital that has since
closed.
Derrell
Collier washes the hands of his mother in October at a Chicago nursing
home. A hospital had previously tried to place her under guardianship.
(Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
After several months, Collier said, Kindred told him his mother’s
insurance would soon cease to cover her stay and the hospital wanted to
discharge her. Collier was opposed, and while he was still navigating
how to get his mother’s care covered, Kindred’s administration grew
impatient and sought the appointment of a public guardian in the fall of
2023, writing in a petition that her “family refuses to participate and
consent to discharge planning.”
Collier, who had his mother’s power of attorney for health care, said
he showed up for court to argue that he and his brother were very much
involved, present and able to act on the wishes his mother had expressed
before she fell ill. The hospital withdrew the guardianship petition
after Collier found another placement for his mother.
“When you show up every day it’s difficult for them to do certain
things, it’s hard to go in front of a judge and say he doesn’t care,”
Collier said. “They took me there because of the money. … They were
trying to take charge and stick her in any-old-nursing-facility
any-old-where.”
A spokesperson for ScionHealth, which operated Kindred Chicago
Lakeshore, declined to comment on specific patients. In a written
statement, the health system said the “safety, dignity and well-being of
our patients are always our highest priorities.”
Nearly a third of patients in the hospital guardianship cases
reviewed by the Tribune went to nursing homes that, during the year the
guardianship was initiated, had an average one-star rating from the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the lowest possible. A
similar percentage of patients were discharged to nursing homes that
were flagged for patient abuse for the majority of the year in which
they were placed under guardianship.
"They
were trying to take charge and stick her in any-old-nursing-facility
any-old-where,” Derrell Collier said of the now-closed hospital that
wanted to discharge his mother against his wishes. (Eileen T.
Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
In one case, the University of Chicago Medical Center nominated the
mother of a 53-year-old patient as guardian in October 2023, only to
renege after the mother objected to the poorly reviewed nursing home the
hospital had selected for discharge, RYZE on the Avenue.
In the months before the hospital filed its petition, federal
regulators had fined that nursing home more than $80,000 after finding
the facility had failed to protect residents from physical abuse from
other residents, failed to properly care for wounds and left an
incontinent patient in soiled clothing for more than two hours.
The hospital nominated a different guardian, and the patient was
discharged to the nursing home. She died months later. RYZE did not
respond to the Tribune’s requests for comment.
Jim Berchtold, a Nevada attorney and the recent director of Justice
in Aging’s guardianship policy program, said that when hospitals are the
ones arranging for discharge, the focus is on getting the person out
the door.
“They don’t care what level of care they’re receiving, they can say,
‘It was a safe discharge, we’re in the clear,’” said Berchtold, who
developed a program to provide legal counsel for adults facing
guardianship in his home state of Nevada. They may think: “‘Hopefully …
the guardian will step in and transfer them someplace better.’ (They’re)
pushing it off to the next person.”
Choosing the ‘nuclear option’
Once a guardianship is in place, it takes time, money and effort to make the case for freedom.
Brian Sivley, a 36-year-old man with physical disabilities, wound up
under guardianship after he suffered a fall, was treated at Northwestern
Memorial Hospital and didn’t like the hospital’s plan to discharge him
to a nursing home. A hospital doctor determined Sivley had an “inability
to appreciate the risks of returning home.”
Sivley had lived in a nursing home before, but he’d recently
succeeded in living on his own with the help of government services. He
wanted to keep his hard-won autonomy.
Northwestern officials filed a petition for temporary guardianship
anyway. It would take a year before Sivley, with legal help from the
disability advocacy organization Equip for Equality, was able to resume
making his own health and living decisions.
The hospital withdrew its petition for a longer-term guardianship
arrangement earlier this year after Sivley signed documents giving his
power of attorney for health care to a former teacher he had stayed in
touch with over the years.
“I don’t know why they took the nuclear option,” Sivley’s attorney,
Jin-Ho Chung, said of the hospital. “Like the doctor that we retained
said, one might agree or disagree with Mr. Sivley’s choices; that
doesn’t mean that he needs a legal guardian.”
“From our experience, it seems that it’s more difficult for
individuals to terminate a guardianship than to have one appointed,”
said Cristina Headley, another attorney with Equip for Equality who
works on the organization’s adult guardianship initiatives.
In a written statement, Sivley told the Tribune he “felt really mad” about the forced guardianship.
“I knew that there were ways I could get rehab at my apartment and it
would be covered by my insurance because of prior experiences,” Sivley
wrote. “It hurt even more because I had just moved into my first
apartment.”
Anita Raymond, a licensed independent social worker who has written
about the so-called hospital-to-guardianship pipeline, said hospitals
may err in relying on the court’s checks and balances to catch
questionable petitions.
“Hospitals may think, ‘We don’t know what else to do. If we’re wrong
the court-appointed attorney will fight the petition,’” Raymond said,
referring to the guardian ad litem who helps assess what decision is in
the person’s best interest. “And then the judge ultimately decides
whether to appoint the guardian or not. People presume, ‘It’s OK if I do
this even if I’m wrong.’”
But health professionals and other advocates say these judges often
don’t have much more information to go on than the medical evaluations
coming from the hospital itself, which has a vested interest in the
outcome.
Cook County Circuit Judge Daniel Malone, who presides over the
probate division, said in an interview that the judges make decisions
based on the information in front of them. The standard for finding
someone to be disabled — clear and convincing evidence — is high, he
said.
“We’re taking people’s rights away from them,” Malone said. “It’s not something any judge here wants to do lightly.”
The medical evaluations provided to the court also are sometimes
conducted early in the person’s stay, when they may be at their worst,
advocates said.
Andre
Daniels, left, brings food to his father, Frank Daniels, at a La Grange
Park nursing home this month. Andre Daniels is now his father's
guardian after a fight in court. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
Andre Daniels, whose father was placed under temporary guardianship
at age 76 in February 2024, said he is bothered by the fact that Frank
Daniels was assessed at the beginning of his hospitalization and his
ability to make decisions was not meaningfully reevaluated afterward.
“He’s very perceptive, he’s very aware, he still writes everything
down,” Daniels said of his father. “How did he get to the stage where he
was deemed incapable (when) he is basically capable?”
The younger Daniels said he had been estranged from his father, a
trained welder who served in Vietnam as a Marine, before learning about
the situation from his brother in October 2024. He then worked with an
attorney to take over as guardian earlier this year.
Much of what the elder Daniels has to his name was the result of
fighting and advocating for himself, according to his son. In the late
1980s, Daniels won a racial discrimination lawsuit,
along with a substantial financial settlement, after complaining about
unequal treatment for Black welders in the white-dominated Chicago
Pipefitters Local 597 union. His fight had lasting effects, with a federal judge later mandating oversight of the union’s practices.
He is now in a nursing home but wants to return to the multifamily
home he owns and lived in with two of his daughters before being treated
at University of Chicago Medical Center, Daniels said. He said they are
now working toward that goal together.
Frank
Daniels, shown holding a list of appointments, is “very perceptive,
he’s very aware," his son said. “How did he get to the stage where he
was deemed incapable (when) he is basically capable?” (Eileen T.
Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
The Tribune’s review found Black patients were overrepresented in
hospital guardianship petitions in diverse Cook County, raising
questions of implicit bias in both health systems and the courts related
to those patients and their families. While the patient’s race was not
always available in court records, at least 39% of the patients were
identified as Black, compared with about 22% of the county’s population.
“There are hundreds of decision points, even before the case is
filed, about that person, about their capacity, about their behaviors,
about the decisions they are making,” said Berchtold, formerly of
Justice in Aging. “The people making those decisions are almost
inevitably white individuals who know nothing about this person or where
that person is coming from.”
Dr. Kahli Zietlow, a geriatrician and clinical associate professor at
the University of Michigan who is studying guardianship outcomes, said
physicians who see patients in a hospital setting may have no history
with the patient, don’t know firsthand how well the person might
function at home and may not completely understand the implications of
their evaluations.
“Physicians don’t necessarily realize when we write a letter (finding
someone incapacitated) … that it can mean forever,” she said.
The Tribune found one case where a man is still under guardianship
more than a year after the state guardian itself filed a petition with
the court requesting to release him.
Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, which is part of Loyola Medicine,
initiated the petition in 2022 for the man in his early 60s because
complications related to alcoholism had left him unable to comprehend or
communicate much, court records show. He spent about 45 days in the
hospital.
But after his discharge to a nursing home, the former patient
improved greatly and repeatedly voiced his objection to being under
guardianship and living at the facility. A 2024 petition from the state
guardian to revoke the guardianship stated “he is completely independent
and does not have any major medical issues and does not display any
sign of confusion.”
That petition is still pending after the last doctor to evaluate the
man requested a second opinion and the second doctor got cold feet about
doing the evaluation, telling the man’s guardian she feared the
consequences to her license if the man “were to commit a crime.” This
month, the guardian reported to the court that another doctor requested
additional sessions with the man before issuing a report.
Loyola Medicine said it could not share information about an
individual patient but said it is the health system’s policy to ask for
court intervention “only after we have exhausted other available
options.”
“It’s a tough system,” said Peter Lichtenberg, a national expert in
financial capacity assessment and the financial exploitation of older
adults. “If somebody who really shouldn’t have lost their rights but
doesn’t have the wherewithal to have the legal advocate to get them on
their road … it can be a real nightmare.”
Alternatives to guardianship
Stroger is Cook County’s flagship public hospital and aims to “care
for everyone” regardless of immigration status or the ability to pay.
Around half of the patients in recent years have been Medicaid
recipients — meaning many belong to lower-income households.
Yet despite the complications of caring for this population, the
hospital brought just five guardianship petitions during the 18-month
period the Tribune examined. Two of the cases involved a pair of
siblings in their 40s with serious disabilities who had been at Stroger
for nearly two years.
Cook County Health’s chief legal officer, Ellie Bane, said in a
statement that Stroger strives to preserve patient autonomy and that the
hospital works to find alternatives such as powers of attorney or
surrogate decision-makers for health care.
“A guardianship for health care decisions is a significant legal
decision that requires court approval and can be overly restrictive, and
even permanent,” Bane wrote. “Pursuing guardianship when other options
exist extends beyond our primary role as a health care provider.”
With
his son's help, Frank Daniels hopes to leave nursing care and return to
the multifamily home he owns and lived in with his two daughters.
(Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
At St. Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center, a smaller community
hospital in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, those who oversee case
management told the Tribune that even in cases where patients are
difficult to discharge, they seek to work with family members or other
decision-makers whenever possible. St. Bernard filed just one petition
for guardianship between January 2023 and June 2024.
Vivian Moore, who works in the hospital’s wellness management
department, said the hospital starts discharge planning the day patients
are admitted. She said the hospital does its own investigations to find
family members, including researching prior visits and searching for
missing persons reports.
“If the patient doesn’t have a preference or is not able to vocalize a
preference we want to take into consideration the preference of the
family,” Moore said. And when patients disagree with what the hospital
thinks is best, St. Bernard also tries to honor that, she said. “We
still want to equip them with those options and resources, but we
respect their final decision.”
St. Anthony Hospital in Little Village filed just two guardianship
petitions in the 18 months the Tribune reviewed. David Evers, the
hospital’s assistant general counsel, called it “a last resort … in part
because we have a lot of great alternatives under Illinois law that are
not permanent, that are less invasive, that give families more input.”
“It does cost you a lot of money and effort to get a guardian
appointed, so if there is a family member that wants to be a guardian
and is engaged with us, we’re absolutely going to help them do it
because it’s in both of our interests,” Evers said.
An Illinois law aimed at reducing guardianship does require health
providers to seek out potential surrogate decision-makers for the
patient, but that requirement extends only to spouses, parents and
children. Contacting adult grandchildren, siblings and close friends is
optional.
In four Michigan counties, the Michigan Elder Justice Initiative is
operating a pilot program aimed at offering courts and community
organizations alternate tools to help solve problems without fully
stripping away adults’ rights.
Alison Hirschel, an attorney with the advocacy organization, said
that in one county they saw a 42% reduction in guardianship filings in
the program’s first year.
“There are lots of reasons that hospitals and nursing homes petition
for guardianship that aren’t really about the interests and best needs
of the patient,” Hirschel said.
One key component of the Michigan program is educating petitioners
about options that are less restrictive than full guardianships.
Derrell
Collier washes the feet of his mother during a recent visit to her
nursing home. "She took care of everyone in the family," he said. "I
think it's only right. It's her turn." (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago
Tribune)
In Illinois, one such option is limited guardianship, which is
specifically tailored to the things a person needs assistance with.
But in the Tribune’s 18-month review, just seven of the
hospital-initiated guardianships, or roughly 2%, were limited in nature,
allowing the person some control over their life. In at least one
situation, the guardian ad litem’s recommendation for a limited
guardianship was disregarded.
In that case, a former University of Chicago mathematics professor
was hospitalized at the university’s medical campus in fall 2023 after
his advanced dementia resulted in a friend and colleague bringing him to
the hospital.
After meeting the former professor, the guardian ad litem wrote to
the judge that he “uses his intelligence to mask possible dementia and
cognitive deficits” but “I do not think the respondent is totally unable
to make personal or financial decisions.”
The man consistently objected to needing guardianship but agreed he
could use some help managing his financial affairs. Nonetheless, a full
guardianship was put into place.
“There really is supposed to be a preference for limited
guardianships,” Hirschel said. “One of the reasons that rarely happens
or doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should (is) the judges don’t
have enough information about what the person can do or can’t do. The
judge doesn’t have the information to draft a narrowly tailored order.
And also for judges who are really busy, it’s just faster.”
Malone, who presides over Cook County’s probate division,
acknowledged to the Tribune that limited guardianships are in the
minority. In making those decisions, Malone said, judges have to rely
heavily on the reports they receive.
“It’s the doctors that make that decision as to whether the person’s
totally disabled or partially disabled,” he said. “The other thing we
rely heavily upon is (guardians ad litem); they’re the eyes and ears of
the court.”
Other best practices experts cited to improve the guardianship
process include bolstering training for physicians who conduct these
assessments and doing the assessments in home settings whenever
possible.
Gary
Brown sits on a South Michigan Avenue bench where his father, Gary
Ellis, a former CTA bus driver, liked to sit and watch activity near a
bus stop. Brown said his feelings are still raw after his father died
under guardianship without loved ones nearby. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago
Tribune)
Dr. John Halphen, a clinical professor of geriatric medicine at
UTHealth Houston, has worked for about two decades with a state-funded
program that connects physicians trained in capacity assessments with
adult protective services, which now covers the entire state of Texas.
The physicians he works with “don’t have a dog in the fight,” Halphen
said; no one involved receives fees or gets paid in a way that is
related to the outcome of the assessment.
Obtaining background information about the person is key, Halphen
said. His team checks with multiple sources to learn about the adult’s
capabilities and uses cognitive screening tests to help assess whether
people really understand their circumstances.
“It’s always a balancing act,” said Lichtenberg, the expert on
financial assessment. “If you don’t provide protection to people who are
incredibly vulnerable, they do get exploited and it’s not pretty.
On the other hand, “if you provide protection when you should be
promoting autonomy, it impacts their quality of life and mental health,”
he said. “It impacts their physical health too. The stakes are very
high for guardianship when it’s a close call.”
‘How can they do that’
For Gary Brown, whose father died under guardianship and without
loved ones nearby, feelings remain raw that no one has been held
accountable for the way his father’s story ended.
“They really took a lot from me and out of me,” Brown said.
His aunt Sandra Ellis told the Tribune she had been keeping tabs on
her brother, including visiting periodically from Georgia, talking to
hospital officials and reaching out to confirm her brother’s insurance
was still covering his stay.
She said she did not know this was something hospitals could do — ask the state to take control of a person.
“How can they do that and get away with all of that?” Ellis asked.
“When he passed away there was not one single family member that he had
there with him. And that was so sad.”
Casper, WY Julie Ann Cross, a 50-year-old nursing home employee, is
facing serious allegations of abusing a patient by tying the resident’s
head to a bed. The incident reportedly took place at a NOWCAP facility
on July 14.
Cross has been charged with one count of felony
intentional abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult and one count of
misdemeanor false imprisonment. She appeared in Natrona County District
Court on Thursday and pleaded not guilty, with a judge releasing her on a
$5,000 personal recognizance bond.
The alleged incident was
discovered by a morning shift manager, who found a 53-year-old woman
with her head tied down using a blue silk scarf. The employee intervened
after realizing the situation and noted that the scarf took at least
five minutes to remove.
Another staff member took photos of the
knot Cross reportedly used to secure the patient’s head. When
confronted, Cross suggested the scarf’s purpose was to prevent the
resident from moving during the night.
In response to questions, Cross remarked that the resident’s hair was
matted and had an odor. Cross was reportedly dismissed from her
position shortly after the incident.
After the incident, Cross
told police that the scarf was intended to keep the resident’s hair in a
ponytail. She later stated it had somehow wrapped around the bed.
Her court appearance on Thursday confirmed her dismissal from the facility following the allegations.
An Eldridge woman was ordered to serve five years of probation after police say she stole thousands from her father.
Cassandra Crafton, 34, appeared Friday in Scott County Court with her attorney, John Moeller.
Earlier, she withdrew a not-guilty plea and pleaded guilty to
financial exploitation of an older individual – first offense, and
first-degree theft. Other charges were dismissed at the sentencing.
Cassandra Crafton (Scott County Jail)
The judge said several people wrote letters in support of Crafton.
Before the sentencing, Crafton read a statement saying she quit her
job to care for the older man for about two years in her home. The
responsibility, she said, was “overwhelming,” and she began to gamble
“as a form of escape.”
She cried as she read her statement. “I was no longer thinking
clearly or rationally” as her father’s condition declined, she said.
But Derek Jones, senior assistant Scott County attorney, said “Obviously, this crime is one of betrayal.”
Susan Smith, who is power of attorney and sister of the victim, said her brother now lives in a nursing home in Illinois.
“Cassandra Crafton committed the ultimate act of betrayal,” Smith
said in court. For 16 months, “she made a conscious decision to steal”
from her father,” said Smith, who traveled from Nevada to appear in
court.
“To be honest, Ms. Crafton, the only saving grace in this case is you
do not have a criminal history,” Latham said just before he sentenced
Crafton. He suspended a sentence of incarceration and gave her five
years probation, with terms that she undergo substance abuse evaluation,
mental health evaluation, abstain from use of controlled substances and
alcohol, and maintain employment.
A theft investigation in 2024
Police say in affidavits that between the dates of Nov. 1, 2022, and
April 30, 2024, Cassandra Crafton took and spent about $34,187.95 for
personal gain while her husband, Miles Crafton, took and spent about
$22,599.10, affidavits show.
Cassandra Crafton “unlawfully electronically wire-transferred the
stolen money to Miles through a cash app account while Miles Crafton
also received the funds through his cash app account,” according to
affidavits. Total loss was $56,787.05, according to Scott County Court
records.
On Friday, the prosecuting attorney asked that the court dismiss the
case against Miles Crafton as part of Cassandra Crafton’s plea
agreement.
HARRISBURG, Pa., Nov. 24, 2025
/PRNewswire/ -- AARP Pennsylvania is encouraging caregivers to explore a
free video training series developed by the Administrative Office of
Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC) that provides an overview of guardianship and
alternatives to guardianship in Pennsylvania.
The Guardianship Training Series includes 14 videos designed
to provide newly appointed guardians, prospective guardians and other
members of the public with guidance on the roles and responsibilities of
a court-appointed guardian. The series is especially timely as new data
released by AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving shows nearly
one quarter of adults in Pennsylvania are providing unpaid care to loved
ones and only a small percentage receive formal training.
According to AARP's Caregiving in the U.S. 2025: Caring Across States
report, more than 2.3 million adults in Pennsylvania—23 percent of the
population—are family caregivers. Nearly half (46 percent) are
high-intensity caregivers, providing extensive support with daily tasks
and medical needs. Yet only 9 percent receive any formal training.
"When a court appoints a guardian, they are essentially transferring
decision-making authority from one person to another," said Bill
Johnston-Walsh, AARP Pennsylvania State Director. "Promoting
guardianship resources during National Family Caregiving Month is
essential because it equips families and caregivers with the knowledge
and tools needed to manage complex legal responsibilities, make informed
decisions, and support caregiving needs effectively. AARP appreciates
the AOPC for providing these resources to make the caregiving journey
easier when the need for guardianship exists."
"Ensuring that guardians understand their responsibilities is
critical to protecting the rights, dignity, and well-being of some of
our Commonwealth's most vulnerable residents," said Chief Justice of
Pennsylvania Debra Todd. "We are grateful for AARP Pennsylvania's
partnership in helping to raise awareness of these educational tools. By
equipping families and caregivers with clear, accessible information,
we can help them navigate these important decisions and support those in
their care."
New AARP caregiving data, Caregiving in the U.S. 2025: Caring Across States,
estimates that one in five of adults in Alaska — approximately 125,000
people — are family caregivers, providing largely unpaid and unsupported
care to older parents, spouses, and other loved ones. The data can be
found here.
“Alaskans
care for one another. When a loved one needs help, family members,
friends, and neighbors step up,” said Katie Severin, spokesperson for
AARP Alaska. “But too often, caregiving means risking big impacts to
finances, health and employments. With this new data and ahead of the
legislative session, AARP Alaska urges policymakers at every level to
act now to help family caregivers get the support they need.”
Family
caregivers in Alaska provide an estimated 88 million hours of care for
older parents, spouses, and other loved ones each year. In 2021, care
provided by unpaid family caregivers in Alaska was valued at $1.7
billion (data here).
Caregiving responsibilities range from bathing and meal prep to
managing medications, arranging transportation and handling medical
tasks, with little or no training.
But the toll on family
caregivers in the Census Bureau’s Pacific Division, including Alaska, is
great— financially, physically, and emotionally.
80% of caregivers pay out of their own pockets to help meet their loved ones’ needs, averaging $7,200 each year, or 25% of their income.
49%
of family caregivers report financial setbacks— taking on debt,
draining savings, or struggling to afford basics like food and medicine.
60%
of our state’s caregivers are also juggling full- or part-time jobs.
Many must reduce work hours or leave the workforce entirely due to
caregiving responsibilities, jeopardizing their own long-term financial
security.
In the most recent legislative session, AARP
Alaska, the Alaska Commission on Aging, and the AGENet senior services
provider network secured a $2.5 million increase for senior
community-based grants in the final passed budget. This funding
stabilized senior centers, ensuring continued operations, including
essential meals and services that help older adults maintain
independence at home and reducing the burden on unpaid family
caregivers.
AARP Alaska will continue to fight for commonsense solutions to save caregivers money and time and provide greater support:
· HB 173
Occupational Therapy Licensure Compact, sponsored by Rep. Jimmie,
authorizes Alaska to join the 32-state Occupational Therapy Licensure
Compact to reduce provider licensing barriers and improve access to
care. Occupational therapy is a critical support for people of all ages
requiring assistance with activities of daily living. Occupational
therapists can assess individual needs and provide therapy to help
patients improve, relearn, or maintain their ability to perform daily
tasks, which family caregivers frequently help with or are responsible
for.
· SB103
CNA Training sponsored by Sen. Gray-Jackson increases the dementia care
training requirement for certified nursing assistants, better equipping
them to support family caregivers dealing with dementia or related
disorders.
· SB190
Uniform Act: Guardianship/Conservatorship, sponsored by Sen. Kiehl,
brings Alaska's guardianship and conservatorship laws in line with the
Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Other Protective Arrangements
Act. This modernization enhances transparency and notice, refines court
disclosures and reporting, and clearly defines the roles of family
members, guardians ad litem, attorneys, and court visitors. Most
significantly, SB190 adds a new “Other Protective Arrangements” section
that empowers courts to craft orders that meet the specific needs of the
respondent when considering a guardianship or conservatorship petition.
This legislation will foster a legal framework that better supports
family caregivers and the friends or family members they care for.
And at the federal level, AARP is working to save caregivers money through the Credit for Caring Act, a proposed federal tax credit of up to $5,000 for working caregivers, and the Lowering Costs for Caregivers Act, which would expand flexible spending and health savings account uses.
This
National Family Caregivers Month, AARP Alaska encourages everyone to
show support for caregivers and to join the growing movement of
Americans raising their voices for change. Join AARP’s I Am A Caregivermovement and tell lawmakers it’s time to support those who care.
To access free caregiver tools and local resource guides, visit:
AARP’s state-by-state Family Caregiver Resource Guides to help family caregivers access key programs, services, and agencies right in their community.
AARP’sonline Caregiving Hub with tools and information available in English and Spanish.
AARP’s official caregiving Facebook group
serves as a place for family caregivers nationwide to connect, share
practical tips, offer support, and discuss their shared experiences.
*Due
to limited data collection in Alaska, the prevalence estimate was
modeled using Hierarchical Logit Modeling and detailed information about
Alaska’s caregivers cannot be presented. The Census Bureau’s
designation of the Pacific Division includes Alaska, California,
Hawai’i, Oregon, and Washington. For full methodology, see Methodology
Appendix here.
An Iowa lawyer accused of elder abuse is now suing the Henry County
District Court, the county attorney and the Mt. Pleasant chief of police
over a search warrant related to his financial records.
Attorney
Beau Bergmann and the Bergmann Law Firm are suing Henry County, Henry
County District Court, Henry County Attorney Darin Stater, and Mt.
Pleasant Chief of Police Lyle Murray in U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of Iowa.
The lawsuit claims Bergmann and his law
firm maintained a lawyer trust account for depositing client funds at
Wayland State Bank in Mt. Pleasant. According to the lawsuit, in August
2023, Murray and Stater initiated a search warrant application for
account information at Wayland State Bank. The warrant application
allegedly sought access to financial statements for accounts controlled
by Bergmann or the law firm.
As part of the warrant application, Murray allegedly provided the
court with an affidavit stating that Bergmann had illegally taken
$20,000 from a mentally incapacitated person and would not return the
money. Additional references were made to $9,500 paid to Bergmann by a
different client.
Murray’s affidavit, according to the lawsuit,
alleged that “Bergmann either stole or fraudulently obtained money from
the two victims.” The affidavit allegedly cites “two suspicious checking
accounts,” without offering any explanation as to why the accounts were
deemed suspicious.
Despite the fact that funds held in such
accounts are not the property of the attorney who maintains the account,
but are instead the property of the clients, Stater and Murray sought
access to financial statements pertaining to the account, according to
the lawsuit.
Based upon Murray’s affidavit, District Associate
Judge Jonathan Stensvaag then approved the warrant application and
signed a search warrant in the case, the lawsuit alleges.
Bergmann
now claims the court was aware, or should have been aware, there was
probable cause that a criminal offense had been committed.
The
lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for alleged
civil rights violations related to the improper issuance of search
warrants and invasion of privacy.
The defendants in the case have yet to file a response to the lawsuit.
Lawsuit follows case alleging elder abuse
Civil
court records indicate the search warrant pertaining to the mentally
incapacitated individual are tied to a dispute that arose in May 2023,
when attorney Steven E. Ort filed a court petition against Bergmann
seeking relief from elder abuse.
In
that case, Ort, who was representing the incapacitated individual’s
conservator and guardian, alleged Bergmann had accepted $20,000 from the
individual after that person’s financial matters were placed in the
hands of the conservator, and that Bergmann then refused to return the
money to the conservator.
AURORA, Ohio (WOIO/Gray
News) — The family of a 93-year-old man is suing a nursing home,
alleging staff failed to properly supervise him and allowed him to fall
three times in five days, with the final fall proving fatal.
According
to a lawsuit filed Nov. 12, Roger Andrews died from a blunt impact to
his head and neck after falling face-first from his wheelchair at the Avenue at Aurora Care and Rehabilitation Center in January.
A family is suing an Aurora nursing home after their father’s fatal fall.(WOIO)
An active lifestyle cut short
Andrews
was not a typical 93-year-old. His children, Bruce Andrews and Karen
Langenderfer, said their father remained adventurous well into his 80s.
“He was a big sports fan,” Bruce Andrews said. “Oh yeah, a die-hard Cleveland fan for years and years.”
“He
was always up for an adventure,” Langenderfer said. “He wanted to go
zip lining. My daughter wanted to go parasailing. And he said, I’ll do
that too.”
Andrews lived alone in his
90s until he fell in his apartment. He was hospitalized and discharged
directly to the Avenue at Aurora in early January.
“He went into the nursing home to get stronger, and that didn’t happen,” Langenderfer said.
High fall risk assessment allegedly ignored
The
lawsuit states that nursing home records show Aurora assessed Andrews
as a high fall risk on Jan. 9 and determined a nurse or staff member
needed to be with him at all times.
However, despite this designation, Andrews reportedly fell three times within five days of his arrival.
Roger’s family hired attorney Michael Hill, whose practice is solely based on nursing home abuse litigation.
Hill said the facility failed to implement proper safety measures.
“They deemed that he needed one-to-one
assistance until they could transition him somewhere else, they being
the nursing home,” he said. “They don’t put interventions in place; he
hits his back and his neck. Sadly, he gets a brain bleed. He has a
broken neck, and he passes away.”
Fatal fall details
The lawsuit claims facility staff left Andrews sitting alone in his wheelchair longer than anticipated.
He began leaning to his right and fell face-first from the chair, striking his head and causing a large, bleeding laceration.
Andrews was rushed to the hospital, where Bruce Andrews stayed by his side for days.
When Langenderfer told her brother to take a break, their father died.
“I
think in my heart of hearts that dad waited for Bruce to be gone
because Bruce had promised my mom that he would keep an eye on dad,”
Langenderfer said. “I think dad waited to go.”
Medical examiner findings
The
medical examiner determined Andrews died from a blunt impact to his
head and neck. The death certificate noted the injury occurred due to a
history of falls and ruled the manner of death an accident.
Lawsuit claims
Hill filed the lawsuit against Avenue at Aurora and its parent company, Progressive Quality Care, based in Parma. The suit claims medical negligence and wrongful death.
“It’s not just the nursing home’s fault. It’s the nursing home corporation’s fault,” Hill said.
No response from the facility
Avenue at Aurora declined a request to comment on the siaution. A manager also asked reporters to leave the facility.
Progressive Quality Care did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.
The family said it continues to grieve while seeking answers about their father’s death.
“The healing process has not had a chance
to finalize because every day the band-aid’s getting ripped off again,”
Bruce Andrews said.
Progressive Quality Care’s website states that it owns about a dozen nursing homes, with most in northeast Ohio.
The Justice Department’s civil division this week published its annual
report to Congress on efforts to combat elder fraud and abuse,
highlighting several high-profile nursing home investigations in
addition to pages of international financial scams.
The priority Justice Department officials are putting on “ensuring
patient safety and … stopping fraud, waste, and abuse” in nursing homes
could serve as notice to providers that the department intends to
continue pursuing cases against facilities despite the Trump
administration’s broader deregulation push.
While the report devotes the most space to US and international
fraudsters who aim to scam elders out of their savings, the department
also touted holding multiple nursing home operators “accountable for
providing grossly substandard care to vulnerable Medicare and Medicaid
beneficiaries.”
Nursing homes were the only healthcare providers targeted in the report.
It highlights four nursing home cases associated with the National
Nursing Home Initiative, which enhances the department’s efforts to
investigate and pursue nursing home operators that provide grossly
substandard care to their residents.
“Over the past year, the Department’s National Nursing Home
Initiative has redoubled its efforts to work with key partners in
identifying and reporting abuse in our nation’s nursing homes,” report
authors wrote, noting coordination with the Department of Health and
Human Service’s Office of Inspector General and the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services. “This Initiative focuses on some of the worst
quality nursing homes and their owners, operators and affiliates around
the country.”
Cases included in this year’s report include:
A June settlement
with the nonprofit American Health Foundation and three affiliated
nursing homes, accused of billing Medicare and Medicaid for grossly
substandard skilled nursing services between 2016 and 2018
A $4.5 million settlement with The Villas Nursing Facilities and six
Detroit-area nursing homes in July. The government alleged they
accepted taxpayer funds while providing grossly substandard care to
their residents. The case originated as a federal whistleblower lawsuit by Villa employees, who claimed they personally witnessed the mistreatment of residents, the Justice Department noted.
A restitution collection
of $15 million in May, following the previous convictions of two
Pittsburgh area nursing homes for making false statements in connection
with the payment of healthcare benefits and for obstructing and impeding
a CMS investigation. Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services and
its Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center and Mount Lebanon
Rehabilitation and Wellness Center were found guilty on six and four
counts, respectively, by a federal jury in December 2023.
Guilty pleas in January from KBWB Operations LLC, which did business
as Atrium Health and Senior Living, and its former CEO Kevin Breslin,
on one count each of healthcare fraud and one count of tax conspiracy related to the operation of numerous skilled nursing facilities.
In all, the report outlines more than 280 criminal and civil
enforcement actions against more than 600 defendants, including scams in
which the accused stole or attempted to steal more than $2 billion from
more than one million older Americans.
For additional coverage of the Justice Department’s efforts to head off and disable scammers, see McKnight’s Senior Living.
