Former Okla. DHS worker charged with wire fraud

 

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A former Oklahoma Department of Human Services worker faces federal wire fraud charges after allegedly bilking a Bethany nursing home resident out of more than $27,000 in disability payments.

 

Katharine A. Daugherty, a former DHS adult protective services specialist, has agreed to a plea deal with federal prosecutors in which she will plead guilty to the charges and make restitution payments, her attorney Irven Box said.

 

"She has accepted responsibility for what she did and acknowledged that what she did was wrong," Box said.

 

Daugherty is expected to enter a guilty plea at a hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. She will also forfeit her state pension as part of the guilty plea.

 

According to the charges, Daugherty had guardianship over a man identified only as "L.J.A." in court documents. The man was a former Federal Aviation Administration employee who received monthly disability payments from the U.S. Department for Labor for an on-the-job injury sustained in 1976.

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Former Okla. DHS worker charged with wire fraud

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Former Oklahoma DHS Worker Charged With Mail Fraud

Quincy lawyer Cashman disbarred by Illinois Supreme Court

A Quincy lawyer has been disbarred by the Illinois Supreme Court as a result of a complaint to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Discipline Commission.

Devin Cashman, 53, was disbarred on consent. Cashman had been licensed to practice in Illinois since November 1984 and is a partner in his own firm in Quincy.
 

According to a report posted on the ARDC website, Cashman "misappropriated funds from three clients, including the executors of two probate estates. He also presented a report to a count in one of the probate manners where he falsely stated that estate assets had been distributed to persons entitled to receive them under the decendent's (sic) will."

 

Peter Roskoff, chief of litigation for the ARDC, said Cashman will not be allowed to practice law in Illinois for at least three years from his disbarment date, which was Sept. 17.

 

"Reinstatement is not automatic," Roskoff said. "Most people who are disbarred are never reinstated."
 

The initial complaint against Cashman alleged that he took nearly $200,000 from a client trust bank account without authorization for personal ad business uses and that he didn't show up at a hearing concerning the allegations to make a sworn statement.

 

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Quincy lawyer Cashman disbarred by Illinois Supreme Court

Witnesses' tales reveal flaws in TN's conservatorship law

Several witnesses who said their rights and property were wrongly taken away in court proceedings joined a retired Wilson County judge on Thursday in calling for changes in the way conservatorships are granted and monitored in Tennessee.

Retired General Sessions Judge Haywood Barry told a Tennessee Bar Association panel that more monitoring is needed for those involved in conservatorships.

“You need some sort of training,” he said, referring to lawyers appointed by the courts to act as fact finders in conservatorship cases.

“The law is in pretty good shape. It’s a matter of getting the judges to go along,” Barry said, adding that monitoring needs to be independent. “You need someone from outside the system,” he said, “then I think they’ll pay attention.”

Thursday’s hearing was the first of four to be held across the state by a bar association panel that plans to make recommendations to the General Assembly, which is considering a series of reforms proposed by state Rep. Gary Odom, a Nashville Democrat.

Tennessee law allows a judge to appoint a conservator to have control over another person’s health care or finances when that person is judged to be incapable of making decisions for him- or herself.

Barry’s testimony followed that of several witnesses, including Jewell Tinnon of Nashville and songwriter Danny Tate, who testified that conservatorships had wrongly stripped them of all their possessions. Both were released from conservatorships after they obtained medical exams to prove their mental capacity.

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Witnesses' tales reveal flaws in TN's conservatorship law

VILLA FONTANA RETIREMENT COMMUNITY SAN JOSE CALIFORNIA ELDER ABUSE 1

Signing a mandatory arbitration agreement with a nursing home can be troublesome

When Paul Ormond signed John Mitchell into a nursing home in Dennis, Mass., in June, he was handed a few dozen pages of admission papers. Ormond, Mitchell’s legal guardian and an old friend, signed wherever the director of admissions told him to. He didn’t realize that one of those documents was an agreement that required Mitchell and his family to take disputes to a professional arbitrator rather than to court. Mitchell had been institutionalized since suffering a stroke in 1999. During a hospital stay early this summer, Mitchell, then 69, had received a tracheotomy and needed to switch to a nursing home that could accommodate him. A few weeks after Mitchell arrived at the new nursing home, staff members dropped him while using a lift device. An ambulance was called and then canceled as his vital signs stabilized. Later that night Ormond, 63, got a call from the nursing home that Mitchell was unresponsive. Mitchell was rushed to the hospital, and doctors found that the fall had caused extensive bleeding on his brain. He died a few days later. Mitchell’s sons hired a lawyer to look into the circumstances surrounding their father’s death. That was when Ormond learned that amid all the admissions papers he had signed was an arbitration agreement. “I thought it was deceptive, and I was pretty angry that I’d been tricked into signing something that I didn’t know what it was,” says Ormond.

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Signing a mandatory arbitration agreement with a nursing home can be troublesome

Bettendorf couple face financial exploitation counts of an elderly person

A Bettendorf couple faces one count each of financial exploitation of an elderly person after the two allegedly deceived an older woman out of more than $50,000 of her own money.

Dennis C. Stoffel, 57, and Laura L. Stoffel, 57, both of 3135 Central Ave., are accused of seizing the funds sometime between Oct. 22, 2010, and March 24, 2011, according to records.

A plea of innocent was filed on Sept. 10, in the Rock Island County Circuit Court on on behalf of the couple, and the two are scheduled to make an initial court appearance on Sept. 17.

Full Article and Source: Bettendorf couple face financial exploitation counts of an elderly person

Public Hearing on Conservatorship Draws 70 in Nashville, TN

A public hearing to gather information about how current conservatorship law is working or could be improved drew about 70 people to the Tennessee Bar Center today (Sept. 20), including more than a dozen who spoke of problems they or their family members have had with conservatorships.

 The hearing was the first of four scheduled across Tennessee to provide an opportunity for lawyers, community leaders and citizens to discuss what works with the present conservatorship law and how practice and procedure could be improved. You can see video from today's hearing or additional hearings held across the state.

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Conservatorship Hearing Draws 70 in Nashville

TN: Conservatorship Reform Hearing Slated Today!

Prompted by recent action in the General Assembly, the Tennessee Bar Association is set to begin a statewide series of hearings on possible reforms to the two-decades-old law governing conservatorships.

Association President Jacqueline Dixon said the goal is to get a wide variety of opinions from the public.

“And not just lawyers. We hope to get some good evidence,” she said.

Among the items most likely to be addressed are measures to ensure that those placed in a conservatorship retain as many of their rights as possible.

In a conservatorship, a person’s right to control everything from his or her health care to finances is turned over to a court-appointed person.

The initial hearings are set for Thursday in Nashville, with other sessions set for Memphis, Chattanooga and a fourth site yet to be determined in the eastern part of the state.

The bar association’s efforts were prompted by state Rep. Gary Odom, who proposed a series of reforms after hearing of the case of Jewell Tinnon, the Nashville woman who lost her house, car and personal possessions during a conservatorship that was later dissolved. Tinnon filed suit against the agency that oversaw her conservatorship, but the suit was dropped after a dispute between Tinnon and her attorneys, including Rachel Odom, the legislator’s spouse.

Probate Judge David “Randy” Kennedy, whose court handles conservatorship cases in Davidson County, said in an email that he was “delighted” the bar association was holding the hearings.

“Because statutory law cannot remain static and must evolve to meet the needs of a changing society I anticipate that the task force will make specific recommendations to the legislature on matters that will aid the courts in enhancing the services that we are obligated to provide to all of our elderly and disabled citizens,” Kennedy wrote.

Earlier this year Kennedy announced he had instituted new procedures in his court requiring conservators to file notice in the event a person’s condition improved and a conservator was no longer required.

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Conservatorship Reform Hearing Slated

Nursing home worker indicted on gross sexual imposition charges

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19)- A former nursing home worker has been indicted on two counts of gross sexual imposition.

Police charged Cassimer Brian, 27, with sexual assaults on two people who were mentally or physically unable to consent or resist in a nursing home in Lebanon. The nursing home and authorities investigated the offense after another employee said they witnessed inappropriate behavior.


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Nursing home worker indicted on gross sexual imposition charges