Vulnerable adults protection: Lawmakers push for tougher background checks

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota lawmakers gathered Wednesday to push legislation at both the state and federal levels aimed at protecting vulnerable adults from financial exploitation.
         
More than 25,000 Minnesota residents have a court-appointed guardian or conservator to take care of their finances, and the number is expected to rise in the future as more Minnesotans enter retirement age.
         
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., joined Attorney General Lori Swanson and other state officials at the West 7th Community Center in St. Paul to propose ways to implement tougher background checks and electronic monitoring to ensure that court-appointed guardians aren't taking advantage of seniors.
"The last thing that they should have to worry about or that their family should have to worry about is that someone is ripping them off, that's stealing their last money, that's abusing them in some way," Klobuchar said. "It's our obligation as a society to make sure that that doesn't happen."
         
Klobuchar has sponsored legislation in Congress aimed at helping states beef up background checks and improve monitoring of guardians' financial decisions.
         
Rep. Debra Hilstrom, DFL-Brooklyn Center, planned to introduce a bill Thursday that would require tougher and more frequent background checks for all guardians. The checks would not only look at criminal history, but would also include whether the individual had been denied a professional license or filed for bankruptcy.

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Vulnerable adults protection: Lawmakers push for tougher background checks

Woman arrested for financial exploitation of 93-year-old man

A 57-year-old Wadsworth woman faces charges for allegedly taking advantage of a 93-year-old man by using his credit cards and getting him to give her $30,000 from his certificate of deposit (CD).

 

Melissa Reilly of the 14000 block of Kaiser Road, Wadsworth, was charged with aggravated identity theft and financial exploitation of the elderly, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.

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Woman arrested for financial exploitation of 93-year-old man

Lawless America: Marjorie Partch

Source:
Lawless America: Marjorie Partch

Recommended Website and Book: Marked for Destruction

A Shockingly Powerful Story; A True Crime Exposed.
by Officer John Caravella /retired

What Adele Fraulen might have thought to be nothing more than a meaningless bad dream one night in 1935 would actually come true. At age 79 she would find herself living a nightmare -- a struggle for her life, simply because she innocently trusted the wrong professionals to help with her portion of a Million Dollar inheritance; they would steal her very existence. Her neighbors, Chris and Patricia Zurillo, would realize that Adele's life was going terribly wrong and dedicate themselves to freeing her from captivity.

“Marked For Destruction” is a rare book that exposes an ever-expanding crime against our elderly.

Source: MarkedForDestruction.com

From the Author:

AN ESSAY: REFUSE COURT EXAMINATION ORDER - FREEDOM FROM INTERFERENCE

Imminent danger to the alleged incapacitated person, who is criminally and civilly innocent, begins with a court ordered pre-trial examination by an examining committee.

Court ordered examinations, and examining committee members, are controlled by statute. If indicated, the committee's examination must be comprehensive and include:

1. A physical examination;
2. A mental health examination;
3. A functional assessment;
4. A diagnosis, prognosis, and recommended course of treatment.

Read the Essay: Freedom From Interference

Lawless America: Jamie Lamborn

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Lawless America: Jamie Lamborn

Americans Support Physician-Assisted Suicide For Terminally Ill

Voters in Massachusetts were the latest to weigh in on whether it should be legal for doctors to prescribe drugs to help terminally ill patients end their lives.

The measure was controversial, and on Election Day it fell just short.

Before the vote, we wondered how Americans viewed physician-assisted suicide. So we asked in early October.

The results from the latest NPR-Truven Health Analytics Health Poll show that most Americans favor physician-assisted suicide for people with less than six months to live.

Overall, 55 percent of respondents favored it, and 45 percent were opposed. Those proportions were unchanged from July 2011, when Truven asked the same questions.

Support for the idea varied by age and income.

Fifty-six percent of people 65 and older opposed physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill; 44 percent supported it. Among people younger than 35, the results were reversed: 59 percent for and 41 percent against.

 

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Americans Support Physician-Assisted Suicide For Terminally Ill

Case continues involving guardianship of brain-injured man

Motions will be argued later this month as part of a Horseheads woman’s legal fight to end Chemung County’s guardianship of her brain-injured husband.

Bobby Schindler, the brother of Terri Schiavo, is petitioning to serve as guardian for Gary Harvey, according to the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network, of which Schindler is executive director.

Motions are scheduled to be argued beginning at 9:30 a.m. Jan. 30 before state Supreme Court Judge Judith O’Shea, the Chemung County Court Clerk’s Office confirmed.

Harvey suffered a traumatic brain injury following a heart attack and subsequent fall down a flight of stairs in January 2006 and remains in a persistent vegetative state.

His wife, Sara Harvey, sought guardianship of her husband, but the county Department of Social Services was appointed as his legal guardian indefinitely.

Sara Harvey has said that her husband has suffered under significantly inadequate care and has fought in state Supreme Court for guardianship.

Attorney Christopher Johnson filed Schindler’s petition, the county clerk’s office confirmed.

Mary Schindler, Schiavo's mother, was a Corning native and graduated in 1959 from Northside High School in Corning. Her maternal grandparents, the late Mike and Cecilia Tammaro, also lived in Corning, where Mike Tammaro managed Keenan's Rexall drug store.

Schiavo, who was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, was at the center of a series of legal challenges that resulted in a seven-year delay before her life support was terminated in 2005.

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Case continues involving guardianship of brain-injured man

Sites Sharing Press Release:
Deacon John's Space

See Also:
Schindler's list: Terri's brother now saving others

Terri Schiavo's Brother, Bobby Schindler, Petitions Court to Intervene in Guardianship Case

Bobby Schindler Files Petition Requesting to be Gary Harvey’s Guardian

The Dictators of Non-Compassion: Gary Harvey Case and the Unexpected Twist

New York conduct commission votes to discipline three judges

ALBANY, N.Y., Dec 27 (Reuters) - The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended discipline for three judges, including one who took part in a profane exchange with a 17-year-old criminal defendant.

The commission on Thursday said Buffalo City Court Judge James McLeod should be admonished for his "crude and offensive manner" in speaking with the defendant, who was not named, in February 2011. McLeod made the comments after the defendant hurled obscenities at him, the commission said.

"Even in the face of provocative, disrespectful comments by a litigant, a judge is required to be an exemplar of decorum and dignity in the courtroom, and not allow the proceedings to devolve into an undignified exchange of taunts, insults and obscenities," the commission wrote in its determination.
It said McLeod, who has been a judge since 1999, accepted "full responsibility" for the exchange. Admonishment is the mildest form of discipline the panel may recommend.

McLeod did not immediately respond to a request for comment. His attorney, Michael Mohun, was not available to comment.

The panel on Thursday also censured Erie County Family Court Judge Paul Buchanan and admonished Douglas Horton, the town justice in Mexico, Oswego County.

Buchanan in 2011 visited a 14-year-old girl in a Buffalo hospital while he was presiding over her juvenile delinquency case, the commission said. The girl had overdosed on prescription drugs in an apparent suicide attempt, and Buchanan brought her gifts and told her "she had a lot to live for," the commission said.

Buchanan did not seek permission from the girl's mother or attorney to visit her, and did not disclose the visit during court proceedings, the panel said. After one of the attorneys in the matter found out about the visit and protested, Buchanan transferred the case to another judge.

Section 100.3 of the state Rules Governing Judicial Conduct bars judges from having private conversations with litigants, which are known as ex parte communications.

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New York conduct commission votes to discipline three judges

Cuts in federal aid hurting NJ senior centers

Two years ago, Marianne Wall was able to serve fresh, warm lunches to nearly 80 senior citizens a day as the director of the Thomas J. Riley Senior Center in Westwood.

Now, the center — a popular place for local seniors to socialize, enjoy activities and get something wholesome to eat — is down to just 40 meals a day, Wall said.

Budget cuts, she said, are to blame.

For roughly three years, senior citizens in North Jersey have been affected by sweeping congressional cuts to a popular federal grant program, leaving towns already working with tight budgets — and in some cases, even the seniors themselves — to make up the difference.

“The federal government has cut these programs pretty considerably,” said Bergen County spokesman Joseph Appio. “I understand volunteers help out to make ends meet at these places, and we are very concerned about this.”

The Community Development Block Grant program — one of the longest-running in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s history — funds local community development, affordable housing, anti-poverty programs, infrastructure improvements, and senior centers and programs.

Congress passed a 2012 budget that reduced funding for the program by 7.9 percent, according to figures from the White House.

In 2012, Bergen County received more than $8 million in block grants from the federal government, with $702,000 going directly to senior programs, county records show. That’s a decrease from the $900,000 designated for senior-specific programs in 2010. Funding for 2011 was higher than normal — close to $2 million — due to construction projects and improvements at some area senior centers.
Overall, the CDBG grants have been on a steady decline since 2010 when the county received close to $12 million and $9.8 million in 2011, according to figures from Bergen County.

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Cuts in federal aid hurting NJ senior centers