Severely Abused and Severely Tortured, Left with Nothing

Tarrant County Family Court
Multimillion Dollar Estate
Southlake Texas Family
19 year Marriage

My spouse was allowed to prepare the Final Decree in my case, awarding ALL of our Financial Community Property to himself.. approved by the District Judge.

My Family Attorney promised for months to present my Court Approved Forensic CPAs evidence of severe fraud committed by my spouse who was our Court Appointed Receiver and in full control of our entire estate during our Divorce Process..

Instead, My Family Attorney quit on me before minutes before the Final Hearing leaving me with no Legal Representation to “Object” to this. Approved by the District Judge. My Attorney never presented my Court Approved Forensic CPAs evidence of fraud committed by my spouse.

I was left with nothing. I am in shock and devastated.

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Severly Abused and Tortured, Left With Nothing

OH: Discipline Possible in Legal Fee Complaint

A Columbus lawyer faces possible discipline after being accused of keeping unearned fees and other professional misconduct.

Joseph D. Reed will be summoned to appear before the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline to answer to a complaint filed by the Columbus Bar Association.

The complaint accuses Reed of keeping $1,525 from two clients whose cases he never filed and belatedly returning money to a client stemming from a bar association legal-fees arbitration case.

He also is accused of failing to honor a subpoena issued by the Ohio Supreme Court’s disciplinary counsel and failing to respond to another legal-fees arbitration case sought by a former client.

A disciplinary panel will review the case and recommend potential discipline against Reed to the Ohio Supreme Court.

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Discipline Possible in Legal Fee Complaint

NE: Investigator Receives Award for Work on Elder Abuse

Investigator Cindy Koenig-Warnke didn’t become a Lincoln police officer to champion a cause, but since she took a job with the Technical Investigations Unit in 2006, she has gained attention for her work on cases of elder abuse. Last month, Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services officials named her the statewide Elder Abuse Prevention Advocate, a new annual award designed to recognize those who protect elderly people.

Social services officials call Koenig-Warnke a tenacious investigator who genuinely cares for victims and goes above and beyond her police duties to educate the public about elder abuse and neglect. “She’ll go the extra mile,” said Cynthia Brammeier, administrator for the state Unit on Aging, Medicaid and Long-Term Care.

Koenig-Warnke said convictions bring her victims great joy, but she wishes offenders convicted of adult abuse faced tougher sentencing. She educates people at hospitals and in gerontology groups and advises the Elder Rights Coalition under the state’s Unit on Aging.

Older adults should be careful in granting power of attorney and review documentation to make sure a selected representative is still the person they trust to care for their affairs, Koenig-Warnke said.

And, she encouraged those who believe abuse has occurred to come forward, even if they may be embarrassed.

“I want them to see that even (though) they are a victim," she said, "they deserve justice.”

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Investigator Receives Award for Work on Elder Abuse

$145M: Philadelphia Archdioces Sells 7 Senior Living Facilities

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia entered into a deal Tuesday to sell five nursing homes and two senior living communities to a New York health-care management company for $145 million.

Center Management Group of Flushing, N.Y., is acquiring the long-term-care facilities, which oversee a total of about 1,400 beds and are now operated by Catholic Health Care Services, under an agreement expected to close by the end of the year.

In a statement the Philadelphia Archdiocese selected Center Management Group because of its track record in retaining the “Catholic identity” of the facilities it acquires.

The sale was pursued, the Philadelphia Archdiocese said, to help it deal with its “underfunded balance sheet liabilities" that it said last year measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The liabilities were first disclosed when the Philadelphia Archdiocese published its fiscal 2012 audited financial statements, which contained a $39.2 million operating deficit, last summer.

The five skilled nursing facilities included in the transaction are: Immaculate Mary Home, Saint John Neumann Home, and Saint Monica Manor, all in Philadelphia; Saint Francis Country House in Darby; and Saint Martha Manor in Downingtown.

The two senior living communities are Villa Saint Martha in Downingtown and Saint Mary Manor in Lansdale, both of which include assisted and independent living units.

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$145M:  Philadelphia Archdioces Sells 7 Senior Living Facilities

Disgraced Former TX Judge Abel Limas Sentenced to Prison

A former judge who turned his South Texas courtroom into a money-making operation was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen sentenced former state district Judge Abel Limas, 59, on one count of racketeering in Brownsville, on the border with Mexico.

In a tearful statement Limas made to the court before he was sentenced, he said that he willingly had done everything the government asked of him because as a former police officer, lawyer and judge, he knew the "writing was on the wall."

"I believe, judge, that I righted this wrong," Limas said, while apologizing for the damage he had done to the justice system. "It wasn't a mistake. I knew what I was engaging in."

Limas drew the FBI's attention in late 2007 as he neared the end of his second term in office. Investigators intercepted some 40,000 phone calls and collected surveillance photos documenting how Limas had converted his courtroom into a criminal enterprise, collecting bribes and kickbacks totaling $257,000.

Limas pleaded guilty in 2011 and became the government's star witness in four related trials that shook Cameron County's justice system. He could have faced up to 20 years in prison but received credit for cooperation.

Former Cameron County District Attorney Yolanda De Leon, who was prosecuted in Limas' court by her successor in the DA's office, made an emotional statement before Limas' sentence was handed down. The charges against De Leon were later dropped.

"Every single judge that sits in the state court now is suspect," De Leon said. "That is the legacy he has left."

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Disgraced Texas Judge Sentenced to Prison

Drug Abuse: Antipsychotics Overprescribed in Nursing Homes

When Patricia Thomas, 79, went into a Ventura, Calif., nursing home with a broken pelvis, the only prescriptions she used were for blood pressure and cholesterol, and an inhaler for her pulmonary disease. By the time she was discharged 18 days later, she "wasn't my mother anymore," says Kathi Levine, 57, of Carpinteria, Calif. "She was withdrawn, slumped in a wheelchair with her head down, chewing on her hand, her speech garbled." Within weeks, she was dead.

Thomas, a former executive assistant, had been given so many heavy-duty medications, including illegally administered antipsychotics, by the Ventura Convalescent Hospital in November of 2010 that she could no longer function. If one drug caused sleeplessness and anxiety, she was given a different medication to counteract those side effects. If yet another drug induced agitation or the urge to constantly move, she was medicated again for that.

Yes, my mom had Alzheimer's, but she wasn't out of it when she went into the nursing home. She could dress and feed herself, walk on her own. You could have a conversation with her," says Levine. "My mother went into Ventura for physical therapy. Instead, she was drugged up to make her submissive. I believe that my mother died because profit and greed were more important than people."

A Ventura County Superior Court judge agreed that Levine had a legitimate complaint against the nursing home. In May, attorneys from the law firm Johnson Moore in Thousand Oaks, Calif., joined by lawyers from AARP Foundation, agreed to a settlement in an unprecedented class-action suit against the facility for using powerful and dangerous drugs without the informed consent of residents or family members. "It is the first case of its kind in the country, and hopefully we can replicate this nationwide," says attorney Kelly Bagby, senior counsel for AARP Foundation Litigation.

A national problem
Tragically, what happened to Patricia Thomas is not an isolated incident. According to Charlene Harrington, professor of nursing and sociology at the University of California, San Francisco, as many as 1 in 5 patients in the nation's 15,500 nursing homes are given antipsychotic drugs that are not only unnecessary, but also extremely dangerous for older patients.

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Antipsychotics Overprescribed in Nursing Homes

See Also:
Kickbacks to Doctors

AARP Wins Class Action Against Over Drugging of Seniors

A California nursing home has settled with AARP in an unprecedented class-action lawsuit against the facility for using inappropriate kinds and amounts of psychiatric drugs on elderly residents without the consent of the residents or their families, according to AARP Bulletin. University of California nursing professor Charlene Harrington told AARP Bulletin that the use of “unnecessary” and “extremely dangerous” antipsychotics as chemical restraints in US long-term care facilities is widespread.

AARP lawyer Kelly Bagby said of the successful legal action, “It is the first case of its kind in the country, and hopefully we can replicate this nationwide.”

AARP Bulletin says over-medicating of seniors in long-term care facilities “stems from inadequate training and chronic understaffing, as well as an aggressive push by pharmaceutical companies to market their products.”

Attorney Toby Edelman of the Center for Medicare Advocacy told AARP Bulletin, “The misuse of antipsychotic drugs as chemical restraints is one of the most common and long-standing, but preventable, practices causing serious harm to nursing home residents today. When nursing facilities divert funds from the care of residents to corporate overhead and profits, the human toll is enormous.”

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AARP Wins Class Action Against Over Drugging of Seniors

KS: Panel Recommends Public Censure of Judge Timothy Henderson

A state panel has recommended to the Kansas Supreme Court that Sedgwick County Judge Timothy Henderson be disciplined by public censure for violating rules of judicial conduct.

The findings, filed Tuesday, say among other things that Henderson “engaged in harassment as well as gender bias by making repeated inappropriate and offensive comments in the presence of female attorneys employed by the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.”

The panel of judges and lawyers, which in May heard testimony from Henderson and the witnesses against him, concluded that many of his “explanations, or denials, of the allegations are not credible.” The panel determined that the evidence substantiated each of the three counts against him.

The panel concluded that Henderson violated judicial rules including that a judge “shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary.”

The panel’s recommended discipline – public censure – is a published reprimand by the court and, while serious, is the least severe sanction the Supreme Court can impose on judges.

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Panel Recommends Public Censure of Judge Timothy Henderson

WI Police: Appleton Man Misspent Disabled Son's Trust Fund

An Appleton man is accused of stealing more than $360,000 from his disabled son's trust fund to pay for drugs, pornography and vacations.

Todd D. Laseke, 48, admitted to spending thousands on himself and chalked it up to "stupidity," police said. He is charged in Outagamie County Circuit Court with theft in a business setting, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Police said Laseke withdrew or transferred $502,672 from the trust fund to his personal bank accounts from March 2008 to November 2011. While $135,000 can be attributed to Laseke's monthly allowance, $367,672 was spent beyond his stipend, officials said.

Medical lawsuit provided $1.3 million for son
In 2008, Laseke was awarded guardianship of his son, 11 years after the family filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the Bay Area Medical Center in Marinette, federal court records show. In 1999, the child received $1.37 million from the hospital and one of its doctors, and Laseke was awarded $100,000. Laseke's son, now an adult, suffered a brain injury as a child that left him mentally disabled, prosecutors said.

As his son's guardian, Laseke was responsible for maintaining the trust fund and was allotted $3,000 per month for his own living expenses, according to the criminal complaint filed June 12. By law, he was required to submit annual accounting reports to the Outagamie County register in probate's office, which is responsible for oversight.

From 2008 to 2009, Laseke reported spending $154,762 of his son's settlement, court records state.

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Police: Appleton Man Misspent Disabled Son's Trust Fund