Frisco couple, 14 others indicted in Medicare hospice scheme that preyed on 'most vulnerable'

Update:  Read the latest here: Frisco hospice owner accused of fraud and harming patients had ties to other health-care companies

The owner of a Frisco-based hospice company, his wife and 14 others have been indicted in a $60 million Medicare fraud scheme that put financial interests over the needs of patients, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of Texas.

Some patients died of overdoses at the hands of nurses, according to the indictment, which was unsealed Tuesday and includes charges of health-care fraud and conspiracy to commit health-care fraud.

Those charged include Bradley J. Harris, 35, of Frisco, who owned and operated Novus Health Services and Optim Health Services Inc., and his wife, 42-year-old Amy Harris, who co-founded Novus and worked as vice president of patient services.  Five of the defendants are doctors. Five are nurses.

The for-profit Novus Health Services is one of the largest hospice providers in North Texas.
The company did not respond to a request for comment. The defendants and most of their attorneys could not immediately be reached.

Attorney Mike Uhl is representing Samuel D. Anderson, 35, who co-founded Novus and worked as a vice president of marketing. Anderson was indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit health-care fraud.

"Sam and I will review the charges and whatever evidence the government has and then make a decision about the appropriate next steps," Uhl said by email. "At this point, he enjoys the presumption of innocence guaranteed all citizens."

The office for Novus Health Services was housed in this building in Frisco in 2015.

Among the accusations are that medical directors certified that patients were eligible for hospice care whether they were or not, according to authorities. Hospice care provides support to patients with terminal illnesses and their families.

Harris would place patients on continuous care — which Medicare paid at a higher daily rate than routine care— whether those patients needed it or not. In 2013, Medicare paid a daily rate of $153 for routine hospice services compared with the daily rates for continuous care that ranged from $303 to $895, according to the indictment.

Nurses gave high doses of drugs such as morphine, regardless of whether patients needed it,  to justify the higher payments, prosecutors said. In some instances, these excessive dosages resulted in serious bodily injury or death.

"That these defendants used human life at its most vulnerable stage as the grist for this scheme displays a shocking level of depravity that this community simply cannot tolerate," U.S. Attorney John Parker said in a news release Tuesday.

The case against Novus

The indictment alleges that from July 2012 to September 2015, Novus billed Medicare and Medicaid more than $60 million for fraudulent hospice services. The government paid Novus more than $35 million.

The defendants are accused of submitting false claims for hospice services, submitting false claims for continuous care hospice services, recruiting ineligible hospice beneficiaries by providing kickbacks to referring physicians and health care facilities, and falsifying and destroying documents to conceal these activities from Medicare, federal officials say.

Last March, when news of the federal investigation became public, Novus posted a statement online, saying, "We have not and would not — ever — willfully harm any patient."

In addition to the Harrises and Anderson, indictments were issued for Melanie L. Murphey, 35, of Fort Worth, who was Novus' director of operations; Patricia B. Armstrong, 33, of Coppell, who was a registered nurse and primary triage nurse for after-hours patients; Jessica J. Love, 37, of Gainesville, who worked as a registered nurse and a district manager; Ali Rizvi, 49, of Carrollton, who owned a separate physicians' home visit company; Tammie L. Little, 55, of Brashear, who worked as a registered nurse and district manager; Mary Jaclyn Pannell, 29, of Krum, who worked as Novus' director of nursing; Taryn E. Stuart, 32, of Sanger, who worked as a licensed vocational nurse; and Slade C. Brown, 47, of Plano, who worked as a director of marketing.

Five licensed physicians who worked as medical directors for Novus  were also indicted. They are Mark E. Gibbs, 46, of Lindsay;  Syed M. Aziz, 51, of Frisco; Reziuddin Siddique, 63, of Allen; Charles R. Leach, 64, of Arlington, and Laila N. Hirjee, 50, of Plano;  A woman who answered the phone at  Hirjee's office said, "We can't give you any comment at this time."

As part of the scheme, physicians and assisted living facilities were offered salaries or other forms of payment in exchange for patient referrals to Novus hospice care, the indictment stated. It quoted an email from Leach that stated in part: "My goal was to send as much business to Brad and Amy in return for directorships, etc."

But doctors had little oversight of patients. Instead, care was directed primarily by nurses and by Harris, a certified public accountant who didn't hold any medical licenses, authorities said.

According to the indictment, Gibbs or Hirjee would state that they had met personally with patients before they were recertified for hospice even though such encounters would not have been possible.

 In one instance, Gibbs signed 19 face-to-face evaluations on July 18,  2013, that would have required him to have traveled about 200 miles to 19 different locations before 1:30 p.m. In another example cited by the indictment, Hirjee dated recertification visits in Texas on dates when she was in Hawaii or Mexico.

Around May 2013, the indictment alleges Bradley Harris texted Taryn Stuart to take over one patient's care.  "I told this chick if she would just give her 1 ml of Ativan and turn her she would die," the indictment alleges Harris wrote.

Harris sent another text, saying, "[expletive] woman is still alive ... I need some boots on the ground."

Stuart stayed in contact with Harris, while she gave medicine to the patient. The indictment stated he then sent a text about the need to medicate in order to justify continuous care: "We have very strict guidelines that we must be providing skilled nursing interventions at least ever hour to stay in there."
After the patient died, Stuart texted Harris, and he responded, "Nice work."

The case is being investigated by the FBI, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services office of inspector general and the Texas attorney general's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. 

Read the full indictment, which was unsealed on Feb. 28, 2017:

Federal indictment in $60 million Medicare fraud scheme by The Dallas Morning News on Scribd

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Frisco couple, 14 others indicted in Medicare hospice scheme that preyed on 'most vulnerable'

Legislation to combat abuse of vulnerable adults passes house

Bipartisan bill addressing neglect, financial exploitation passes by 92-4 margin

Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s bipartisan legislation to combat both financial exploitation and neglect of vulnerable adults in Washington state passed the House of Representatives today by a vote of 92-4.

The measure, House Bill 1153, now heads to the Senate.

In 2015, Adult Protective Services received more than 7,800 complaints of financial exploitation and more than 5,400 neglect complaints — together nearly half of all complaints to APS and thousands more than the agency received just five years ago.

The Attorney General-request legislation establishes a new, specific crime to address the unique circumstances of theft cases involving vulnerable adults. It also makes important changes to the standard for felony criminal mistreatment.


“These are our mothers and fathers, our grandparents, our elders,” Ferguson said. “We have a responsibility to protect them, and this legislation bolsters our ability to punish those who mistreat vulnerable adults. I am pleased an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the House agrees.”

Under existing law, in cases involving theft from a vulnerable adult, prosecutors must charge first- or second-degree theft, with an aggravating factor added to the charge for victimizing a vulnerable adult. The statute of limitations for theft charges is only three years, however, and it can take years for financial exploitation of vulnerable adults to be uncovered.

In addition, the current aggravating factor is not applied uniformly across Washington’s 39 counties.

To correct this, Ferguson’s proposal would create a specific crime of Theft from a Vulnerable Adult, with a six-year statute of limitations. Thirty-seven other states have such laws.

Ferguson’s legislation also amends the standard of proof for criminal mistreatment cases from “recklessness” to “criminal negligence.” Currently, prosecutors must prove recklessness to sustain a felony criminal mistreatment charge. This standard makes prosecutions difficult, because it is inconsistent with the realities of the crimes, which involve a gross failure to act, rather than reckless affirmative acts.

In 2015, the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit obtained a felony criminal mistreatment conviction in a case where the victim suffered six severe pressure ulcers, at least one of which went to the bone. Due to the difficulty of prosecuting these cases, however, that case represented the first felony criminal mistreatment conviction for the office in the 10 years state law has mandated neglect cases be reported to the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

Despite the more than 5,000 complaints of neglect of a vulnerable adult in 2015, only 34 felony criminal mistreatment charges were filed, according the state Administrative Office of the Courts.

Ferguson’s legislation is sponsored by 45^th District Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland. Its companion bill, Senate Bill 5099, is sponsored by 10^th District Sen. Barbara Bailey, R-Oak Harbor.

“This bill is a top priority for me because it will help ensure that vulnerable adults are receiving the basic necessities of life and that anyone who abuses a vulnerable adult is held accountable,” Rep. Goodman said.

“We must make the statutes fit these horrible crimes,” Sen. Bailey said. “By removing roadblocks in the law, we can give prosecutors the proper tools to go after those who take advantage of this vulnerable population.”

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Legislation to combat abuse of vulnerable adults passes house

I-Team: Harvard Law Administrators Accused Of Stealing Money Meant For Students With Disabilities

CAMBRIDGE (CBS) – Two former Harvard Law School administrators are accused of stealing thousands of dollars from an account meant to help students with disabilities.

In a criminal complaint the I-Team obtained, Harvard University police allege Meg DeMarco, 33, and Darris Saylors, 32, used the funds to purchase laptops, iPads, DVDs, jewelry, and even a few X-rated items. In all, the police investigation said the women stole about $110,000.

According to the court documents, things started to unravel in November 2013 when a new budget manager at the law school noticed some discrepancies.

Both DeMarco and Saylors resigned from their positions at the Dean of Students office while a lengthy police investigation ensued.

The probe revealed purchases of dozens of laptops, iPads, iPods and other electronics. Court documents say a subpoena to Apple traced the items to DeMarco’s home in Chelsea and Saylors’ apartment in Cambridge. Police also discovered items at the homes of Saylors’ friends and family in California, Washington and Tennessee.

Electronics allegedly bought with stolen funds (WBZ-TV)

Kristina Vu is a second-year law student who is blind and uses a guide dog to navigate campus. She was shocked when she heard the allegations.

“It’s horrifying,” she told the I-Team. “Knowing that someone is out there taking away those crucial resources from the vulnerable student population that needs it to succeed is honestly very appalling to me.”

Court documents say DeMarco used a mobile card reader to deposit school money directly into her banking account.

Meantime, Saylors is accused of frequenting Amazon for a long list of online purchases like purses, clothing and jewelry. The investigation even found she used the Dean of Students purchasing card to buy sex toys.

Meg DeMarco (WBZ-TV)

Police say she then tried to hide the purchases in budget documents by changing the descriptions to things like, “textbooks for disabilities accommodations.”

“What procedural safeguards were they lacking that allowed something like this to happen?” Vu wondered.

In a statement, Harvard Law School spokeswoman Michelle Deakin said the criminal charges stem from an internal financial audit.

Harvard Law Student Kristina Vu (WBZ-TV)

“As a result of this matter, the Law School implemented additional layers of controls governing the use of its credit accounts and purchasing protocols,” Deakin wrote.

Saylors, who now lives out of state, did not respond to calls or emails requesting comment.

However, the I-Team recently caught up to DeMarco as she arrived for work at Babson College. Instead of a defense, the former Harvard Law administrator offered an apology.

“It was a big job and I made mistakes,” DeMarco told the I-Team. “I never intended to harm the university. I’m very sorry and will do everything in my power to rectify the situation.”

Harvard student Elsie Tellier and WBZ-TV’s Ryan Kath (WBZ-TV)

Saylors and DeMarco are scheduled to be arraigned in Cambridge District Court on Wednesday.

Elsie Tellier is involved with the Harvard College Disability Alliance, a group that advocates for student accommodations. Tellier, a sophomore with cystic fibrosis, said funds allocated for those purposes are essential.

“Without it, we couldn’t be students,” Tellier told the I-Team. “Hearing this is just outrageous and extremely upsetting. I really hope this is a wake-up call for Harvard to take better account of where the money is going.”

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I-Team: Harvard Law Administrators Accused Of Stealing Money Meant For Students With Disabilities

State: Nursing home’s failure to ‘provide adequate care’ led to beating death

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The New York State Department of Health cited Emerald South Nursing and Rehabilitation Center for failing to provide adequate care to its residents, specifically, the 84-year-old dementia patient who beat Ruth Murray to death last August.

Those are regulations are in place to keep residents, like the 82-year-old Murray safe.

Instead, the department of health says the nursing home’s negligence is the reason Murray was attacked after wandering into the man’s room on Aug. 26.

As a result of its investigation, the state leveled its stiffest fine — $10,000 — against the facility.

News 4 is not naming Murray’s attacker because he was never charged with a crime.

Mike Scinta, of the Brown Chiari law firm, represents the Murray family.

“What we see here is they failed both residents,” Scinta said. “They failed not only Ms. Murray, who suffered the fatal injuries, but they also failed the attacker because he was supposed to be watched as well every 15 minutes, which clearly did not happen.”

A News 4 investigation into Murray’s death found Emerald South repeatedly violated state and federal regulations, which led to the facility’s one-star rating.

But the vast majority of residents at the home on Delaware Avenue receive Medicaid or Medicare, and former employees say the facility has a heads-in-beds approach — keep the rooms full and the money flowing.

An investigation into the beating death of Murray by the department of health found multiple deficiencies.

“This family has been devastated by the manner in which their mother died,” Scinta said. “And to see a report like this, and to know that there’s ongoing systemic problems in the facility, it makes them very angry and very frustrated with the fact that this facility can do this time and time again.”

The department of health found Emerald South did not ensure each resident received adequate supervision to prevent accidents. As one example, they failed to check on Murray’s attacker every 15 minutes, which was part of his care plan.

The department’s investigation found the CNA (Certified Nurse Assistant) who was assigned to Murray’s attacker on the day of the beating was out of the building running an errand for her team leader, and the next time she laid eyes on the man was after the incident.

“The facility chooses to under staff itself,” Scinta said. “They don’t have enough hands on deck to take care of the residents, and in turn what happens is things get missed or ignored, and simply not done. And people aren’t protected. Because of their failures, Ms. Murray is now dead.”

When it came to reporting the fatal beating to authorities, Emerald South failed three as well, the state report showed.

The department of health wasn’t notified about the incident until Aug. 28th, two days after it happened — when the report said they should have been notified within 24 hours.

Buffalo attorney Richard Sullivan represents Emerald South, but has not returned repeated calls for comment about the state’s investigation or the impending lawsuit by attorneys representing Murray’s family.

Willie Faulkner lived across the street from the 84-year-old man.

Faulkner cared for his neighbor, and was ultimately one of the reasons why he was sent to Emerald South after he could no longer care for himself.

“That’s not the type of facility that I would go to if I had to go to one,” said Faulkner, who visited his neighbor and other residents at Emerald South.

It’s a place Faulkner says he remembered all too well for all the wrong reasons.

“The day that I went in, he was in the room with nothing,” Faulkner said of his visit with his neighbor. “He didn’t have anything. There was nothing on the bed. He may have had a pillow behind him, but it didn’t have a pillow case on it. It didn’t have no sheets on the bed, no nothing on the bed. No dresser.

“There was nothing. Bare walls and a bed. And his robe from the hospital,” he added.

There were other deficiencies about the facility’s care of Murray and her attacker, some of which were not connected with the violent incident.

The state found Emerald South had no documented evidence of an admission agreement for Murray’s attacker, which is a state requirement.

The department’s investigation led them to the nursing home’s business office, where a female employee told the investigator Murray’s attacker’s agreement “fell to the wayside,” and that she was “very busy because she was working for both buildings.”

“We know that this is pervasive throughout the facility because of their failure to staff the facility and their failure to follow the care plans, other residents are affected, and other residents in that building are at risk,” Scinta said.

“They want heads in beds, and they want to keep their facilities full, and that’s the way they operate their business,” he said. “But in doing that, in exchange of that, they have to have enough people there to properly care for these individuals.”

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State: Nursing home’s failure to ‘provide adequate care’ led to beating death

Nursing home fined $10,000 in beating death of woman

The Delaware Avenue nursing home where an 82-year-old woman suffered fatal injuries in a beating last year has been fined $10,000 by the New York State Health Department.

Ruth Murray was a resident of Emerald South Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, 1175 Delaware Ave. near West Ferry Street, in Buffalo. On the morning of Aug. 26, she mistakenly wandered into a man’s room in the dementia unit, where she also lived, and the attack occurred.

Inspectors said she wandered unsupervised into the room, and the man reacted violently believing a man was breaking into his house. Murray suffered a broken neck, several broken ribs, a broken nose, facial fractures and a collapsed lung in the attack. She died three days later in Erie County Medical Center.

An inspection based on a complaint cited Emerald South for not ensuring that each resident receives adequate supervision to prevent accidents. That was one of four deficiencies that led to the fine.

The state also said there was no documented evidence that an admission agreement was signed by the male resident or a responsible party, and the nursing home should have notified authorities within 24 hours of the incident and did not. The review also cited the facility for not notifying the family or legal representative of the male resident in a timely manner of his transfer out of the nursing home for evaluation at ECMC's Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program.

Emerald South submitted a plan of correction acceptable to the state to address the shortcomings.

"The Department required the facility to submit a revised plan of correction for review and approval. Based the seriousness of this matter, the department fined Emerald South $10,000 and conducted a post-survey visit at Emerald South Nursing and Rehabilitation to make sure all of the corrections were made," according to a statement from the Health Department.

The fine is the maximum that can be assessed for a violation that directly results in serious patient harm.

Prosecutors decided not to charge the 84-year-old man. An official in the Erie County district attorney's office told The Buffalo News in October that it was determined that the assailant lacked the mental capacity both to participate in a trial and to form criminal intent in the incident.

Richard Sullivan, an attorney with the Harris Beach law firm who has represented Emerald South, did not return a phone message seeking comment Tuesday.

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Nursing home fined $10,000 in beating death of woman

Nursing Home Operators Face Over $115M For Medicare Fraud

By John Kennedy

Law360, New York (February 16, 2017, 10:12 PM EST) -- A Florida federal jury on Wednesday found the operators of 53 skilled nursing facilities liable for more than $115 million in damages stemming from false claims they submitted to Medicare and Medicaid after pretending patients needed and received more care than they did.

The jury ruled on False Claims Act allegations brought by whistleblower Angela Ruckh, who worked at two of the facilities as a nurse, and found that the four defendants — CMC II LLC, Salus Rehabilitation LLC, 207 Marshall Drive Operations LLC and 803 Oak Street Operations LLC — had made varying amounts of false claims, backed up by fraudulent records, to Medicare and Medicaid.

Because the False Claims Act calls for treble damages plus an additional penalty of between $10,000 and $22,000 for each false claim, the defendants will likely have to pay in excess of $345 million, according to Mary Inman and Poppy Alexander of Constantine Cannon LLP, who have been watching the case.

The most affected defendant was CMC II, as successor to Sea Crest Health Care Management, doing business as LaVie Management Services of Florida, which submitted 123 false Medicare claims using more than 130 false statements and should be held liable for $109.8 million in damages, the jury said.

Oak Street, which was doing business as Governor’s Creek Health and Rehabilitation Center, submitted four false claims, backed up by about 50 false records, and is liable for $3.3 million in damages. Marshall Drive, which was doing business as Marshall Health and Rehabilitation Center, followed closely with one false claim backed up by about two dozen false records and should be liable for $2 million in damages, the jury said.

Salus, which was doing business as LaVie Rehab, submitted 44 false claims backed up by an equal number of fraudulent records, but shouldn’t pay anything, the jury said. It wasn't immediately clear why.

The judgment is one of the largest False Claims Act jury verdicts in a while, Alexander said, as Inman noted that such cases, given the punitive nature of the FCA and the pressure it puts on defendants to settle, don’t go to trial often.

“This is what happens when defendants roll the dice and take a case to trial,” Inman, a partner in Constantine’s whistleblower practice, told Law360 Thursday. “They face being hit with treble damages as well as penalties.”

Alexander, an associate in Constantine’s whistleblower practice, said that the case is one of the larger FCA cases dealing with skilled nursing facilities to go to trial. Medicare dollars are increasingly finding their way to skilled nursing facilities, which also makes them a target for fraud, she said.

In the instant case, the defendants were artificially increasing the amount of resources they claimed their patients needed in order to get more money from the federal health care programs. This type of fraud has been repeatedly listed as a top area of concern by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, Inman said.

She added that any skilled nursing provider that sees this verdict should take a look at its own Resource Utilization Group assessment policies and ensure that it’s in compliance with the law and not upcoding.

The verdict could also affect how other courts interpret this type of RUG fraud and how RUG standards are supposed to be interpreted, as well as the use of statistical sampling to determine liability, which was an issue in this case, Alexander said.

Neither party could be reached for comment Thursday.

Ruckh is represented by The Cohen Law Group, Kellogg Huber Hansen Todd Evans & Figel PLLC and Delaney Kester LLP.

The companies are represented by Terence J. Lynam and Robert S. Salcido of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and Tina Dunsford of the Florida Health Law Center.

The case is U.S. ex rel. Ruckh v. CMC II LLC et al, case number 8:11-cv-01303, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

--Additional reporting by Alex Wolf. Editing by Bruce Goldman.

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Nursing Home Operators Face Over $115M For Medicare Fraud 

Fighting fraud against the elderly

This article was originally published in The Crime Report, a criminal justice news service.

Paul Greenwood, San Diego’s Deputy District Attorney, has been investigating crimes against the elderly for over two decades.  As head of San Diego’s Elder Abuse Unit, he’s been a front-row witness to the tragedies such crimes have left in their wake.

“I have seen for myself many instances where victims in their seventies, eighties, nineties, never recover,” he said. “They don’t recover financially; they don’t recover psychologically. And emotionally, it can be devastating for them.”

Over the course of his career, Greenwood has emerged as one of the country’s most outspoken advocates for elderly crime victims. He has not only pushed California state lawmakers to pass aggressive elder abuse reforms, but he’s also testified numerous times before Congress, calling for a nationwide change in our approach to elder abuse.

But the subject is still below the national radar. That, says Greenwood, is why such crimes should be given separate attention in the criminal code.

When President Obama cited the need to train more prosecutors to combat elder abuse at the 2016 White House Conference on Aging, it “was probably the first time I’ve ever heard [a] president in the last 20 years even mention it,” said Greenwood.

“Other crimes– particularly gang violence, child abuse, trafficking, they seem to get the attention of the politicians. But sadly, not so much elder abuse.”

Currently, only an estimated two percent of incidents involving financial exploitation of the elderly is reported, according to research conducted by the National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA).

Nevertheless, advocates say that public awareness has been growing.

Over the past decade, all but four states in the U.S. have passed legislation to address elder abuse, and to a lesser extent, elder financial exploitation.

People appear more willing to pick up a phone and call somebody when a relative or a friend is victimized.

Still, Greenwood says, it remains a challenge for public policy: “Once somebody reports it, does anything happen?”

Generally speaking, Americans view stealing from the elderly as a morally repugnant act. It is no coincidence that the 2016 amendments to the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act draw on several notorious cases of seniors losing everything to fraudsters.

But for all the evocative value of such cases, there are still relatively few local resources committed to the investigation and prosecution of these crimes—with the exception of a few counties scattered across the U.S.

Despite the new legislation adopted by states over the past decade, elder financial exploitation is still not recognized as a crime in its own right.

“I think [this] is related to age-ism, to be honest,” Elizabeth Loewy, former chief of the Elder Abuse Unit at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, said in an interview with The Crime Report.
 
New York City has a record of aggressively prosecuting elder fraud, despite the difficulty in getting exploitation statutes passed—largely thanks to the work of Elder Abuse and Elder Fraud Units in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx.

Loewy pointed to the scarce number of Elder Abuse Units around the country, especially in comparison to domestic violence, child abuse, and sex crimes units.

“I felt fortunate that we had one,” said Loewy, “but we didn’t have the resources of the other units, even though we had more cases.”

Brenda Uekert, director of the Center for Elders and Courts, a project of the National Center for State Courts, compared it to the early days of domestic violence laws:

“Those crimes were hidden, because people were charged with assault or battery,” she said. “So if you were to collect statistics on domestic violence in 1980, the crime didn’t exist, [and] the problem didn’t exist.”

Some of the worst cases of elder financial exploitation are not being perpetrated by strangers, but by family members and caretakers who have access to an elder’s life savings.

“Unless you have law enforcement and prosecutors trained on elder abuse, I don’t know that they recognize this is a criminal behavior,” said Uekert.

“Sometimes in the law enforcement arena, and we’re really working on this, it tends to be discarded as a family issue,” said Julie Schoen, deputy director of the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA). “Or, they perceive that maybe the older adult has some sort of cognitive impairment, or they honestly don’t take it seriously.”

“The piece that I am particularly concerned about is when there is a legal document such as a Power of Attorney, or court-ordered guardianship or conservatorship,” said Uekert. “Very often somebody shows that to law enforcement, or prosecution, and they say ‘well, you’ve got this civil arrangement, so this must be a civil problem.’ And that’s one of the challenges I think that we still need to overcome.

“Just because this document exists, doesn’t give that person the [right] to take out $50,000 and buy himself a boat.”

Once an elderly person has given money to a criminal in an IRS, lotto, or ‘grandparent’ scam, police often say there isn’t much they can do, said Schoen, “They don’t [treat] it like a property crime or a theft.”

Patrick Lamb, Assistant D.A. of Jefferson County, Alabama, said he was “quite certain” that the majority of such crimes in his county never made it to his office, even though he heads a white-collar crime unit that focuses on public corruption, fraud, and elder exploitation.

“I find that frustrating,” he said.

Since it was formed in 2014, the Jefferson County unit has focused on cases where a family member abuses Power of Attorney to take money from an older relative. In one recent case recounted by Lamb, a man abandoned his aunt in a nursing home and cleaned out her accounts, leaving no money left for her care.

But cases of third-party theft, where an older person is victimized by scams over the Internet, mail, or telephone, are not making it to the Jefferson County DA’s office.

“Even when it’s reported, if it’s at all complex, it’s not investigated,” said Lamb. “If the elderly are taken advantage of by an email, then once they’ve sent the money, what are the police supposed to do?”

He added: “If you’re a Birmingham police detective and you get 20 calls of elder exploitation, they’re all going to the white collar unit, and they’ll have a stack of police reports to follow up on. And if the first one is ‘niece took $500,000 out of her retirement account,’ that’s one where there’s something you can do: you can go talk to the complainant, [and] you can look at the bank account.

“But if the next one is ‘somebody called me and said my grandson was in jail in Georgia, and I needed to transfer $200,000 to get him out of jail,’ there’s nothing to follow up on.”

A scam like this “may be more clearly criminal than a caregiver or a family member,” said Lamb, but “you don’t have a person to charge or to investigate or to hold accountable.”

Resources vary throughout the country, and so do attitudes about the roles of law enforcement and prosecutors.

The Jefferson County D.A.’s office has one investigator for all white collar crimes, and adheres to a more conventional procedural chain. If police never find a suspect, the case never makes it to the D.A’s  office.

In contrast, the San Diego D.A.’s Elder Abuse Unit has three prosecutors, four investigators, and actively seeks out cases of suspected fraud.

Greenwood realizes that “most prosecutors around the country don’t see it as their role to rattle the cage and go look for cases,” he said.

Last year, one of Greenwood’s investigators even worked full time on a local ‘grandma scam,’ tracing the money all the way back to India through prepaid Walmart and Green Dot cards.

Twenty years ago, when Greenwood’s Elder Abuse Unit was first formed, former Chief of Police David Bejarano also created a special unit within the San Diego Police Department to deal with elder crime.

These combined resources within the DA’s office, law enforcement and state legislature have made San Diego one of the country’s leading counties for prosecuting elder fraud.

Needed: A ‘Cultural Shift’

Based on what prosecutors and national elder advocates are saying, it will take nothing less than a complete cultural shift within the criminal justice system to protect older Americans.

“It’s very good to have a case brought to you all tied up in a bow where we’ve got the defendant, we’ve got the fingerprints, we’ve got the confession,” Loewy told The Crime Report.

“But these cases in particular require investigation, they require extra work—because many of the victims won’t come forward to talk about what happened, or they don’t even realize that they’ve been defrauded.”

Greenwood, whom the NCEA called “the DA we all wish we had,” believes prosecutors need to change their traditional role:

“Most prosecutors are trained to be reactive,” he said. “With elder financial abuse we have to be far more proactive— so we have to talk to the banks, the credit unions, we have to talk to adult relatives, neighbors, mail carriers, and obviously the police departments to say ‘what are you seeing? what are you hearing? and what’s being done about it?’”

Full Article & Source:
Fighting fraud against the elderly

Elderly Abuse Epidemic in Nursing Homes Across the United States

Click to Watch Video

LUBBOCK, TX - It's estimated that one in every ten elderly individuals will experience some form of elder abuse. At the broadest level more than 2 million cases of elder abuse are reported every year, according to nursinghomeabuseguide.org.

CNN revealed an in depth investigate report of rape and sexual abuse in nursing homes across the nation as well.

Lubbock Injury Attorney Fred Bowers said elderly abuse cases are classified as medical malpractice and can be tricky.

"As a lawyer pursuing those cases we have to follow the requirements of the medical liability insurance improvement act which has been in place since 2003 and in order to do that is very time consuming and expensive." Bowers said.

Unfortunately he said personal injury attorneys have to turn away those kinds of cases very frequently, and it's an unpleasant task explaining it to families.

"Most people living in a assisted living or nursing home are retired people or are unable to work, Texas has very strict damage caps of what can be recovered in that," Bowers said. "

CEO of Crown Point Heath Suites Rick Ruble, said his wives family has had nursing homes in Lubbock for 58 years, and they have spent many years researching on how to create an environment for the elderly that they can feel comfortable about.

"They have the choice of when they want to shower, when they want to have a meal, what kind of meal," Ruble said. "You lose your dignity when you lose everything you have, when you don't have a choice."

Full Article & Source:
Elderly Abuse Epidemic in Nursing Homes Across the United States

4 Ways Reminiscence Therapy For Dementia Brings Joy to Seniors

Reminiscing is when someone shares memories from the past. Typically with Alzheimer’s and dementia, people lose short-term memory first, but are still able to recall older memories.

The goal of reminiscence therapy is to help seniors with dementia feel valued, contented, and peaceful. It can’t reverse or stop the progression of dementia, but the stress reduction and positive feelings can improve your older adult’s mood, reduce agitation, and minimize challenging behaviors like wandering.

We’ve got 4 wonderful activity suggestions to help your older adult reminisce over past memories in pleasant, relaxed ways.

1. Listen to their favorite music
Music helps people reminisce and relate to emotions and past experiences. That’s why it’s often recommended for those with Alzheimer’s or dementia. Music can even reach seniors with very advanced dementia.

You can play their favorite songs, have a little sing-along, or play music on simple instruments like shakers, bells, tambourines, or a DIY drum.

2. Look through photos or keepsakes
Pictures or keepsakes that bring back memories are another excellent way to reminisce. Photos of family, friends, and important life events are always good choices.

Photos of things that remind them of favorite hobbies are also great. For example, someone who loves to garden might enjoy looking at a gardening magazine or plant catalog. Someone who loved to cook might like a gourmet magazine with beautiful food photos. The same goes for sports, crafts, historical events, etc.

3. Smell familiar scents and taste favorite foods
Smell is a powerful ways to access memories. You could create scent cards or jars with smells that remind them of favorite foods (use spices) or a location like a pine forest near their childhood home (use fresh pine needles or pine scented sticks).

Taste is another way to evoke fond memories. Maybe they always made a special dish for holiday celebrations – you could make it for them and reminisce while eating together. Or maybe you could recreate a favorite snack they made for you as a treat when you were young.

4. Enjoy tactile activities like painting, pottery, or other crafts
Touch can also remind someone of the past. Familiar tactile activities like drawing, painting, pottery, knitting, sewing, or other crafts can spark old memories. Even if they can’t participate in these hobbies anymore, doing things like touching paintbrushes, swirling watercolors, scribbling with drawing chalk, squeezing yarn, or playing with fabrics can evoke strong memories.

Another way to use touch is through objects. Maybe wearing or handling favorite pieces of jewelry or accessories (like a watch or a necklace) would bring up memories of significant life events. Other ideas would be to bring out a significant piece of clothing (maybe a dress or suit) that they use to love or wear to important events.

Full Article and Source:
4 Ways Reminiscence Therapy for Dementia Brings Joy to Seniors