5 of the Most Insidious Ways the Elderly Are Preyed Upon
Helen Jones, a Yucaipa, Calif. widow, had worked hard all her life. She was able to sock away $560,000 for her golden years. Jones was nearly deaf and limited by mobility problems, but her mind was as sharp as a steel trap.
Melodie Z. Scott, president of Redlands, Calif.-based conservatorship firm C.A.R.E., Inc., convinced a San Bernardino court that Jones was incapable of handling her own affairs. The judge granted Scott full control over Jones' finances.
"Jones had signed a one-paragraph document that she thought signed her up for a low-income utility plan for seniors called CARE. Instead, it named Scott as her conservator," according to the Los Angeles Times that broke the story.
Under Scott's supervision, Jones was denied phone calls, and her mail was screened. Scott spent about $200,000 of Jones' life savings on things Jones didn't need nor want, such as appliances, home improvements, and Scott's fees, which Jones thought were excessive.
For three years, Jones struggled to get out from under Scott's control. Jones eventually filed a complaint against Scott for fiduciary abuse. Scott finally resigned when Jones' stepgrandson replaced her.
In a different case, Scott was accused of permitting an in-law to live rent-free in a mentally ill client's home.
One complainant accused Scott of criminal misconduct on the grounds that Scott stole a large sum of the complainant's disabled husband's money. The complainant wondered why Scott wasn't doing jail time.
The courts usually appoint a family member to be a conservator or a guardian for an elderly loved one who needs help. When no suitable family member is available to serve as conservator, the courts may appoint a "professional fiduciary."
A whole cottage industry of professional fiduciaries, called the "protection industry" by some, has sprung up around the dependent elderly who can't fend for themselves. These fiduciaries often manage many clients, play a paternalistic role in their lives, and demonstrate no or limited interest in their well-being. Some critics say that fiduciaries "profit off mostly helpless people."
Here are five things you should know about the protection industry.
1. A guardianship (also called a conservatorship) is the most restrictive form of court intervention and it may deny you all, or some, of your freedoms indefinitely. A guardianship can strip a person of his or her basic freedoms—sometimes in just a matter of minutes—and can reduce him or her to the status of an infant.
The National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse (NASGA), an organization that posts, blogs, tweets, and reports on guardianship abuse, calls the guardianship system "a growing menace which feeds on greed." It criticizes the judicial system for its complicity in usurping people's liberties and property.
A report titled "Abuses in Guardianship of the Elderly and Infirm: A National Disgrace" produced by the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Aging found that the procedure by which guardians were named lacked due process. The report also revealed that a swift and final abrogation of an elder's freedoms gave elders fewer rights than a typical prisoner.
The Associated Press investigative series entitled "Guardians of the Elderly: An Ailing System" condemned the guardianship system for declaring elders "legally dead."
2. No particular qualifications are required to become a conservator or a guardian. No special qualifications or specialized knowledge in accounting, law, or social work are needed to become a conservator or a guardian. In most states, the single prerequisite is that a person must be mentally competent.
Only about 18 states place some restrictions on who can become a guardian, and just a handful of states prohibit convicted felons from being appointed as guardians.
In Michigan, a 23-year-old barroom janitor was appointed as a guardian. He had no training or experience in a field that would prepare him for the job. In one year's time, he took control of the lives of 80 wards and their combined income and assets worth $350,000. He was later convicted of embezzling $130,000 from his wards.
3. Families and friends are often helpless to protect loved ones from an abusive guardian. Not only is a loved one legally required to relinquish decision-making power over to court-appointed guardians and conservators, but the loved one is also rendered powerless to do something about it.
Families and friends are often helpless in preventing a loved one from having his or her estate bled dry and in stopping him or her from being subjected to unwanted medical treatments. When family members complain to the courts about guardian wrongdoing, they often find themselves fighting an uphill battle.
An elderly man with Parkinson's was put in a conservatorship. Within five years, the conservator charged the conservatee $1.1 million in fees. The elderly man's relatives tried to get rid of the conservator by hiring a lawyer and going to court. But the conservator hired six attorneys—paid through the elderly man's estate—to successfully fend them off. The elderly man's son said, "You can't fight them if they're using his money to fight you."
4. Few restrictions protect an elderly ward from an unscrupulous guardian. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report titled "Guardianships: Cases of Financial Exploitation, Neglect, and Abuse of Seniors" that explored the widespread allegations of elder mistreatment by guardians. The study found that state courts did not adequately screen guardians prior to their appointments, assigning people with criminal convictions and/or financial troubles to manage wards' substantial estates.
Other study findings showed that state courts did not properly oversee guardians after their appointments, permitting vulnerable elders to be abused and their assets to be misused.
State courts also failed to report known abusive guardians to federal agencies, allowing these guardians to continue to receive their wards' federal benefits (e.g., Social Security benefits).
A Boston Globe report exposed the “virtually unregulated” guardianship industry in Massachusetts. “The state currently has no procedure for licensing guardians. There is no minimum or standardized training requirement or assessment required to act as guardian, and the courts have no way of tracking how many wards a guardian has… To compound matters, no one is really watching," warned New England Psychologist.
In 2005 Los Angeles Times ran a series entitled "A Broken System" that addressed situations in which “judges frequently overlooked neglect and outright theft” committed by conservators. It was found that many conservators abused their authority over frail elders by "ignoring their needs and isolating them from loved ones."
Other shady conservators drained elders' estates or chewed up seniors' estates by charging outrageous fees. In only 15 months, a conservator managed to spend $265,000 of an elderly conservatee's estate with court approval.
Many conservators overcharge for their services. A conservator charged an elderly woman "$170 in fees to have an employee bring her $49.93 worth of groceries." In another case, a guardian billed his blind elderly ward "$18 to write a check for $5.79."
Cases of a total disregard for human life were also uncovered. In one case, a guardian's male ward died. Prior to the ward's death, the agency sold the ward's home, paid itself, and compensated the attorney working on the ward's case. The guardian never notified relatives that the ward had died. The ward was cremated in the county crematory, with his unclaimed ashes dumped in a common grave for indigents. The only thing etched on his gravestone was the year of his cremation.
5. The legal system is ill-equipped to help elderly wards, because it [the system] is part of the problem. Many elders have become victims of exploitation due to “lax” reporting standards and "generally inadequate" guardianship monitoring efforts by the courts, according to a 90-plus-page report released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The full report cited a number of chilling guardianship abuse cases. In one case, a guardian embezzled over $640,000 from an 87-year-old Alzheimer's patient. The guardian, a former taxi cab driver, spent the stolen funds on things like a Hummer and exotic dancers. When county employees caught wind of the guardian's violations, they discovered that the victim, who was wearing nothing more than an old knit shirt and a diaper, was living in the filthy basement of the guardian's home.
Even conservators and guardians are leery of the guardianship system. Conservators say that they would never want to be conserved. "It's the biggest imposition on your civil liberties short of being imprisoned," says a conservator in a Los Angeles Times interview.