Victim Sues 2 Charged With Bilking Her

Gary Eisnaugle and Paula Sanders, both charged with bilking an 86-year-old woman out of thousands, are now being sued by the woman.

The Pasco Tribune is withholding the woman’s name to protect her. [S}he filed suit against Eisnaugle, Sanders and Eisnaugle’s former business, 1st Choice Car Service, in Pasco Circuit Court.

Suntrust Bank and Suntrust Investment Services, Inc. are also named as defendants. The woman is seeking damages in excess of $15,000.

Attorneys for the woman couldn’t be reached Friday.

The lawsuit comes two months after Pasco sheriff’s investigators arrested Eisnaugle and accused him of taking more than $137,000 from the woman between April and December 2008. The woman suffers from dementia, according to court documents.

Eisnaugle, 38, is charged with exploitation of an elderly person or disabled adult and scheme to defraud. The charges are pending. Authorities said Eisnaugle bought seven cars with the woman’s money and charged more than $38,000 on her Walmart credit card.

Sanders, 31, of Port Richey, was arrested in October and now faces a charge of exploitation of an elderly person or disabled adult. Authorities said she took more than $3,400 from the woman, some of which she used to pay her rent.

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Elderly Pasco Woman Suing 2 Charged With Bilking Her Out of Money

Tony Leonard, Famed Photographer, a Ward of the State

In nearly 50 years as an equine photographer, Tony Leonard captured hundreds of Thoroughbreds, including Northern Dancer, Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Barbaro.

But Leonard, 87, and his wife, Adelle Bergantino, 81, are now wards of the state. They were placed, against their wishes, in a nursing home. They have no money and no say over what will happen to his photographic negatives, their home, their belongings.

They are just two of more than 2,835 Kentuckians who are active wards of the state — a last resort for those who can no longer care for themselves. Some are incompetent. Some have no family to care for them or act as guardians. Some have no financial resources.

Tony Leonard is not a typical ward of the state. He is well known and has powerful friends and valuable assets. Nevertheless, his story shows the difficulties involved in the state guardianship process.

“Most people don’t understand something like this can happen to anyone,” said Matt Goins, a freelance photographer and friend of the couple. “You can work your entire life and have all these great successes, and suddenly someone can knock at the door and it’s over. You’ve lost all control over your life.”

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Tony Leonard, Famed Photographer, a Ward of the State

The Lawyer Who Just…Disappeared

Allen Schwartz came home early from work one summer day in 2001 and told his wife of 40 years that they needed to talk.

“I’m in trouble,” he said. “I’m going to leave.”

Schwartz was 71 at the time and had spent almost five decades building a successful Cincinnati law practice. Colleagues considered him a “gentleman lawyer” and his wife, Alice, expected to spend retirement with him in the Clifton home where they raised their three children.

So when Schwartz told his wife she would never see him again, and that he was leaving behind everyone and everything he ever cared about, she couldn’t believe he really meant it.

But he did.

She hasn’t seen him since. And neither have friends, relatives, neighbors or the prosecutors who later charged him with stealing more than $300,000 from clients.

Schwartz, who will turn 80 this year if he’s still alive, remains one of the city’s most enduring and unlikely mysteries, a man who was accused of betraying his family and his profession and then, seemingly, vanished into thin air.

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The Lawyer Who Just…Disappeared

Former Nursing Home Administrator Charged With Kidnapping

A former administrator at a Berkeley nursing home has been charged with kidnapping an 85-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease. The victim was allegedly held for a year in the home of the former administrator, who stole her pension and Social Security checks.

Concepcion “Connie” Pinco Giron, 51, of San Pablo stole more than $50,000 from Carnell Williams and five other elderly patients, authorities said.

The other alleged victims are identified in court records as Lottie McDonald, 97; Doris Polk, 77; Marvin Brown, whose age was unavailable; Jeanne Butterfield, 78; and Joseph Bontempo, 79. All lived at the Berkeley convalescent center.

“This is a shocking case of nursing-home abuse and a gross violation of trust,” said state Attorney General Jerry Brown.

Giron was arrested Monday. Alameda County prosecutors have charged her with kidnapping to commit another crime, false imprisonment, elder abuse and six counts of theft from elder or dependent adults by a caretaker. She is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin in lieu of $365,000 bail and is to be arraigned Wednesday.

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Nursing Home Worker Accused of Bilking Patients

Danny’s Diary

Readers, take note. See what the actions of one friend can do. One phone call to the right person. One letter to the governor. One conversation with the right person. You never know who is going to be the one to make a difference. I implore you to continue to write the governor, contact the press that you might know, contact anyone in the legislature, post the link to “Court Ordered Hell” on your FaceBook page, email the link to everyone you know, inform every one you know of this injustice, spread the word any way you can, prepare to demonstrate, organize, demand. This errant law is well entrenched and those that protect its deep, dark secret think they are teflon, protected by those that appointed them, above the law, beyond reproach.

But I say “we the people” are the ones these officials should have to answer to, be accounted by and serve. I am in a fortunate position where my case has been exposed. There are thousands who have no voice to be heard and I fight this battle not only for myself but for them. I fight this battle for the father of my daughters. I fight this battle for the elderly who have been “put away” not to be found or heard from. It’s an ugly secret of our legal system. DO NOT let this court get away with what it has done.

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FreeDannyTate.wordpress.com

See Also:
Court Ordered Hell

Danny’s Diary

Home Health Care Nurse Charged With Abusing Quadriplegic Patient

A home health care nurse was in court on charges of abusing her quadriplegic patient, according to police.

The male victim told a friend about the abuse, so that friend set up a video camera to catch the nurse in the act. On the very first day of filming, the nurse was caught swearing, yelling and hitting the defenseless patient.

Home health care nurse Tammy Labrecque and her family had nothing to say about her abusive treatment, which was caught on tape, toward the quadriplegic patient.

The 42-year-old would not uncover her face as she walked away from court.

The 63-year-old man spent more than a decade under her care.

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Nurse Accused of Abuse Appears in Court

Guilty of Exploiting Man

Senior Judge Steve Jaeger found a woman accused of marrying an older man to steal his $1 million guilty Tuesday of three counts of knowingly exploiting an adult.

Cathleen Kenter-Nevins faces up to 10 years on each count when Jaeger sentences her April 15 in Boone Circuit Court. Kenter-Nevins, free on bond, declined to speak with a reporter as she left the courthouse.

Boone Commonwealth’s Attorney Linda Tally Smith accused Kenter-Nevins of befriending Danny Nevins four years ago at a riverboat casino in a plot to marry him so she could gain access to $1 million in commercial real estate he owned.

Nevins died in March 2008 at the age of 66 of natural causes.

Smith said at trial that the case was an example of a woman taking advantage of an elderly disabled man who had suffered from mental illnesses his entire life. Before getting married in the back seat of a car in Tennessee, Nevins had been involuntarily committed in a psychiatric hospital, been diagnosed as bipolar and lived with his mother until she died in the 1980s.

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Kenter-Nevins Guilty of Exploiting Man

Scottsdale Millionnaire to be Freed Friday…Maybe

At the stroke of midnight on Friday, Scottsdale millionaire Edward Abbott Ravenscroft is scheduled to be a free man.

If I were Ravenscroft, I wouldn’t be planning my liberation celebration just yet.

Ravenscroft has filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against his probate handlers – the ones who last year gained control over his life and his bank account. Now Maricopa County’s probate court may use that lawsuit as an excuse to continue its protection of the man and his millions.

A hearing on whether to let him live his own life – and spend his own money as he sees fit – is scheduled for this morning.

“It’s all about money,” he told me on Tuesday. “If I didn’t have millions, I’d be like anybody else, out there on my own.”

Ravenscroft, 49, is part of the Abbott pharmaceutical family. Court records indicate he’s worth $5 million and has an income of $168,000 a year from Abbott stock dividends.

He also has battled drug and mental-health problems, having been arrested several times for drug possession and hospitalized several times for drug overdoses. In early 2009, his probation officer, concerned that he might be victimized due to the size of his bankbook, handed him over the probate court, where fiduciaries and attorneys are appointed to help vulnerable people – and sometimes themselves, as well, when a well-to-do ward comes along.

Ravenscroft has been clean and sober since August. His temporary guardian and conservator were due to bow out last month but at an emergency hearing they asked to continue their oversight of Ravenscroft and his money for another 30 days, “to ensure a successful transition” back to independence.

That transition is set to end on Friday.

Now, in yet another emergency hearing, the Sun Valley Group is asking that it be named his permanent conservator. Sun Valley attorney Alisa Gray told Judge Karen O’Connor last week that there are “sophisticated and complex financial matters,” including questions about whether Ravenscroft is being exploited by a bank, a real estate firm and the attorney who filed the federal lawsuit.

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Scottsdale Millionnaire to be Freed Friday….Maybe”

See Also:
Millionnaire Almost Escaped

Not Enough State Guardians in Kentucky

In a scathing audit of the state guardianship program in 2008, State Auditor Crit Luallen found that understaffing in the program put wards of the state at risk.

“The reason this is such a critical issue is that these are often people without a voice,” Luallen said recently. “They are among our most vulnerable citizens.”

Today, there are 2,835 active wards of the state in Kentucky, with just 38 guardians to oversee all their personal and financial needs. That’s roughly one guardian for every 75 wards.

That ratio is “preposterous,” said University of Kentucky professor Pamela Teaster, one of the nation’s leading researchers on public guardianship. An appropriate ratio would be 20-1, as it is in Virginia, Teaster said. At the very least, Kentucky should cap the number of wards a guardian oversees, as Florida does, at a 40-1 ratio, she said.

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Luallen: Not Enough State Guardians

Nurse and PT Teacher Charged With Theft

A nurse and a part-time kindergarten teacher have been charged with the theft of more than $700,000 from a 94-year-old North Side man.

Deborah Johnson, 53, of Columbus, the nurse, and Anita Esquibel, 68, of Columbus, the teacher, are accused by Columbus police of stealing more than $700,000 from Peter Svaldi.
The two met him at an apartment building near Graceland Shopping Center, said Kevin Craine, attorney for Svaldi’s newly appointed guardian. The women were the property managers, said the guardian, Lorelei Lanier. The women gained Svaldi’s trust, then bought real estate, a car and jewelry with money they took from his accounts after gaining power of attorney, Craine said.

“I think this stuff happens a lot more than anybody knows, through power of attorney,” Craine said. “I don’t know the circumstances how he gave them power of attorney, but he definitely gave it to them. In the wrong hands, it can become a license to steal.

Svaldi is “definitely incapacitated,” Craine said. “That’s how this happened. He’s aware of what happened, but it took him a while to process that. It’s one of the more heinous cases I’ve seen, and we do a lot of this kind of work, unfortunately.”

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2 Women Accused in Rip-Off of Senior