Wisconsin Passes Power of Attorney Act

The Wisconsin Legislature has passed a new power of attorney act, which now awaits the governor’s signature.

The Uniform Power of Attorney for Finances and Property Act [Assembly Bill 704 (2009), hereinafter AB 704] will replace Wisconsin’s current statute, including the statutory form.

Sections 243.07 and 243.10 of the Wisconsin Statutes will be replaced with a new chapter 244. The Act is intended to provide greater protection for persons who wish to use durable powers of attorney and more detailed guidance for agents, as well as guidance and protection for third parties who are asked to accept powers of attorney.

The Act consists of two subchapters. Subchapter II contains the optional statutory form and miscellaneous provisions dealing with the Act’s general application and repeal of certain prior law.

Subchapter I includes definitions and general rules. Of particular note is the definition of “incapacity,” found at section 244.02(7), which replaces the term “disability” used in current law. AB 704, at 6. The Act’s definition of “incapacity” is consistent with the standard for appointment of a guardian under Wis. Stat. chapter 154.

Another significant change is the default rule in section 244.04 that makes a power of attorney durable unless the document provides otherwise. AB 704, at 8. This change from current law reflects the view that most principals prefer their powers of attorney to be durable as a hedge against the need for guardianship.

Full Article and Source:
Power of Attorney Act Awaiting Governor’s Signature

Lawyer Sentenced to 30 Years

Troy A. Titus, 43, of Virginia Beach, Va., was sentenced to 30 years in prison for operating multiple fraud schemes to steal and misappropriate almost $10 million from clients and investors.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and A.J. Turner, Special Agent in Charge of the Norfolk Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, made the announcement after sentencing by United States District Judge Raymond A. Jackson.

“People trusted Troy Titus as an advisor and lawyer, and he swindled dozens of victims out of millions,” U.S. Attorney MacBride said. “We hope this 30-year sentence will send a clear message that those who engage in financial fraud will face severe consequences.

Full Article and Source:
Virginia Lawyer Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Massive Real Estate Investment Scam

See Also:
Disbarred, Disgraced, and Going to Federal Prison for 30 Years

Man Eggs Judge

A Naperville father recently released from jail after firing a raw egg at a domestic relations judge has been indicted on charges of damaging property in the judge’s courtroom.

A DuPage County grand jury indicted Agim Demiri on three felony charges of criminal damage to government property and criminal damage to property.

He spent a week in DuPage County Jail in Wheaton for contempt of court beginning March 24, after launching an egg at Judge Timothy J. McJoynt. The incident occurred during a hearing on Demiri’s failure to make court-ordered child support payments as part of his divorce.

The egg missed McJoynt and splattered against a state of Illinois emblem on the wall behind the judge’s dais. Another egg was found in the courtroom near the place where Demiri had been sitting.

No one was injured in the incident. McJoynt declined to file battery charges against Demiri.

Full Article and Source:
Man Indicted for Hurling Egg at Judge

Lawyer Finds Unusual Pool of Clients – Victims of Probate Court

Just about everybody who came into contact with Edward Ravenscroft in 2008 concluded that he needed some serious help.

Thanks to a bad crack habit, Ravenscroft, then 47, had burned through more than $1 million in two short years — with little to show for it. As an heir to the Abbott Laboratories fortune, Ravenscroft was rich, but he was spending his money way too quickly, and stupidly.

In court papers, Ravenscroft admitted that, in addition to his drug problem, he was mentally ill. His defense lawyer wrote that Ravenscroft described himself as bipolar and obsessive-compulsive. Three different doctors agreed. So did the court-appointed psychiatrist who examined him in jail.

That diagnosis may have made all the difference. Under a program launched by the county’s presiding judge, criminal defendants with mental illness end up in a special court to assess their competency, and then, if need be, referred to probate court for help. Probate court deals with people who are legally incapacitated: anyone who can’t take care of themselves or manage their finances because of mental illness, old age, or disability.

Sent to probate in January 2009, Ravenscroft was assigned a guardian ad litem to fight for his best interests, even if Ravenscroft had no idea what they were. (In this case, that entailed helping Ravenscroft get well enough to check into rehab.) As Ravenscroft’s case progressed and he continued to spiral out of control, he also got a guardian (to take care of him), a conservator (to watch over his money), and a lawyer (to express his desires in court).

And then, slowly, Edward Ravenscroft got better.

Today, he’s been sober eight months. He takes his medication and is preparing to live on his own. He’d been in probate for a little over a year when Probate Court Judge Karen O’Connor terminated his guardianship last month. He is, she said, capable of taking care of himself.

Sounds like a happy ending, right?

Not if you’re Grant Goodman. The Phoenix-based attorney is convinced that the whole thing was a scam to steal Ravenscroft’s money.

Full Article and Source:
In Debt and Under Fire, Attorney Grant Goodman Has Found an Unusual Pool of Clients: the ‘Victims’ of Probate Court

See Also:
Ravenscroft Denied Freedom

Victim Sues Sonoma County, CA

Despite the solid foundation of their relationship and all the legal documents they filed to prevent tragedy, Sonoma County officials took everything from a longtime gay couple Clay Greene and Harold Scull, including their chance to say goodbye before Scull died.

In 2008, Scull, 88, fell down the stairs and was taken to the hospital. While he was admitted, Sonoma County officials logged their belongings and petitioned the court for conservatorship of the couple’s estate. Despite being granted only limited powers, the County arranged for the sale of the men’s personal property, cleaned out their home, terminated their lease, confiscated their truck, and eventually disposed of all of the men’s worldly possessions, including family heirlooms, at a fraction of their value and without any proper inventory or determination of whose property was being sold.

They also moved Greene, 78, into a nursing home and confined him against his will, not permitting him to see his partner. Three months after he was taken to the hospital, Scull died, without having seen Greene.

Green is suing the county and a trial date has been set for July 16, 2010.

Source:
Elderly Couple Not Allowed to Say Goodbye, All Possessions Sold

See Also:
Read the Lawsuit

CA Nursing Homes Cut Staff/Wages, Reap Profits

California’s nursing homes have reaped $880 million in additional funding from a 2004 state law designed to help them hire more caregivers and boost wages.

But about a quarter of the state’s homes flouted the law’s purpose. They cut staff or slashed wages, while padding their bottom lines, a California Watch investigation has found.

The 232 homes that made those cuts — including 20 in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties — collected about $236 million through 2008, the last year of available data. And the law that made it all possible included few safeguards to ensure it was spent as intended.

About two dozen homes that made the deepest caregiver cuts had about a third more deficiencies than other state facilities, California Watch found. Violations ranged from neglecting bedsores to giving patients the wrong drugs.

Overall, regulators documented nearly 1,000 deficiencies for inadequate care in California nursing homes in 2008 — a 65 percent increase compared with 2005.

“There was an implicit good faith agreement that things would get better “… and that was broken,” said state Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-San Jose, chairwoman of the Senate Health Committee.

But James Gomez, chief executive of the state’s nursing home trade organization, said the 2004 law has led to a 6 percent increase in average staffing for nursing homes.

Full Article and Source:
Nursing Homes Received Millions from California Taxpayers While Cutting Staff, Services

Class Action Lawsuit Against Nursing Home Chain

Skilled Healthcare Group Inc., the 10th largest nursing home chain in 2009, is involved in a class-action lawsuit currently unfolding in California, which claims that they have put elderly residents at risk and skirted state law by skimping on staff to make more money.

The class-action case includes more than 32,000 nursing home residents, who claim that staffing problems have plagued homes operated by Skilled Healthcare Group Inc. The plaintiffs argue that understaffing is one of the primary causes of inadequate care and often unsafe conditions in skilled nursing homes. They hope to collect a multimillion-dollar judgment and improve care.

Plaintiffs contend that the California nursing homes were out of compliance for thousands of days over the six-year period covered by the lawsuit, and penalties can be up to $500 per resident for each day the law was violated.

California Health and Safety Code requires that nursing homes provide at least 3.2 nursing hours per resident per day, which includes care by registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, and certified nursing assistants.

Full Article and Source:
Nursing Home Chain Involved in Staffing Class Action Lawsuit

More Abuse in Genesee County Michigan

Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell is calling it another case of elder abuse as three adults have been removed from a home in Flint.

The sheriff says those people are being treated at an area hospital. This all took place in the 3800 Block of Fleming on the city’s north side.

One person was taken into custody. He’s being held in the Genesee County Jail.

He’s 23-years-old, according to Pickell, and the grandson of Mary Chapman, a woman who is no stranger to these types of allegations.

The man arrested is likely also the son of the Chapman’s daughter, who was running a Beard Street facility where one elderly woman died and two other elderly adults were removed last month.

Pickell says they will seek elder abuse related charges against him. The sheriff and his team of investigators say the home is not licensed to be an adult foster care facility.

The three women inside, ages 55, 58 and 67, are receiving treatment, according to the sheriff.

Full Article, Video and Source:
Genesee County Sheriff Finds Another Case of Elder Abuse

Nursing Home Resident Accused of Felony Battery

A 57-year-old man was arrested on charges that he fondled an elderly woman suffering from dementia in the nursing home they share, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.

Larry Donneal Evans, of St. Petersburg, was arrested on a felony charge of battery on a person 65 years or older. He is mentally ill, police said, but they did not disclose his exact diagnosis.

A nurse at Pasadena Manor Nursing Home at 1430 Pasadena Ave. caught Evans inside the victim’s room.

[T]he victim was not coherent enough to even talk to deputies. She suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and senile dementia. Her identity was withheld by the Sheriff’s Office because of the nature of the allegation.

Evans is a convicted felon who was first arrested in 1970. He served four years in prison for charges of resisting an officer with violence and possession of cocaine, among others. He was released in 2004.

Full Article and Source:
Pinellas Deputies: Elderly Dementia Patient Fondled in Nursing Home

Illinois: Cashing in on Frail Patients

‘Horrific’ moneymaking scheme shuttled sick, elderly between nursing homes and hospitals at taxpayer expense.

Dr. Roland Borrasi chuckled as he told three doctors how he used kickbacks and cash bribes to shuttle unsuspecting nursing home residents into Chicago-area hospitals and psychiatric wards.

“Basically, I have a commodity; my commodity is nursing home patients,” Borrasi explained.

He didn’t know it at the time, but federal agents were secretly recording that meeting.

One of the doctors was wearing a wire as Borrasi matter-of-factly explained the mechanics of patient brokering to physicians in his medical group.

Those recordings, along with court documents and federal investigative reports obtained by the Tribune, describe a web of corruption in which hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed among doctors, nursing home executives and hospital administrators as the facility operators sought to fill their beds with a steady flow of destitute patients.

While taxpayers paid millions of dollars in fraudulent Medicaid and Medicare bills, one Alzheimer’s patient was given inappropriate brain radiation treatments, a Borrasi associate told federal agents. A second patient, a disoriented elderly woman, was sent to an acute psychiatric ward after she refused to eat in her nursing home dining hall, another medical professional told federal agents.

“The fact that … greed subordinated the care of elderly and infirm patients who really needed it is horrific at best,” federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing earlier this year after Borrasi was sentenced for accepting more than $500,000 in kickbacks to steer vulnerable patients. Prosecutors described “the scope and breadth of the bribes” as “extraordinary.”

Full Article and Source:
Cashing in on Frail Patients