86-Year "Young" Woman Hula Hooping

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My 86 Year “Young” Mom Hula Hooping!

91 Year-Old Rocks Out on the Piano

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91-Year-Old Woman Rocks Out on the Piano

Pair Suspended as Executors of Huguette Clark Estate

The prospect of Huguette Clark’s Santa Barbara estate being turned into an art museum grows dimmer as a New York judge suspends longtime advisors Wallace Bock and Irving H. Kamsler as executors of her will, citing accusations of tax fraud.

When Huguette Clark’s will was filed six months ago, art lovers in Santa Barbara were delighted: The bluff-top estate owned by the reclusive 104-year-old copper heiress was to be transformed into a museum.

It was an exciting but uncertain prospect at the time, largely because the museum was to be established by Clark’s attorney and accountant — longtime advisors whose ethics had been questioned in news reports and in legal actions by Clark’s relatives.

The possibility grew even dimmer Friday when a New York City judge suspended the pair as Clark’s executors, citing accusations of massive tax fraud.

At a hearing in Surrogate’s Court, which rules on estate matters, Surrogate Kristin Booth Glen pointed to charges by the New York public administrator’s office that the pair caused Clark’s estate to lose more than $50 million.

In court filings, the office said attorney Wallace Bock and certified public accountant Irving H. Kamsler should be removed “by reason of their dishonesty, improvidence, waste, and want of understanding.”

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Pair Suspended as Executors of Copper Heiress Estate

See Also:
Huguette Clark Signed Two Wills!

MA Man Held for Elderly Fraud Scam After Conservator Notices Discrepancies

A Swampscott man was arraigned in Lynn District Court after he allegedly confessed to Lynn Police that he stole over $5,000 from an elderly woman with dementia by using her debit card for several months.

Mikhail Perlin, 49, was held without bail on five counts of larceny over $250 by a single scheme. According to a police report by Lynn Police Officer Thomas Morley, Perlin made at least 55 unauthorized transactions using a debit card belonging to a 71-year-old woman he met while working for Multicultural Services, where he told officers he “provided companionship, cleaning and shopping services for clients.”

The woman, Galina Yanisherskay, suffers from severe dementia and has been living in a nursing home in Braintree since May 31, according to the report.

Perlin told Lynn Police that he used to go grocery shopping with Yanisherskay, who apparently has no family, and that she would sometimes have him pay using her debit card. But charges made after she entered the nursing home aroused suspicion from the court-appointed conservator for Yanisherskay.

The conservator, attorney Amber Cohen of Plymouth, requested the woman’s Eastern Bank account records on Nov. 11 and immediately noticed several discrepancies. The report said Yanisherskay receives monthly Social Security deposits that had been depleted in the months after she entered the hospital and moved to the nursing home.

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Swampscott Man Held for Elderly Fraud Scam

IL Couple Charged With Financial Exploitation of 92-Year Old Woman

Mount Prospect police charged a married couple with financial exploitation of an elderly person after authorities say they wrote themselves checks on the woman’s account.

Richard Bugayon, 40, and Jocelyn Bugayon, 35, are charged with a class three felony. If convicted, they could face from two to five years in prison. Probation is also an option.

Cook County Judge Jill Cerone Marisie set bail at $30,000 for each defendant and ordered they have no contact with the complaining witness. Marisie also ordered that the couple, who are natives of the Philippines, surrender their passports.

The couple served as caretakers for the 92-year-old woman, said Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Lesley Gool. During that time, they wrote checks to themselves or to cash from the woman’s account, Gool said.

Police said the defendants led the woman to believe she was endorsing checks to various charities. After the victim endorsed the checks, the Bugayons would increase the dollar amount on the checks and make them out to either or their own names, police said in a prepared release.

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2 Charged With Financial Exploitation of Mt. Prospect Woman

Probate Sharks: New Blog – Cook County Guardianship Abuse Victims Manual

We are pleased to announce the unveiling of a new guardianship abuse resource blog for the victims of the Cook County Probate Court. The purpose of this blog is solely to provide easy-to-locate resources for identifying and reporting the illegal and unethical activities that occur in the Cook County Probate Court. The blog is dedicated to fellow guardianship victims and their loved ones, with the hope that it will help to bring an end to the criminal activity being endured.

The new blog can be viewed at:

http://www.ProbateAbuseManual.blogspot.com

We at ProbateSharks will continue to bring our readers the same resource information as can be found on the new blog, along with personal and special interest stories as we have in the past.

Signed,

Your ProbateSharks Advocate to End Guardianship Abuse

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ProbateSharks.com

Two Utah Nurses Fired for Taping Woman’s Mouth Shut

Two nurses in a Utah hospital’s intensive care unit were fired this week for taping a patient’s mouth shut and laughing about it, hospital officials said.

Artalejo’s daughter, Brittany Bilson, told the television station that her mother’s teeth were chattering and she was moaning and shaking. Bilson said the nurses told her mother to shut up, taped her mouth closed and joked they would be fired if they were caught.

Penny Artalejo was admitted to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo on Dec. 17 with nausea and anxiety from taking medication for chronic neck pain, her daughters told Utah radio station KSL.com.

“It’s not right. It’s inhumane,” Bilson said. “We put our loved ones’ lives in their hands. I left the hospital basically thinking she’s fine from here, and just more bad happened.”

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Taping Patient’s Mouth Shut: Utah Nurse Fired For Treatment Of Penny Artalejo

Civil Suits Against Rita Hunter Pending

A 12-count indictment handed up last week will demand Rita Hunter’s appearance in federal court, but the former Jasper County public administrator also has court dates pending in state court on civil lawsuits filed against her by county wards.

Several lawsuits still are making their way through the courts, though in other instances, courts have ruled in favor of the former administrator who left office Dec. 31, 2008. One Jasper County Circuit Court jury also has found in favor of Hunter, who thus far has been defended by attorneys for the county’s insurance carrier. In addition, Hunter has not been released in final financial settlements she filed on wards when she left office, because of challenges filed questioning how wards’ money was handled and reported.

Hunter, 59, of rural Joplin, now faces federal charges of health care fraud, theft of government property, document fraud, Social Security fraud and Medicaid fraud, in connection with the operation of her office when she was administrator from January 2005 through December 2008. The indictment alleges financial misdeeds started as early as April 2005, four months after the start of her term.

The indictment alleges Hunter collected nearly $200,000 to which her office was not entitled. That came either by falsifying reports to apply for Medicaid benefits to which wards were not entitled, or collecting fees from what wards were receiving from Social Security, without authorization and without reporting to the federal agency. In those cases, more than $121,000 from Medicaid and nearly $60,000 from Social Security were used for the fees for administrative charges by her office and to pay attorney fees and tax preparation fees, authorities allege.

Hunter is to report Jan. 5 for arraignment on the charges. In an appearance before U.S Magistrate James C. England on Wednesday, she was assigned a public defender and released on a personal recognizance bond, according to Don Ledford, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips.

Springfield attorney Lynn Myers said he expects both sides will be back in Jasper County Circuit Court soon on a lawsuit filed in July 2008 on behalf of several former wards. The suit seeks damages from Hunter and the county’s insurance company, alleging she overcharged wards and mishandled their funds.

The lawsuit currently lists wards including Guy Sesler, Treba Benson and the late Emma France, but Myers is asking the court to approve the case as a class action, contending overcharging was common among all wards’ accounts.

Full Article and Source:
Civil Suits Pending on Local Level

See Also:
Former Jasper County MO Administrator Rita Hunter Indicted for Fraud Scheme!

Gone Without a Case: Suspicious Elder Deaths Rarely Investigated

Nothing, it seemed, was unusual about Joseph Shepter’s death.

A retired U.S. government scientist, Shepter spent his final two years dwelling in a nursing home in Mountain Mesa, Calif., a small town northeast of Bakersfield. A stroke had paralyzed much of his body, while dementia had eroded his ability to communicate.

He died in January 2007 at age 76. On Shepter’s death certificate, Dr. Hoshang Pormir, the nursing home’s chief medical officer, explained that the cause was heart failure brought on by clogged arteries.

Shepter’s family had no reason to doubt it. The local coroner never looked into the death. Shepter’s body was interred in a local cemetery.

But a tip from a nursing-home staffer would later prompt state officials to re-examine the case and reach a very different conclusion.

When investigators reviewed Shepter’s medical records, they determined that he had actually died of a combination of ailments often related to poor care, including an infected ulcer, pneumonia, dehydration and sepsis.

Investigators also concluded that Shepter’s demise was hastened by the inappropriate administration of powerful antipsychotic drugs, which can have potentially lethal side effects for seniors.

Prosecutors in 2009 charged Pormir and two former colleagues with killing Shepter and two other elderly residents. They’ve pleaded not guilty. The criminal case is ongoing.

Full Article and Source:
Gone Without a Case: Suspicious Elder Deaths Rarely Investigated

See Also:
Post Mortem: Death Investigation in America

Autopsies in the USA

FL: Inspections Decline as Elder Watchdogs are Muzzled

For five weeks, the leaders of Florida’s assisted-living watchdog group pondered what to do with volunteer advocate Bill Hearne.

The 74-year-old former businessman had been “a real asset” to the state’s Long-term Care Ombudsman Program, the group’s top lawyer wrote in an email.

But Hearne also had an annoying habit of telling reporters, public task forces and his colleagues that the advocacy group was “in bed with” industry leaders it was supposed to oversee.

One of Hearne’s bosses called his behavior “toxic.” In the end, the desire to shut Hearne up trumped his contributions to the program, and state Ombudsman Jim Crochet dismissed him last month.

Crochet attached a copy of the dismissal letter to his staff to a Nov. 29 email that contained only one sentence: “This should be in the Miami Herald soon.”

Hearne says his supervisors never warned him that his complaints had become intolerable, though emails between his bosses suggest he was aware he was likely to be dismissed. He added that even if he’s not officially working for the ombudsman’s office, “that will not deter me in advocating for the residents of [long-term care] facilities one iota.”

Hearne, who lives in Miami, is among a growing number of volunteer elder advocates who have either been dismissed or have resigned in the wake of an ongoing purge of inspectors who criticize or challenge the program’s decision to move in a dramatically new direction.

Full Article and Source:
Inspections Decline as Elder Watchdogs are Muzzled

See Also:
ALF Watchdog: I was Dumped for Doing my Job

Florida Curtails Effort to Police ALF’s

Program to Protect Elders Undermined, Feds Say

Legislators Grill State Elder Affairs Chief Over Allegations of Muzzling Activists

Grand Jury Demands Florida Get Tough on ALF Operators

Search the ALF Database

Neglected to Death – The Miami Herald Series