Nursing assistant to go on trial for murder

BRATTLEBORO — A judge has rejected an 11th-hour move by a former Brattleboro nursing assistant, charged with murdering one of her nursing home patients, to dismiss most of the charges.

Judge David Suntag rejected the motion from Jodi LaClaire’s attorney, Daniel Sedon, who was seeking to have related financial exploitation charges dismissed.

Suntag’s decision sets the stage for LaClaire’s murder trial to begin Monday in Brattleboro criminal court.

LaClaire, 39, formerly of Bennington, N.H., faces charges of second-degree murder, elder abuse and seven counts of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult. She is accused of injecting 85-year-old Nita Lowery of Brattleboro with a fatal dose of insulin on March 23, 2009 — medicine Lowery had never taken in her life.

According to pre-trial information from medical experts, the insulin injection left Lowery brain dead.

Lowery’s cause of death on April 1, 2009, was hypoglycemia, or extremely low blood sugar.

Court records say that in the early morning hours of March 23, LaClaire tried to use Lowery’s credit card as Lowery lay dying in her nursing home room.

LaClaire is also charged with accessing Lowery’s financial accounts in the weeks following Lowery’s death, pocketing about $4,000.

Sedon, in a motion filed last week, had asked that all of the financial charges against his client be dismissed. He argued that two necessary legal elements were missing from many of the charges against LaClaire.

But Assistant Attorney General Ultan Doyle criticized Sedon’s reasoning in his response to the motion. He said that by Sedon’s reading of the elderly exploitation statute, there was no crime involved by LaClaire using a dead woman’s credit card.

“He argues that if a person willfully uses funds of a vulnerable adult, without legal authority, for wrongful profit, no crime has been committed, and that, similarly, if a person willfully acquires possession of an interest in funds of a vulnerable adult through the use of undue influence, no crime has been committed,” Doyle wrote.

Sedon had argued that the language of the state law was flawed, and that the state’s charges “do not contain a plain, concise and definite written statement” of an alleged crime.

Sedon argued that in order for a crime to have been committed, the state had to allege that not only had funds been used by an unauthorized person, but that the acquisition of the funds was by ‘‘wrongful means.”

LaClaire was the only nursing assistant on Lowery’s floor that night, court records stated.

According to court records, LaClaire had financial problems, mostly medical bills from Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, N.H. There were also records of LaClaire selling pieces of jewelry at a pawn shop in Massachusetts.

In late August, the state dropped nine of the financial exploitation and attempted financial exploitation counts against LaClaire, leaving seven in place.

Doyle noted that he would not present evidence about another patient at Thompson House, the Brattleboro nursing home where LaClaire worked. That patient also ended up in the emergency room with extremely low blood sugar, a sign of an insulin overdose.

Like Lowery, “T.I.” did not take insulin and was not a diabetic. “T.I.” was hospitalized and recovered from her severely low blood sugar, but died 10 months later from natural causes, court records stated.

According to court records, LaClaire herself is a diabetic and used injectable insulin.

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Nursing assistant to go on trial for murder

Against All Odds – Congratulations Guadalupe Olvera!

On August 21, 2013, California Superior Court Judge Paul M. Marigonda restored the rights of 94-yr-old WW2 hero Guadalupe Olvera after a court appointed Nevada guardian bled $300,000.00 from Olvera’s family trust, deprived him of his civil rights, and held him captive in his Henderson, Nevada home from the beginning of November 2009 until the end of September 2010 when Olvera defied Nevada for-hire guardian Jared Shafer’s orders and moved back to California to spend his final days with his family.

Shafer then spent Olvera’s funds paying attorneys in Nevada and California in an expensive but failed effort to force Olvera to return to Nevada, while holding his estate captive until August 21, 2013 when Judge Marigonda finally restored Olvera’s civil rights.  Confirming that Guadalupe Olvera was and is competent to handle his own personal and financial affairs, Judge Marigonda overruled the orders of Shafer crony, Clark County Family Court “Guardianship Commissioner” Jon Norheim, and released Olvera from a forced California guardianship required by Shafer as a condition for the Nevada termination of Shafer’s four-year-long control of Olvera’s person and fortune.

Asked how he feels after regaining his civil rights, Guadalupe Olvera stated: ‘I’m glad I’m free from what he did to me. I’m free now and I don’t ever want to hear his name again. I hope he goes to jail.’

Jared Shafer

Full Article and Source:
Daughter of WW2 Vet Succeeds in Terminating Jared E. Shafer’s Nevada guardianship and a California Conservatorship Dictated by Shafer

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NASGA:  Lupe Olvera
Marcy Dudek

Deadline set for Marion Superior Judge Kimberly Brown to respond to petition seeking her removal

The Indiana Supreme Court on Friday set a noon Wednesday deadline for Marion Superior Judge Kimberly J. Brown to file a response challenging an emergency petition to remove her from the bench.

The order signed by Chief Justice Brent E. Dickson says the deadline was set because disciplinary rules do not specifically establish a deadline for responses to interim suspension petitions.

The state Commission on Judicial Qualifications last month filed a complaint against Brown alleging 45 counts of misconduct. At the same time, the commission filed an emergency petition seeking her suspension, with pay, pending outcome of a disciplinary case involving the alleged misconduct.

The action to remove a judge before completion of a disciplinary case is an “extraordinary measure,” the court noted when announcing the action against Brown on Aug. 26.

Brown, a Democrat elected in 2008, faces charges that include dereliction of duty, delaying the release of at least nine defendants from jail, failing to train or supervise court employees, creating a hostile environment for staff and attorneys and failing to properly complete paperwork.

A staff member who answered the phone in Brown’s court Friday said that the judge was “unavailable” but could not say whether or not Brown was working. Brown was reported to be on vacation when the charges were filed and it was not clear Friday whether she had returned to the bench.

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Deadline set for Marion Superior Judge Kimberly Brown to respond to petition seeking her removal

Survey Finds Disability Abuse Widespread

More than 7 in 10 with disabilities say they’ve been abused, according to a new national survey, and in many cases individuals say the problems occur repeatedly.

In what’s believed to be the largest survey of its kind, over 7,200 people with disabilities, family members, advocates, service providers and other professionals were polled between May and October 2012.

The findings, released this week, suggest that abuse of people with disabilities is widespread across the country and often overlooked.

More than 70 percent of those with disabilities polled said they had been abused and over 60 percent of family members indicated that their loved one with special needs had been mistreated.

In about half of cases, victims said they experienced physical abuse. Some 40 percent reported sexual abuse and nearly 90 percent of those who said they had been violated indicated they were verbally or emotionally harmed. Neglect and financial abuse were also frequently cited.

“Too many people are abused too much, with very little on the response side to help in the aftermath,” said Nora J. Baladerian, director of the Disability and Abuse Project, which conducted the survey. “The extent of abuse is epidemic, and the inadequate response is disturbing.”

Among those who were victimized, more than 9 in 10 said they were abused more than once with 57 percent indicating they had experienced mistreatment more than 20 times, the survey found.

Incidents of abuse were not reported in about half of cases and even when authorities were alerted, survey results indicate that arrests were made only about 10 percent of the time.

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Survey Finds Disability Abuse Widespread

NY: The Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption

On July 2, 2013, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo appointed the “Commission to Investigate Public Corruption” under the Moreland Act and Executive Law Section 63(8) to probe systemic corruption and the appearance of such corruption in state government, political campaigns and elections in New York State.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will appoint the members of the Commission as Deputy Attorneys General giving the Commission broad investigative authority to probe matters that “involve public peace, public safety and public justice”.

The Commission will have the power to issue subpoenas and examine witnesses under oath.  They will be tasked with among things, reviewing the adequacy of existing state laws, regulations and procedures involving unethical and unlawful misconduct by public officials and the electoral process and campaign finance laws.  They will also examine whether existing laws and regulations have been fairly and vigorously enforced and what changes must be made to such enforcement.  The Commission is directed to make recommendations to toughen and improve existing laws and procedures.

Note: 

The Commission will hold hearings in September:
* Tuesday, September 17 in lower Manhattan,
* Wednesday, September 18 in Buffalo,

* Tuesday, September 24 in Albany

The hearings will begin at 6:00 p.m.

Source:
The Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption

Inheritance guardian sentenced for embezzlement

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A lawyer appointed to oversee the inheritance of a civil rights leader’s grandson has been sentenced in Mississippi to serve 30 years in prison for using hundreds of thousands of dollars for himself.

Attorney Michael Brown was sentenced Aug. 29 in Rankin County to 40 years, with 10 suspended, on two counts of embezzlement related to the estate left to the grandson of late civil rights leader Aaron Henry.

Brown, 56, of Rankin County, represented himself during the four-day trial. He remains incarcerated and was not available for comment Thursday. A telephone call to the sheriff’s office was not immediately returned.

Henry, a former state legislator who led the state NAACP for more than 30 years, died in 1997 at the age of 74, leaving his estate to his only daughter, Rebecca. She died in 2000, with her estate going to her two sons, Rankin County District Attorney Michael Guest said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Guest said a guardianship was set up in Hinds County in 2000 for Henry’s grandson, Demon McClinton, who was a minor at the time.

Brown was under court order to use the funds strictly for the benefit of the child, but he put the money in his personal escrow account, spending some of it on five cars over a period of several weeks in 2001 and investing $550,000 in a cemetery, Guest said.

Rankin County brought criminal charges because the checks for the Lakeland Place Garden Cemetery investment were written in the county, Guest said. Brown faces additional charges in Hinds County, where Guest said other fraudulent transactions occurred.

Brown closed the guardianship in 2006 after spending $1.2 million and then filed fraudulent paperwork with the Hinds County Chancery court to make it appear the money was properly spent for the benefit of McClinton, Guest said.

The estate was reopened in 2011 when Hinds County Chancellor Dewayne Thomas held a series of hearings that uncovered the fraud, Guest said.

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Inheritance guardian sentenced for embezzlement

Man Gets 11 Years For Bilking Elderly

Former Vancouver resident must also pay $3 million in restitution

A former Vancouver resident was recently sentenced in San Diego to serve 11 years in a California state prison and pay $3 million in restitution for operating a phony insurance company and bilking elderly clients.

Michael B. Woodward, 50, pleaded guilty to residential burglary, theft from an elder, theft greater than $500,000, transacting insurance without authorization and failure to file a state tax return.

His wife, Melissa J. Woodward, 48, pleaded guilty to failing to file a tax return and was sentenced to probation.

When Woodward lived in Vancouver and was selling plans to senior citizens, he was investigated — nearly two dozen times by one agency alone — but never charged with a crime.

The prosecution of Woodward, who had his license to sell insurance revoked in Washington and Oregon, was the result of an investigation by the California Department of Insurance and the San Diego County District Attorney’s Insurance Fraud Unit.

The Woodwards were arrested April 10 at their home in Las Vegas and extradited to San Diego, according to a news release from the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. They entered their guilty pleas in June and were sentenced on Aug. 8 in San Diego County Superior Court.

400 victims
Their approximately 400 victims in California, including more than 200 people in San Diego, ranged in age from 80 to older than 100.

“(The Woodwards) would target elderly senior citizens at their homes, telling them that for a prepaid annual fee, the victim could get an unlimited amount of non-medical services such as cooking, cleaning, bathing, toileting, dressing, laundry and shopping. To receive services, he told the victims, they should call him and provide a doctor’s note.”

But the Woodwards were the business’ only employees, according to the San Diego District Attorney’s Office.

The most Woodward would do for clients was hire a third party to provide services, or reimburse clients after they had to pay out-of-pocket.

Full Article and Source:
Man Gets 11 Years For Bilking Elderly

Fired Texas Social Services Worker Gets 10 Years

(Credit: ThinkStockImages)

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) – A fired social services worker in Southeast Texas who stole from people she was assigned to help must serve 10 years in prison.

A judge in Galveston on Wednesday sentenced 47-year-old Sylvia Ann Villarreal of Hitchcock. Villarreal on June 17 pleaded guilty to felony theft.

The Galveston County Daily News reports Villarreal must also pay $50,000 in restitution.

Villarreal worked for Galveston County’s guardianship program for nearly 15 years before she was fired in 2010. She was later indicted on a charge of theft by public servant involving funds since 2007.

The investigation began after a judge who appointed Villarreal to assist wards of the county noticed irregularities with their checking accounts. Records show many of the checks were made out to cash.

Authorities since then have implemented audits.

Full Article and Source:
Fired Texas Social Services Worker Gets 10 Years

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Social services worker in Texas stole from clients

Advocacy Group Publishes Nation’s First-Ever, State-By-State Nursing Home Report Card

TALLAHASSEE, FL) – Families for Better Care, a Florida-based nursing home resident advocacy group, published the first-ever state-by-state nursing home report card.

The group scored, ranked and graded states on eight different federal quality measures ranging from the percentage of facilities with severe deficiencies to the number of hours frontline caregivers averaged per resident per day.

“We’re excited about getting this report into the hands of public officials, nursing home owners, advocates, and—most importantly—residents and their families,” said Brian Lee, Families for Better Care’s executive director.  “Our goal is to applaud those states that provide good care while motivating improvement for those that score poorly.”

Top nursing home states included Alaska, Rhode Island and New Hampshire while Texas, Louisiana and Indiana hit rock bottom.

“A distinctive trend differentiated the good states from the bad states,” Lee exclaimed.  “States whose nursing homes staffed at higher levels ranked far better than those with fewer staffing hours.”

Three states (Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine) scored “superior” grades in every staffing measure and each ranked among America’s best nursing home states.  Conversely, of those four states with failing marks (Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas) each scored below average grades.

Full Article and Source:
Advocacy Group Publishes Nation’s First-Ever, State-By-State Nursing Home Report Card

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Report Says Texas Nursing Homes Are the Worst in the Country, And This Video Might Just Convince You

Cook County Opens New Elder Justice Center

CHICAGO (CBS) – Senior citizens in Cook County who need help navigating the court system, or fighting fraud and abuse, now have one place to turn for information.

WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports the Cook County Elder Justice Center is the brainchild of Chief Judge Timothy Evans, and is located on the lower level of the Daley Center.

Presiding Judge Patricia Banks said volunteers and staff at the center can answer questions about financial exploitation, scams, and the like. “We don’t give legal advice,” she said. “No legal advice, or legal representation; but we do want seniors who have issues, who have questions about the court system, who have questions about paperwork that they might have that they don’t quite understand – we welcome them to come in. To the extent that we can help them, fine. If we can’t help them, we’re going to refer them to someone who can.”

Banks said she and Evans noticed seniors have become a growing part of the court system.

“They’re living longer, and they’re in need … because of all types of legal issues: consumer issues, the scams, we have also elder abuse and neglect,” she said. “That’s a very big issue, because of elder abuse, and neglect, and financial exploitation, we’re hearing stories everyday about seniors.”

Full Article and Source:
Cook County Opens New Elder Justice Center