Disbarred Lawyer Turns Himself In On Grand Theft Charges

Former lawyer Scott Schieb faces eight counts of grand theft for keeping $200,000 of victims’ settlement payments for himself, according to the Sarasota Police Department.

A disbarred Sarasota personal injury lawyer turned himself in today on eight counts of grand theft, allegedly victimizing a World War II veteran among others.

Scott Schieb arrived at Sarasota Police Department headquarters for the charges, having bilked $200,000 from victims, according to the police department.

Schieb was being investigated for seven months following his disbarment from the Florida Bar Association in October 2011, according to police.

The Florida Bar filed a complaint with the Twelfth Judicial Circuit in November saying that as many as 12 victims had their injury settlement payments stolen by Schieb.

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Disbarred Lawyer Turns Himself In On Grand Theft Charges

Suspect in South Daytona deaths takes plea on fraud charges

Still under investigation in the deaths of an elderly man and woman whose bodies were found two years ago in South Daytona, Kimberly D. Smith pleaded guilty on Monday to a slew of fraud and exploitation charges.

Smith was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 10 years probation. She was also ordered to pay almost $150,000 in restitution to the families of Goldie Robinson and Arthur Sheldon.

Police say Smith was the self-appointed caretaker of Robinson, who was 77 when she disappeared in mid-2010, and Sheldon, a Port Orange man who was 66 when he vanished in late 2009 or early 2010.

Authorities searching for Robinson found Sheldon’s body in a garbage can on Aug. 25, 2010. They found Robinson’s in a shallow grave just more than a week later. Both deaths have since been ruled homicides.

Police haven’t been able to charge anyone with murder, and the investigation remains open. Many of the charges Smith pleaded to Monday related to her use of the elderly woman’s personal identification and credit card.

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Suspect in South Daytona deaths takes plea on fraud charges

Congressional Testimony: Sharyn Eklund — presented to William M. Windsor for Lawless America

Adam Lowenstein: More swindlers are targeting seniors, so be alert

A survey released this month highlighted what too many on the Space Coast and across the country already know: Investment fraud and financial exploitation of the elderly are major and persistent problems.

More than 750 people, including securities regulators, financial planners, health care professionals, social workers, adult protective services, law enforcement officials, elder law attorneys and academics, participated in the online survey, which was conducted by two reputable groups, the Investor Protection Trust and the Investor Protection Institute.

About two-thirds of them said they deal with elderly victims of fraud and exploitation, and four out of five said older Americans are “very vulnerable” to this kind of thing.

The numbers back that up: More than 7 million Americans over the age of 65 — that’s one in five — had been victimized by a financial swindle, according to a 2010 survey by the Investor Protection Trust.

Don Blandin, the president and CEO of that group, said this latest poll shows these issues continue to grow.

“Financial swindles targeting older Americans are a bigger problem today than ever before,” he said, adding that the survey’s findings also highlight the need for more and better help for seniors in the financial arena.

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Adam Lowenstein: More swindlers are targeting seniors, so be alert

Wake case shows perils of family members as financial guardians

RALEIGH — In late March, Robert Anthony Watkins ran into his father’s burning home, yelling “Dad!” as he helped firefighters rescue Oscar “Pete” Watkins from a rampaging fire.

During the next two months, as his father, 75, recovered from devastating burns, Robert Watkins was awarded legal guardianship of Pete Watkins’ affairs, only to have the status removed by the Wake County Clerk Of Court’s office less than two weeks later.

Robert Watkins, 51, has a record of criminal convictions that includes multiple felonies. And according to filings in the case, he had begun dipping into his father’s holdings, estimated at more than $450,000, mostly in the form of the downtown building he once ran as Watkins Grill, now the Oakwood Grill.

Efforts to reach Robert Watkins were not successful.

His brief guardianship career is an example of the potential pitfalls of the process, said Lorrin Freeman, Wake County Clerk of Superior Court. Watkins slipped through the cracks of a system that handles nearly 500 such appointed guardianships a year – and uses criminal background checks to test their fitness as guardians, Freeman said.

“We basically are giving an individual control over somebody’s life,” Freeman said. “That includes everything from what medical care they get, to where they live, to what they can buy, to whom they can associate with.”

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Wake case shows perils of family members as financial guardians

Elder financial abuse in Illinois on rise

Downers Grove retiree Robert Govenat was on the computer every day, watching prices of his stocks go down.

It was November 2007, and a bear market was threatening.

“He was about to have a nervous breakdown or a heart attack,” recalls his wife, Jan, a retired third-grade schoolteacher.

Over lunch at a hot dog place in Darien, a longtime friend and financial planner Algird Norkus told Govenat that he had an alternative investment for select people: It would keep the couple’s principal safe and pay 13.5 percent annual interest.

Govenat went along. Eventually, the couple would lose nearly all of their life savings — $225,000. Govenat also steered his mother into what ultimately turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, and she lost more than $200,000, most of her assets.

Norkus pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud. In March, he began serving 63 months in prison. He also was ordered to pay $4.6 million in restitution to nearly 70 victims, many elderly, including Robert and Jan Govenat, and Robert’s mother. His plea agreement said he commingled investors’ moneys, in part to make payments to other investors and in part to benefit himself.

“Don’t trust anyone,” Jan Govenat, 71, said Tuesday when asked what she learned from the experience. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that to friends since this happened.” She also regretted not sharing their change in investment strategy with their two adult children.

Robert Govenat, 72, gets choked up discussing what happened with the savings of his mother, now 99 and living in a retirement community. “I’m not proud of what I’ve done to my mom,” he said last week with a quivering voice.

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Elder financial abuse in Illinois on rise

Probate fight over Mo. hotel magnate continues

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — The legal fight over 93-year-old Springfield hotel magnate John Q. Hammons remains unresolved nearly 18 months after a group of close friends filed suit over concerns about his care.

A Greene County judge quickly sealed the probate court case, but online court records show it remains active.

Meanwhile, the John Q. Hammons Hotel Management Co. and the woman chosen by Hammons as his successor face two new lawsuits alleging improper business practices.

A New York real estate company accuses CEO Jacqueline Dowdy of exaggerating the company’s worth to secure an $80 million construction loan.

And a holding company that owns more than half of the 78 hotels managed by Hammons says Dowdy broke a contract by taking over the company.

Hammons Hotel Management officials call the claims “baseless.”

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Probate fight over Mo. hotel magnate continues

See Also:
Eight Petition for Guardianship for John Q. Hammons

Veteran’s guardian found in contempt

The court-appointed guardian of a now-deceased Vietnam veteran has been found in contempt of court and threatened with an indefinite jail term while a specially appointed master tries to unravel what became of thousands of dollars of the veteran’s assets.

In a case that a participant says is one of a kind, the former guardian, George Phillips, has been ordered to repay the estate of his uncle, Harold C. Hill, for thousands of dollars in rent payments while Hill was a permanent resident at the Alvin C. York Veterans Medical Center in Murfreesboro.

Phillips was, in effect, paying himself since he was Hill’s landlord.

Dozens of payments from Hill’s bank account have been challenged dating to 2005, when he was first placed in a guardianship.

“The disbursements made for utilities were almost 10 times the amount of the actual utility bill for the apartment the ward (Hill) resided in,” one court filing states.

“I’ve been doing this for a while, and this is a first. It seems that every time we look, something else turns up,” said Michael Knowlton, the attorney representing Regions Bank, which took over the guardianship after Davidson Probate Judge David Randy Kennedy removed Phillips early this year. Regions Bank had previously become involved at the request of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Veteran’s guardian found in contempt

Arizona woman arrested in elderly fraud case

CAMP VERDE, AZ – A Camp Verde woman has been arrested for allegedly defrauding an elderly woman of more than $100,000.

According to the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office, the 90-year-old victim’s granddaughter discovered the theft after reviewing her grandmother’s bank records.

Authorities say the victim requires 24 hour care and was under the caretaking services of C and R Home Care owned by 37-year-old Rosemary Flores of Camp Verde.

The victim, who lives in Cottonwood, was charged $2,200 each week for 24-hor service involving several caretakers.

Authorities say Flores would offer to fill out the victim’s personal check and have her sign the blank check.

Flores would then alter the check to increase the amount before getting the cash equivalent from the bank.

Checks were altered in varying amounts between $3,200 and $12,300.

Before contacting the sheriff’s office, the victim’s granddaughter had confronted Flores about the excessive cash withdrawals but Flores told her not to worry as the cash outs were necessary for extraordinary expenses.

After an investigation by a patrol deputy, the case was handed over to a detective from the Criminal Investigations Bureau.

Authorities say it was also discovered that Flores had convinced the victim to “put all (her) eggs into one basket” by cashing out her annuities. When she did that she suffered a $32,000 loss due to the early cancellation.

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Arizona woman arrested in elderly fraud case

An Age for Justice: Confronting Elder Abuse in America

From http://www.witness.org and http://www.ncoa.org |

An Age for Justice; Elder Abuse in America, a video produced by the Elder Justice Now campaign, shows the families and individuals whose lives have been turned upside down by elder abuse. The video provides stark proof of the financial, emotional, and phsycial and psychological impact of the violence and abuse that an estimated five million Americans face every day. We hear from Vicki Bastion, 92, who installed a security gate inside her home to protect herself and what valuables she had left from her grandson and his gang‐related friends; Betty Beckles talks about her daughter beating her; Bob Lee tells us about his father, who was victimized by a paid caregiver causes depression that contributed to his death; and Pat Smith tells us about her husband, who has Alzheimers disease and was victimized financially by a young woman in Las Vegas who walked with $750,000. The video was produced by the National Council on Aging and WITNESS, to shine the light on what one interviewee called a dark mark on our humanity.

http://www.elderjusticenow.org