Tonight on T.S. Radio: Al Katz: Holocaust Survivor Nearly Killed by Florida Public Guardian

Join us Sunday evening November 18th, 2012 at 7:00 CST! 5:00 …PST …6:00 MST … 7:00 CST … 8:00 EST

Al Katz survived the Holocaust in a Nazi prison camp. As a youth, he spent seven years in forced labor, nearly starved, and saw four Jewish boys shot through the head. Katz survived the Holocaust only to again experience the horrors of imprisonment and torture in the final year of his life. The Manatee County Public Guardian’s abuse of Katz reminded Katz of Nazi cruelty and sadism. For six weeks in 2009, Katz was kept in locked units and denied the companionship of his family and friends and decent medical care. Retreating into teenage memories, Katz believed he was once again a prisoner of the Nazis and subject to their torture. In just two months of guardianship, Katz was nearly dead.

Unlike many victims of Public Guardians, Katz escaped before he died. Katz’s daughter, Dr. Beverly Newman, fought Manatee County’s abuse of her father. With Katz nearly dead and his estate seriously depleted, the Public Guardian was replaced by a professional guardian of the property. Katz’s daughter took him home and cared for him day and night for the last eight months of his life.

Beverly Newman has a Doctor of Education and Child Psychology. She dedicated much of 2010 to caring for her father, after rescuing him from an abusive guardianship. Dr. Newman is now an active advocate for rights of guardianship victims.

LISTEN LIVE tonight or listen to the archive later!
See Also:
NASGA: Al Katz, IN/FL Victim

FL: IG Probes Hiding of Records by Department of Elder Affairs

In September 2012, the State of Florida opened an investigation by the Inspector General’s Office, Department of Elder Affairs, into allegations that the State’s top official overseeing the nearly 1,000 registered professional guardians practicing in Florida conspired with public guardians to conceal hundreds of records in a guardianship abuse case.

What happens when a state turns its back on its own laws and on its most vulnerable citizens? The State of Florida can answer this query, based upon newly-revealed e-mails in which the State’s highest official overseeing thousands upon thousands of guardianships of incapacitated elders concealed from a Ward’s estate hundreds of documents from a public guardianship agency under her supervision.

Guardianship agencies are licensed by the State by submitting minimalistic corporate papers that require brief time to prepare. To become a public guardianship agency in Florida, the agency must sign contracts with the State, which contracts specifically require every agency to keep meticulous paper and electronic records on each of its Wards for at least six years, but what happens when all of an agency’s records on a Ward disappear well before the six-year period has ended?

Holocaust Survivor Al Katz’s family knows the answer to this question. In seeking the records from his public guardianship agency that controlled his life and assets for months, Al’s family was told all of his records had been shipped to the State capital, Tallahassee, and none (except for two pages) had been retained by the agency, Aging Safely of Bradenton, Florida. Likewise, the agency claimed that it never kept a single electronic communication concerning Al and his guardianship.

It is believed that Al Katz’s case is the first one in the nation to have indisputable evidence that high-level state officials actively obstructed justice and covered up crimes against a state Ward.

Full Article and Source:
IG Probes Hiding of Records by Department of Elder Affairs

See Also:
NASGA: Al Katz, IN/FL Victim