Client Don H. made us Furious this month when he sent us a story that opens in the kitchen of Rudy and Rennie North, a retired couple in Las Vegas. It was a normal day until a nice woman arrived to tell them she had an order from Family Court to move them to an assisted-living facility. No warning. No argument. And if the Norths didn’t comply the nice lady would call the police. Thirty-five minutes later the North’s had packed a few belongings and were off on a new adventure where they’d be drugged, neglected, and drained of their life savings. When family members tried to intervene the nice lady hired a $400-per-hour attorney to fight them. She had the money to do it… she’d transferred the North’s accounts to her name and used theirs. And of course, neither the North’s or the nice lady that destroyed their lives are alone; they’re just two of nearly 9,000 adult wards in the Las Vegas Valley alone. Some are wards for valid reasons, some are not, but all operate under laws that make the nice lady’s actions (or at least many of them) perfectly legal. This month we’re guaranteed to augment your anger with the story of the Norths and How The Elderly Lose Their Rights, but if you still have a calm nerve we can tell you what happened when the private equity firm Carlyle Group took over a Pennsylvania nursing home! It’s a carnival of conniption and a festival of fury as we look at the people who look at our parents and grandparents in a whole new way… harvestable assets!
The best place to start is with Don’s article that started it for us, How the Elderly Lose Their Rights– Guardians can sell the assets and control the lives of senior citizens without their consent—and reap a profit from it., by Rachel Aviv in The New Yorker, Oct 2017.
But there was a lot of other reporting as the Nevada scandal was exposed…
Guardianship Agency Costs Elderly Woman Dearly, Sharyl Attkisson on CBS Evening News, Dec 2010
Documentary about guardianship abuse inspired by KTNV investigation, KTNV News Video, Sep 2018
Guardianship reform after investigation hits 4 year mark, Darcy Spears on CBS13KTNV, Jan 2019
Investigation into Guardianship Abuse, Sharyl Attkisson on CMB Evening News, Dec 2010
Private Guardian Jared E.Shafer orders Judge to Close Court to Public, video, Mar 2014
Nevada: Speculation On Why Jared Shafer Has Not Yet Been Indicted, AAAPG website
Clark County’s private guardians may protect — or just steal and abuse, Colton Lochhead in Las Vegas Review-Journal, Apr 2015
Ex-Nevada guardian to serve up to 40 years behind bars, David Ferrara in Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jan 2019
A Very Dangerous Nevada Law (part 2), Rana Goodman in The Vegas Voice, Sep 2014
The stories above center on the abuses in Nevada, but remember they aren’t representative… they don’t include similar abuses going on nationwide.
How nursing homes collect debts: Seizing guardianship, Aimee Picchi on CBSNews.com, Jan 2015
North Carolinians describe guardianship as a ‘sick, twisted process’, Beairshelle Edme on CBS17.com, May 2018
And these are examples of individual abusive guardians or small cabals of conspirators. Guess what happens when private-equity firms join the game…
Overdoses, bedsores, broken bones: What happened when a private-equity firm sought to care for society’s most vulnerable, Peter Whoriskey and Dan Keating in Washington Post, Nov 2018
Guardian abuse has been going on for years; enough years that we can recommend several ‘good’ books on the subject…
Guardianships and the Elderly: The Perfect Crime, Sam MD Sugar, May 2018
The Wolf at the Door: Undue Influence and Elder Financial Abuse, Michael Hackard, Dec 2017
Guardianship: Fraud, M. Larsen, Feb 2016
And if you want to do more than be Furious; if you need help with an abusive guardian situation or would like to help change the system, we have one group to refer you to…
Americans Against Abusive Probate Guardianship, Website
