16 ms·

How the Elderly Lose Their Rights

726 points by CommieBobDole 9y ago

handy101 9y ago
I believe the VA fiduciary program has similar problems but it does cap fees at 3-4%.
gt_ 9y ago
Chilling read. I have never heard of this but it's making me much more eager to have children. Does anyone know why the daughter was powerless, or not their guardian herself? This felt like a hole in the narrative.
- EGreg 9y ago
  "It often took several days for relatives to realize what had happened. When they tried to contest the guardianship or become guardians themselves, they were dismissed as unsuitable, and disparaged in court records as being neglectful, or as drug addicts, gamblers, and exploiters. (Belshe was described by Parks as a “reported addict” who “has no contact with the proposed ward,” an allegation that Belshe didn’t see until it was too late to challenge.) Family who lived out of state were disqualified from serving as guardians, because the law prohibited the appointment of anyone who didn’t live in Nevada. Once the court approved the guardianship, the wards were often removed from their homes, which were eventually sold. Terry Williams, whose father’s estate was taken over by strangers even though he’d named her the executor of his will, has spent years combing through guardianship, probate, and real-estate records in Clark County. “I kept researching, because I was so fascinated that these people could literally take over the lives and assets of people under color of law, in less than ten minutes, and nobody was asking questions,” she told me. “These people spent their lives accumulating wealth and, in a blink of an eye, it was someone else’s." "The opinions of wards were also disregarded. In 2010, Guadalupe Olvera, a ninety-year-old veteran of the Second World War, repeatedly asked that his daughter and not Shafer be appointed his guardian. “The ward is not to go to court,” Shafer instructed his assistants. When Olvera was finally permitted to attend a hearing, nearly a year after becoming a ward, he expressed his desire to live with his daughter in California, rather than under Shafer’s care. “Why is everybody against that?” he asked Norheim. “I don’t need that man.” Although Nevada’s guardianship law requires that courts favor relatives over professionals, Norheim continued the guardianship, saying, “The priority ship sailed.” When Olvera’s daughter eventually defied the court’s orders and took her father to live at her seaside home in Northern California, Norheim’s supervisor, Judge Charles Hoskin, issued an arrest warrant for her “immediate arrest and incarceration” without bail. The warrant was for contempt of court, but Norheim said at least five times from the bench that she had “kidnapped” Olvera. At a hearing, Norheim acknowledged that he wasn’t able to send an officer across state lines to arrest the daughter. Shafer said, “Maybe I can.”"
  - gt_ 9y ago
    This is approximately an equivalent of "because they can". There must be a deeper explanation, or a history of the law which can give us a better understanding.
    - Retric 9y ago
      The law was written by the people who use it to exploit the elderly. This is just another case of endemic US corruption that sits behind a polite facade.
      - justin66 9y ago
        > This is just another case of endemic US corruption that sits behind a polite facade. Everything that happened in that case was a function of state, not federal, law.
        Retric 9y ago
        US government is in no way limited to the federal government. State and local governments tend to be more corrupt not less. Gerrymandering + loss of local news coverage = incredible levels of corruption get baked into the system.
        justin66 9y ago
        > State and local governments tend to be more corrupt not less. That's true, but the point is that a retiree can choose where they retire to within the United States. Informing oneself about the legal risks associated with guardianship abuse in a given jurisdiction seems every bit as worthwhile as a state's tax laws or weather, topics which retirees certainly tend to take an interest in. > Gerrymandering + loss of local news coverage = incredible levels of corruption get baked into the system. Dammit, we've only got an inch of topsoil left!
        lozenge 9y ago
- gervase 9y ago
  This is the most terrifying part! What would prevent some calculating third party from doing this to my parents? Is it solely down to whether or not the children have the ability to pay costly legal bills? I dearly, dearly hope that there was something I missed, and that it isn't just a case of bureaucratic maneuvering to deprive that couple of everything they owned.
  - EGreg 9y ago
    Only one thing: they should not live in such a terrible jurisdiction!
    - gt_ 9y ago
      I guess so. Hmm... well I sure hope we get a more developed awareness of the issue so we can plan accordingly for ourselves.
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      Who's writing the laws you have to not get caught not following is a highly underrated contributor/detractor to one's quality of life.
      - rocqua 9y ago
        Its not a matter of the laws, its a matter of who is making the rulings. In this case, the issue with the jurisdiction was Jon Norheim, the Clark County guardianship commissioner. He seemed to rubber stamp whatever the predatory guardians put before him.
  - reverend_gonzo 9y ago
    I think there's a couple preventative measures. First, don't go into things like nursing homes, elderly living communities, etc. Those are prime targets. Second, if you have wealth, give it to someone you trust, or put it into a trust. If you don't have wealth, well, there's not much for them to try to take from you.
  - soundwave106 9y ago
- mabub24 9y ago
  It seems like they were able to take "the relatives are just after the money" argument to an absurd level where any form of control over the estate was simply not possible for family members or relatives.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
EGreg 9y ago
This is one of the most infuriating things I've read in a while. How did our legal system end up i this quagmire?
- jmcgough 9y ago
  I had to stop reading after a bit, I got so upset. Completely unbelievable that this could happen to someone.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    Me too. But, on the other hand, I am not too surprised given that civil forfeiture is legal in the US...
    - code_duck 9y ago
      And it took at least 30 years for the media to start meaningfully questioning that practice.
      - mschuster91 9y ago
        I believe this is because it was used correctly (i.e. confiscating the actual profits of criminals), and started to be abused after (decades of) systematic under-funding of police departments.
        code_duck 9y ago
        The entire way that it works - giving police a direct, personal financial incentive to confiscate personal property with no due process, arrest or official accusation of a crime - is clearly problematic. I personally experienced and witnessed systematic, flagrant abuse of forfeiture in the late 90s in a small US state. The officers involved said they were especially interested if someone could help them locate cash rather than drugs, because they got to split it all vs. only being paid for a percentage of the drugs.
    - 9y ago
caublestone 9y ago
The definition of rights evolves with access to information and standard of education. What was once the right to own land became the right to vote became the right to fair wages. For most of history the exclusion of rights was inherited at birth by race, gender and class. But as we live longer and understand sickness better we recognize temporal states of being that challenge our standards of freedom. A person who becomes sick does not have equal access to care nor do they have free choice in treatments having to relinquish control to doctors, insurers and regulators. Perhaps it is time to define the rights of the sick and move society towards equality.
- zby 9y ago
  I think you did not read the article - did you?
- Nekorosu 9y ago
  Are you a Markov chain?
caseysoftware 9y ago
> Without realizing it, the Norths had become temporary wards of the court. Parks had filed an emergency ex-parte petition, which provides an exception to the rule that both parties must be notified of any argument before a judge. She had alleged that the Norths posed a “substantial risk for mismanagement of medications, financial loss and physical harm.” 1. That's horrifying, especially considering their daughter was minutes away. How was she not involved or at the bare minimum notified? This does sound like a kidnapping. 2. The couple and daughter had no relationship with April Parks (the guardian) prior, how did she get involved? More importantly, how did she get letters from the couple's doctor? 3. How was Parks allowed to hold a hearing without involving at minimum the emergency contacts for the couple? The doctor would have had that information. 4. Once underway, it appears that further hearings, costs, etc can be billed to the estate. How f*d is that?
- caseysoftware 9y ago
  > "After the Norths left, Parks walked through the house with Cindy Breck, the owner of Caring Transitions, a company that relocates seniors and sells their belongings at estate sales. Breck and Parks had a routine." Almost every paragraph has some completely f*d up situation. I can't believe this isn't flagged as a conflict of interest. Fleecing old people must be a great business.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    That's because we as a society tolerate it. This behavior is no different from jewelers taking gold teeth in Nazi Germany or art dealers pretending that they did not know where the paintings came from. As a marginally civilized society, we have dealt with it - it involved international tribunals, nazi hunters, quick trials and bullets between the eyes after which gold dealers as if by magic were not taking gold teeth and art dealers were not taking magically re-appearing artworks.
- CoolGuySteve 9y ago
  They explain a little later in the article how Parks did her research: > O’Malley described a 2010 case in which Parks, after receiving a tip from a social worker, began “cold-calling” rehabilitation centers, searching for a seventy-nine-year-old woman, Patricia Smoak, who had nearly seven hundred thousand dollars and no children. Parks finally found her, but Smoak’s physician wouldn’t sign a certificate of incapacity. “The doctor is not playing ball,” Parks wrote to her lawyer. She quickly found a different doctor to sign the certificate, and Norheim approved the guardianship. (Both Parks and Norheim declined to speak with me.)
Top19 9y ago
Literally just came to Hackernews to post this article. I don’t really hangout with older people or come into contact on a frequent basis, but Jesus H. Christ this is the most horrifying thing I’ve read in terms of scams in a while. For what it’s worth, I think older Americans have a ton to offer to younger people in terms of mentorship. Probably the dumbest person you know now will grow into an older person with some valuable wisdom to share. Imagine then how smart most older people are...
- jlavine 9y ago
  For what it’s worth, I think older Americans have a ton to offer to younger people in terms of mentorship. Probably the dumbest person you know now will grow into an older person with some valuable wisdom to share. Imagine then how smart most older people are... This presumes there's something better about surviving to old age than not, that people learn correct lessons from their life experience, that experience is a better guide than information that can be easily accessed from books and the internet, and that people retain correct memories into old age. I don't think any of these presumptions really hold in a general sense.
  - bitwize 9y ago
    Books and the internet can get you a long way in terms of things like learning JavaScript APIs, but life is a fair bit more complex. In particular, when someone tells you a story, especially in person, you can see how it affected them emotionally. Even if you decide to disagree with the person, you are enriched by the story having been told to you.
    - macintux 9y ago
      Closely related: the piece of information most often missing from, say, online documentation for software is the reasoning behind a feature, the decisions that led to it, the mistakes along the way. That's what talking to someone who's been around the block a few times can give you: comprehension of not just the what, but the why and the how.
- 9y ago
winter_blue 9y ago
Reading this is making me extremely angry. This is one of the most disturbing things I've read ever. It's sickening.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tosstossy 9y ago
Couldn't finish reading, and never felt such a strong urge to move back home to play caretaker before. It's always shocking to me when I see evidence of impossibly exploitive individuals participating in such scams. But then I remember how many people there are, and how that multiplier applies to all walks of life. Sigh.
- rhizome 9y ago
  I had to start skipping through just to find out some glimmer of hopeful resolution, what a pit of despair. I am livid having read this.
gshakir 9y ago
Is this a problem with the laws of Nevada? Can it be prevented? Hopefully it is not exploitable in other states.
alexanderstears 9y ago
This is terrifying, I have elderly parents and I hope that they would call me if something like this happened to them but I don't doubt that they could get ambushed and something hard-to-unwind could happen. The crux of the problem seems to be that the State allows guardians to profit from their arrangement. It's ludicrous that courts enforce guardian's financial claims against people who are presumed to be incapable of independence. Edit - it looks like April Park was doing things illegally. She's facing >200 felony charges: http://www.ktnv.com/news/contact-13/four-indicted-in-unprecedented-guardianship-abuse-case http://www.ktnv.com/news/contact-13/four-indicted-in-unprece...
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  IANAL but If you want to fix this get your parents to sign a power of attorney over to you.
  - crispyambulance 9y ago
    Yes, absolutely essential. Best done with a reputable elder law attorney who can walk you through all the complex messes that can occur when old folks transition to assisted living and skilled nursing. The next step after POA is getting it filed with the banks so that you can monitor everything that happens and intervene as needed.
    - Flammy 9y ago
      Does this mean sending a copy to literally every bank? Dozens of major ones? Or just banks which your parents have a relationship with? Is there a central authority for this sort of thing?
      - crispyambulance 9y ago
        No, sorry I wasn't clear, just the bank(s) that your parent has accounts in.
  - Swizec 9y ago
gknoy 9y ago
What can we do to prevent such things from happening? Would having a trust, rather than an estate, prevent this? (I am not even sure if that is an intelligent question.)
- gshakir 9y ago
  Yes, I have the same questions and it also depends on your state laws.
- bitdiddle 9y ago
  yes, revocable and irrevocable trusts, combined with solid powers of attorney, living wills, etc.. Trusts essentially keep estates out of probate. Since it's the money these criminals are after they work well towards that goal.
millstone 9y ago
How can I help protect my parents from this scam?
- bitdiddle 9y ago
  estate planning
  - mitochondrion 9y ago
    Trusts and LLCs out the ass. Legal entities within legal entities within legal entities, held offshore in some cases, and so on. Personally, I literally don't hold a single titled property in my own name, and never will.
    - tome 9y ago
      Interesting. Can you explain more about that?
    - travisp 9y ago
      Talk to a lawyer and don't follow this blindly. In most cases, this is a bad idea and Family LLCs, entities within entities, offshore trusts or corporations, and other such things in estate planning often border on scams themselves. A very simple living trust that holds assets, with instructions on what happens if you become disabled is probably most of the protection that the vast majority of people need (disclaimer: this is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer).
      - yason 9y ago
        disclaimer: this is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer Just curious since this keeps coming up. Why would people add these IANAL disclaimers, especially on an anonymous forum? I would assume that if you wanted to stand out as a lawyer in a discussion you would have to explicitly announce yourself to be one and because this is internet most people still wouldn't believe you (even if you really were a lawyer). I cannot fathom how would that go the other way around. Disclaiming that "I'm not a lawyer" sounds a bit like an introduction to a string of other disclaimers, as in me not being a medical doctor, CS professor, airline pilot, or law enforcement official either. Is there a court case where someone took, out of thin air, someone else's word as if he was a lawyer while he wasn't and never said he was, suffered some losses because of it, and actually won in court? Or what's the reason for adding the IANAs?
MarkPNeyer 9y ago
"I robot" describes three laws of robotics. These laws were intended to prevent robots from killing all humans, and, surprise surprise, bad things happened. Jesus' message largely seemed to be "the rules exist for a reason, and you Pharisees are focused on the rules while ignoring the reason." The Pharisees knew the letter of the law well, and they'd often try to trip Jesus up, getting him to break the letter of the law. Rules may be necessary but they are clearly not sufficient. I think whatever the rules are, people will find ways to do horrible things, unless we all value something higher than the law. Unless we talk about and promote values directly - and all try to act in accordance with the values - these sorts of outcomes are inevitable. This means mindfully considering context always - instead of outsourcing our moral decision making to courts and police and politicians. A society where everyone agrees "injustice anywhere is a mark of shame on me" would be a very just society. This seems like the inevitable end of "not my problem" writ large.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mindslight 9y ago
Yet another pathological outcome from a legal system that operates above the law itself. The "judges" here should be in prison for conspiracy, and everything that was sold should be recovered as stolen property. Yet because reams of paperwork were filled out, dated, and stamped, legal fiction continues to override the obvious reality! This system no longer exists to mediate between real people, but as an independent organism claiming unfettered control over us. Burn it.
pnathan 9y ago
The article describes inadequate accountability, crony relationships in the legal & medical systems, nepotism, lack of transparency. All of these are alleviated and addressed through proper governance measures. This is a problem that is solvable in large part.
louithethrid 9y ago
God im so angry on how they basically evicted the old man and his wife. I might be finally able to contemplate why having a gun as final defense against such lawfull robberys is a good option. This type of behaviour can happen at insolvencys in germany too. If you get a corrupt insolvency-manager, he will ride the remains of your company (even if it could be saved) into countless law battles with creditors - where the insolvency managers firm is the defending party of the company its managing. This can go on until the company-corpse is sucked dry.
- 0xfeba 9y ago
  I have to admit, the daughter murdering Parks and the judge seemed more and more possible as the article went on with the government seemingly fully in on it. That would definitely send a message. It must be terrifying to feel so helpless against the state.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    Absolutely 100% justifiable homicide.
  - gertef 9y ago
    Defense of self and family is not murder.
    - komali2 9y ago
      It is when you kill the members of the ruling body. This is why "2nd amendment protects you from the government" arguments are absurd. Attacking the government is illegal - if you find a legal way to do it, the government will protect itself from bodily harm by declaring whatever you did illegal. EDIT: This is not an argument of moral right versus wrong, this is about the definition of "illegal," which only has function as a concept if there's an actual government. For example, we can all agree that shooting unarmed civilians is wrong, right? Or taking their cash money? But, it's not illegal. Cops do it all the time, and in the case of cash money it's explicitly legal. I would love to be challenged on this point, so I would greatly appreciate if you could spice your downvotes with a quick thought on why I'm wrong.
lisper 9y ago
It doesn't surprise me a bit that this happened in Nevada. That state puts on a good show of being governed by the rule of law, but in fact it is corrupt to its core. And they don't just screw the elderly and the gambling-addicted. I learned this the hard way back in 2011: http://blog.rongarret.info/2010/12/cosmo-and-me-part-1.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2010/12/cosmo-and-me-part-1.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/01/cosmo-and-me-part-2.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/01/cosmo-and-me-part-2.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/12/cosmo-and-me-part-3-how-wall-street.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/12/cosmo-and-me-part-3-how-w... And the denouement: http://blog.rongarret.info/2012/01/i-am-about-to-be-silenced.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2012/01/i-am-about-to-be-silenced... The last post is entitled "How Wall Street Screwed Me" because Deutsche Bank was the principal actor, but they could not have done it without the Nevada legal system as a co-conspirator.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  Meh. Almost all government is corrupt if you look in the right places. Most states have at least a few corrupt departments. Based on my experience and knowledge wealthy, coastal states with lots of laws on the books (and lots of departments to enforce these laws) generally have a little more breadth to the corruption. Flyover states generally have a little more depth where corruption is found.
  - 1_2__4 9y ago
    So all states are corrupt equally and there’s no point in having a discussion about it? Is that your assertion?
- aidenn0 9y ago
  Indeed, a friend of mine had her inheritance stolen by her father's attorney in Nevada. He had apparently been disbarred in California for similar scams, but was operating without issue in Reno.
nindalf 9y ago
Off topic, but this is why I read the comments first when I see links to some websites. They simply take too long to get to the point. I spent 5 minutes on this and all I've learned so far is that for some reason, courts deem certain people incompetent and appoint guardians. I don't know why they do this, how the assess the people, and how the guardian benefits. I want to find out but I lack the patience to read through the New Yorker's somewhat pompous style and rely on the quotes in the top comments.
- bjelkeman-again 9y ago
  Isn't this the normal writing styke for a lot of US traditional media? European newspapers I think start from the key point they want to get across and expand from there.
  - RUG3Y 9y ago
    It's long-form journalism and I think it's perceived to have more value than bullet-point style reporting. While there can be value in long-form stories, 98% of the time I just want the bullet points so I can decide if the story is worth reading.
- cabaalis 9y ago
  Absolutely. I lost track of the article and started skimming to get the a resolution. There didn't appear to be one. I do recognize this is likely due to my own lack of attention span :)
- bluGill 9y ago
  There are some people who are incompetent. The most drastic case is somebody in a comma - they are unaware and unresponsive, but the body is breathing and there are all other signs of life. Somebody needs to make decisions that that person is unable to make.
- throwawaymaroon 9y ago
  glad we can enable your illiteracy
- 9y ago
eppp 9y ago
This same thing happened to a family friend. Her family fought it for a couple of years but lost and all of her assets were sold. The guardian then billed the estate for attending the funeral when she died. She was charging $200 an hour for taking her to get her hair done. Years later she was finally removed from the job. http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2014/03/10/judge-tosses-wards-claim/6251363/ http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2014/03/10/judge-... Get your power of attorney's and medical POAs filled out to protect yourself.
edw519 9y ago
I usually read the comments first but this time I read the article first because there weren't any comments yet. I was aghast. Then I saw I wasn't alone when I read the comments from you guys. How could something so horrible happen to so many so routinely? Any what can we techies do about it? I'm always searching for meaning in my work and I'm having trouble remembering anything I've worked on lately that's nearly as important as this issue. Then I realized that the solution is already in the article: In the course of his thirty-five-year career, Shafer has assumed control of more than three thousand wards and estates and trained a generation of guardians. and When Concetta Mormon, a wealthy woman who owned a Montessori school, became Shafer’s ward because she had aphasia, Shafer sold the school midyear, even though students were enrolled. and Parks and other private guardians appeared to gravitate toward patients who had considerable assets. It's all about the money! They don't go after poor people. How can we high achievers turn this into a business opportunity that's a win-win-win for everyone and put the bad guys out of business? It's almost like we need a watsi for senior citizens. Thoughts?
- gaelenh 9y ago
  My parents shrewdly and pre-emptively reorganized their "estate" (feels silly calling their meager savings that) with a lawyer that specializes in this. In Central Florida, their are enough retires that many know what's at stake (RE: OP article, plus other money grabs when elderly required assisted living), and lawyers have setup to attempt to prevent it. While listening to my dad explain it all, I wrote down "Stripe Atlas for old people's estates" in my idea notebook. Another poster mentioned setting up nested LLC's, just a service to scale and productize it. Not just for the elderly either, I can think of a lot of people that would want the protection and power of obscuring money that real estate developers and politicians have benefited from for years. It would be a real game changer.
  - lozenge 9y ago
    It could quickly be mimicked by less scrupulous people though?
  - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
pfarnsworth 9y ago
This is literally a security bug in the legal code. Why doesn't anyone care about this? How do we FORCE our politicians to fix these legal bugs so that we are protected?
- zanny 9y ago
  > How do we FORCE our politicians By design, you don't force politicians to do anything, you just vote against the ones doing what you don't want. In the US, the entire electoral system is built around (for the benefit of both politician and sponsor) obfuscating responsibility away from representatives and holding them to the least account for laws passed or policy in place as possible, and then limiting the ability of constituents to replace them when they want to via gerrymandering / private campaigning. This is just one drop in a sea of evil brought about by broken election systems enabling corrupt laws and policy that nobody is ever held to account for.
- rocqua 9y ago
  It feels more like a bug in the implementation. Specifically, the rubber stamping by the Clark County guardianship commissioner Jon Norheim.
mrguyorama 9y ago
While this seems horrible, taking care of those who are in true danger without stripping the rights of the still cognizant is a hard problem. It's very likely for those who need help to deny it or fight it, so in the end, you need to be able to exert that final control, but how do you do verify that the person being protected really needs it?
- diggernet 9y ago
  For starters, involve the people and their families instead of excluding them by force. How can you possibly determine whether someone needs protection without hearing from them or those nearest them?
  - mrguyorama 9y ago
    That's a problem in instances where parts of the family is in denial about the parent's state. For instance, my grandfather is struggling with Alzheimer's, but my grandmother is combative about it, along with a few family members. This means, instead of my grandfather regularly seeing a doctor and getting some sort of treatment, he continues to degrade, day by day, including even driving around on his own. Driving seems perfectly fine on a good day, but if he were to experience a serious episode while out on his own, he could strand himself out in the middle of nowhere and die from exposure. In fact, this isn't hypothetical, this exact scenario happened just the other week to an old priest from the exact same small (less than 5000 people) town
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  It doesn't seem particularly difficult. A discerning judge, a caring social worker, and an honest doctor with adequate time to consider the issue carefully should have little problem seeing the right course of action. It only becomes difficult when you also have to fight against the incentives. When the 'guardian' gets to bill the estate when their doctor friend writes something down, and the judges are listening to the letter of the law as argued by the expert lawyers rather than the flabbergasted victims, then it's a hard problem.
  - 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
burntrelish1273 9y ago
My mom and aunt are fighting over this right now. My aunt moved in next to my grandparents some 30 years ago and has cared for them since that time. Then around 10 years ago, my grandfather died. Since that time, her assets have reduced by over $400k while receiving spouse military and civil service retirement and social security and payments for long-term care (over $7k in income per month). In the past 3 years, my grandmother has become more difficult and lost her mind. More recently, my mother is getting more and more upset that my aunt got financial and medical POA without informing her because my aunt pays her personal credit card bills, uses my grandmother's card as hers, eats out often/pays for other people's meals and generally seems irresponsible with money. So my mom, in an effort to prevent all the money from being wasted, cashed out a significant certificate of deposit and created a new account for it at a new bank. That way, if my grandmother (their mother) needs money, it will be there. Un/fortunately, my mother also involved the state's elder financial abuse protection department whom made a determination that she was the elder abuser when my aunt recently gifted my grandmother's house to herself, in addition to two vehicles (a car and a van). And now there are also lawsuits, so now lawyers will get what scraps they were fighting over. Ugh. Stupid money family drama sucks. Summary: Don't put any adult children's names on any accounts. Bank accounts, investments, CDs, etc. should be payable upon death. Do a will and living revocable trust. Probate and taxes can also take your kids' inheritance. All adult children able to see but not use or modify credit card and banking accounts, and agree to financial decisions together. Place a lock on elderly parent's credit reports. Have parents split up/allocate inheritance before losing their mind/s or passing away. Make wills specific so there are fewer arguments. Have a single place (ie fireproof safe) where keys, documents, online passwords, bills, assets, properties are inventoried and include whom to call to cancel, transfer, etc. Make end-of-life and upon death directives clear and precise. If doing burial or cremation, get it pre-need because it's much cheaper and much nicer for the family.
- caseysoftware 9y ago
  I'd recommend adding the same restrictions to cell phone accounts too. An authorized user can do basically anything except close the account. I just helped grandma dig through her account and found cousins on the account, started with basic service, upgraded their service, and then got phones via monthly payment on the account. And not basic phones, it included an iPhone 7s Gold 128GB ($750 at the time).
johngalt_ 9y ago
This makes me distressed and angry. The last time I felt like this was when I read an article telling about several cases when cops raped women through "body cavity search". Unfortunately, there are several other cases of extreme injustice and evil acts committed by people who are not and will not be punished. An idea that has been on my mind is to create some sort of virtual wall of shame. It would put the name and picture of those people who have done such terrible things and have not paid for their crimes. It would spam their emails and social media accounts with messages. It would send emails and messages to their relatives and friends. It would create ads targeted to where those people live telling their story. The goal is to do everything in order to not let such crimes be forgotten and to not let those people live normal lives again, at least in the virtual world. I don't know if I will ever put this plan in practice and I know it is a dangerous idea, but each time I read something like this it makes me more willing to start this idea.
- jlavine 9y ago
  It's not just a dangerous idea. It's an unjust one that foregoes due process. It's vigilante justice, like witch hunting in early modern Europe and N. America, lynching in the Jim Crow era Southern USA, and the Hollywood communist blacklist in the 1950s. Just because ruining people's lives via social media is en vogue at the moment doesn't make it right. How could you possibly know whether claims you've read are true before you decided to ruin the lives of the accused?
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    You can't cry "due process" for those people who have abused the system to deny due process to others. The only reasonable counter to those offenders is an investigative report by a professional of the fourth estate that has a reputation for ethical practices. Which is to say an investigative journalist rakes the muck and publishes the embarrassing story. But those seem to be of a breed that is dying with the newspapers. The amateur crowdsourced journalists/influencers the likes of which come from Anonymous and SJWs and Antifa and Black Twitter may be the only ones who care enough to even do a cursory investigation. And they are unlikely to meet any reasonable standard of fairness, due to unaligned incentives. The only solution that preserves fairness is for those in the official legal system to police themselves and relentlessly attack the corruption occurring within their own ranks. If that does not happen, or worse, if it happens and those who fight corruption and blow whistles suffer damaging retaliation from it, then the corrupt should have no reasonable expectation that they will be treated fairly, nor those who present the appearance of corruption, or complicity with corruption. There are no good cops as long as bad cops retain their impunity. There are no good judges as long as the decisions from bad judges stand unexamined and unchallenged. There are no good lawyers as long as injustice persists. The system we have to ensure that the innocent are protected from witch hunts, kangaroo court, and drumhead trials is as vulnerable to subversion as any other, and replicating it in parallel in order to prosecute that subversion seems inconvenient at best. And yet "we investigated ourselves and cleared ourselves of all wrongdoing" is so depressingly common.
stuaxo 9y ago
Appalling. One of the few New Yorker articles I've read to the end, really hope more come to justice.
waltwalther 9y ago
Very well-written article that left me with a sick, sick feeling. I am glad attention has been brought to this blatant crime.
oh_sigh 9y ago
How did Parks get notes from their doctor? Why wouldn't that be confidential? The article said things about her finding doctors to write the notes, but how could they get them in the first place? Wouldn't the couple need to visit the doctor, and give the okay for them to give information to Parks?
- mikx007 9y ago
  That's a very good point considering all medical records are covered by HIPAA laws.
ringaroundthetx 9y ago
Jeez, the main stars of the article were just 66 and 68 years old. People are planning to live to 100+ and have to deal with this nightmare for the last 40 years, after everything they've done in their life. This pales in comparison to theoretical expropriation of your supposed riches in a divorce. Anybody that is 30 years old now, who hasn't started on children, will be in the same situation. Locked away while being completely competent, aged and experienced with children in a "sandwich generation" who aren't willing, interested, or established enough to really fathom taking care of their parents.
Animats 9y ago
Add Nevada to the list of places not to retire. Puerto Rico is out. The Florida Keys are still under heavy repair. South Florida is not looking good. And hurricane season just started.
- ng12 9y ago
  I'm planning on avoiding any "place to retire". In addition to the criminals and scam artists who target the elderly there is an entire legal industry doing the same -- and you can bet they flock to the South West and Florida. Your best bet is probably somewhere like the Dakotas or Montana.
  - macintux 9y ago
    Living in bitterly cold states would certainly limit the amount of retirement savings I need. I live in a moderately cold one now, Montana would kill me before I reach 70.
    - rsynnott 9y ago
      Norway and Sweden, both countries which tend to get pretty cold in the winter, have life expectancies around 82 (a little higher than the US). Northern Europe in general, really; life expectancies are generally similar to the US or a bit higher, and it’s not particularly common to migrate to warmer countries for retirement. Actually, my impression was that extreme heatwaves in hot places tend to kill more elderly people than extreme cold in cold ones.
      - macintux 9y ago
        Using Wolfram Alpha it certainly looks like Billings compares unfavorably to Oslo in terms of coldest temperatures during the winter. Norway appears more moderate, I assumed thanks to the ocean. http://www.wolframalpha.com/widgets/gallery/view.jsp?id=af6f68d0d4a05be5938e0f09c414703a http://www.wolframalpha.com/widgets/gallery/view.jsp?id=af6f...
komali2 9y ago
>“You can’t just walk into somebody’s home and take them!” Belshe told her. >Parks responded calmly, “It’s legal. It’s legal.” Years ago in college, my friend was depressed, and as a coping mechanism would sometimes write suicide notes. He'd read them and realize he wasn't quite at that point and it would help him get along. It was a process. Anyway, somehow some of his notes were discovered, he was arrested (I still don't know the details here) and put into some weird absurd protective custody thing in a psychiatric hospital. I was allowed to see him exactly once. The one time I managed to get in he looked like shit. Bags under the eyes, light gone, just, hollow. He said they forced him to take these anti anxiety meds that make him feel like a zombie, that if he didn't take them and admit he needed medication, they wouldn't let him out. But he wasn't "earnest" enough about his treatment and so he still couldn't get out of that hellscape. After about ten days of being unable to contact him, being stonewalled by the cops and the doctors (working with his parents, who were out of state and just as confused/frustrated), I completely snapped. I loaded my remington and 2 boxes of shells into my truck and was planning on driving straight into the lobby of the hospital and forcefully removing him. I was furious but remember having a clear plan - wasn't going to shoot anyone, figured the truck through the lobby plus a crazy fucker in a mask with a shotgun would force their hand and let him go and then we'd drive to mexico or some shit. Consequences be damned, silly fucking laws be damned, I was getting my friend out. I was tossing my gunbag into the back when I got a call on my cell from him saying he finally got out and needed a ride. God only knows if I had gone through with it, maybe I would have come to my senses in the parking lot, I can only hope. All I know is that there was nothing more frustrating or infuriating I have ever experienced than watching him go through it and being completely stonewalled. I've had friends go to jail and I've gone to jail and that's fair, that makes sense. There's a process. There's bail. You broke a written rule and you spend some time for it. You get to talk to a judge. The judge gives you rules and you follow them and you get out. But where he was, there was no rules. You are in at the whim of the doctor and you get out at the whim of the doctor. I imagine the daughter felt something very similar here - where's the process? Who's the authority? Where are the rules written down and when did she agree to them? How could that daughter have protected herself and her family from some absurd hidden legalese?
- gertef 9y ago
handy101 9y ago
The VA fiduciary program has similar problems to this.I believe their fees are capped to 3-4% of pay.
nisse72 9y ago
Ah, land of the free...
simulationimin 9y ago
Disgusting and terrifying.
defined 9y ago
This has to be one of the most vile, appalling stories about the widespread abuse of power on the weak and helpless for monetary gain. The perpetrators have as much mercy and empathy for their victims as animal predators have for their prey, with far less justification. And the punishment - if any - is likely to be far less than what is meted out to some afflicted person jailed for stockpiling prescription medications for self-treatment due to incurable pain (Richard Paey)[1]. [1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prisoner-of-pain/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prisoner-of-pain/
ransom1538 9y ago
Ok. First, DAs and jurys hate people that take advantage of children or the elderly. When I say hate - it is a true understatement. All that needs to happen here is a report to a DA. Second, if you have grand/parents over 75 ask them to put all their financials on mint and expose this account to multiple portions of the family. Mint is read only. This way when things get strange - off to the DA.
dennisgorelik 9y ago
tl;dr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgLe32qEnBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgLe32qEnBc
dennisgorelik 9y ago
This is a masterpiece that made judges biased toward professional guardians: --- In 1995, he persuaded the Nevada Senate Committee on Government Affairs to write a bill that allowed the county to receive interest on money that the public guardian invested. “This is what I want you to put in the statute, and I will tell you that you will get a rousing hand from a couple of judges who practice our probate,” he said ---

726 points by CommieBobDole 9y ago

I believe the VA fiduciary program has similar problems but it does cap fees at 3-4%.

gt_ 9y ago

Chilling read. I have never heard of this but it's making me much more eager to have children. Does anyone know why the daughter was powerless, or not their guardian herself? This felt like a hole in the narrative.

EGreg 9y ago
"It often took several days for relatives to realize what had happened. When they tried to contest the guardianship or become guardians themselves, they were dismissed as unsuitable, and disparaged in court records as being neglectful, or as drug addicts, gamblers, and exploiters. (Belshe was described by Parks as a “reported addict” who “has no contact with the proposed ward,” an allegation that Belshe didn’t see until it was too late to challenge.) Family who lived out of state were disqualified from serving as guardians, because the law prohibited the appointment of anyone who didn’t live in Nevada. Once the court approved the guardianship, the wards were often removed from their homes, which were eventually sold. Terry Williams, whose father’s estate was taken over by strangers even though he’d named her the executor of his will, has spent years combing through guardianship, probate, and real-estate records in Clark County. “I kept researching, because I was so fascinated that these people could literally take over the lives and assets of people under color of law, in less than ten minutes, and nobody was asking questions,” she told me. “These people spent their lives accumulating wealth and, in a blink of an eye, it was someone else’s." "The opinions of wards were also disregarded. In 2010, Guadalupe Olvera, a ninety-year-old veteran of the Second World War, repeatedly asked that his daughter and not Shafer be appointed his guardian. “The ward is not to go to court,” Shafer instructed his assistants. When Olvera was finally permitted to attend a hearing, nearly a year after becoming a ward, he expressed his desire to live with his daughter in California, rather than under Shafer’s care. “Why is everybody against that?” he asked Norheim. “I don’t need that man.” Although Nevada’s guardianship law requires that courts favor relatives over professionals, Norheim continued the guardianship, saying, “The priority ship sailed.” When Olvera’s daughter eventually defied the court’s orders and took her father to live at her seaside home in Northern California, Norheim’s supervisor, Judge Charles Hoskin, issued an arrest warrant for her “immediate arrest and incarceration” without bail. The warrant was for contempt of court, but Norheim said at least five times from the bench that she had “kidnapped” Olvera. At a hearing, Norheim acknowledged that he wasn’t able to send an officer across state lines to arrest the daughter. Shafer said, “Maybe I can.”"
- gt_ 9y ago
  This is approximately an equivalent of "because they can". There must be a deeper explanation, or a history of the law which can give us a better understanding.
  - Retric 9y ago
    The law was written by the people who use it to exploit the elderly. This is just another case of endemic US corruption that sits behind a polite facade.
    - justin66 9y ago
      > This is just another case of endemic US corruption that sits behind a polite facade. Everything that happened in that case was a function of state, not federal, law.
      - Retric 9y ago
        US government is in no way limited to the federal government. State and local governments tend to be more corrupt not less. Gerrymandering + loss of local news coverage = incredible levels of corruption get baked into the system.
        justin66 9y ago
        > State and local governments tend to be more corrupt not less. That's true, but the point is that a retiree can choose where they retire to within the United States. Informing oneself about the legal risks associated with guardianship abuse in a given jurisdiction seems every bit as worthwhile as a state's tax laws or weather, topics which retirees certainly tend to take an interest in. > Gerrymandering + loss of local news coverage = incredible levels of corruption get baked into the system. Dammit, we've only got an inch of topsoil left!
        lozenge 9y ago
gervase 9y ago
This is the most terrifying part! What would prevent some calculating third party from doing this to my parents? Is it solely down to whether or not the children have the ability to pay costly legal bills? I dearly, dearly hope that there was something I missed, and that it isn't just a case of bureaucratic maneuvering to deprive that couple of everything they owned.
- EGreg 9y ago
  Only one thing: they should not live in such a terrible jurisdiction!
  - gt_ 9y ago
    I guess so. Hmm... well I sure hope we get a more developed awareness of the issue so we can plan accordingly for ourselves.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    Who's writing the laws you have to not get caught not following is a highly underrated contributor/detractor to one's quality of life.
    - rocqua 9y ago
      Its not a matter of the laws, its a matter of who is making the rulings. In this case, the issue with the jurisdiction was Jon Norheim, the Clark County guardianship commissioner. He seemed to rubber stamp whatever the predatory guardians put before him.
- reverend_gonzo 9y ago
  I think there's a couple preventative measures. First, don't go into things like nursing homes, elderly living communities, etc. Those are prime targets. Second, if you have wealth, give it to someone you trust, or put it into a trust. If you don't have wealth, well, there's not much for them to try to take from you.
- soundwave106 9y ago
mabub24 9y ago
It seems like they were able to take "the relatives are just after the money" argument to an absurd level where any form of control over the estate was simply not possible for family members or relatives.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

EGreg 9y ago

This is one of the most infuriating things I've read in a while. How did our legal system end up i this quagmire?

jmcgough 9y ago
I had to stop reading after a bit, I got so upset. Completely unbelievable that this could happen to someone.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  Me too. But, on the other hand, I am not too surprised given that civil forfeiture is legal in the US...
  - code_duck 9y ago
    And it took at least 30 years for the media to start meaningfully questioning that practice.
    - mschuster91 9y ago
      I believe this is because it was used correctly (i.e. confiscating the actual profits of criminals), and started to be abused after (decades of) systematic under-funding of police departments.
      - code_duck 9y ago
        The entire way that it works - giving police a direct, personal financial incentive to confiscate personal property with no due process, arrest or official accusation of a crime - is clearly problematic. I personally experienced and witnessed systematic, flagrant abuse of forfeiture in the late 90s in a small US state. The officers involved said they were especially interested if someone could help them locate cash rather than drugs, because they got to split it all vs. only being paid for a percentage of the drugs.
  - 9y ago

caublestone 9y ago

The definition of rights evolves with access to information and standard of education. What was once the right to own land became the right to vote became the right to fair wages. For most of history the exclusion of rights was inherited at birth by race, gender and class. But as we live longer and understand sickness better we recognize temporal states of being that challenge our standards of freedom. A person who becomes sick does not have equal access to care nor do they have free choice in treatments having to relinquish control to doctors, insurers and regulators. Perhaps it is time to define the rights of the sick and move society towards equality.

zby 9y ago
I think you did not read the article - did you?
Nekorosu 9y ago
Are you a Markov chain?

caseysoftware 9y ago

> Without realizing it, the Norths had become temporary wards of the court. Parks had filed an emergency ex-parte petition, which provides an exception to the rule that both parties must be notified of any argument before a judge. She had alleged that the Norths posed a “substantial risk for mismanagement of medications, financial loss and physical harm.” 1. That's horrifying, especially considering their daughter was minutes away. How was she not involved or at the bare minimum notified? This does sound like a kidnapping. 2. The couple and daughter had no relationship with April Parks (the guardian) prior, how did she get involved? More importantly, how did she get letters from the couple's doctor? 3. How was Parks allowed to hold a hearing without involving at minimum the emergency contacts for the couple? The doctor would have had that information. 4. Once underway, it appears that further hearings, costs, etc can be billed to the estate. How f*d is that?

caseysoftware 9y ago
> "After the Norths left, Parks walked through the house with Cindy Breck, the owner of Caring Transitions, a company that relocates seniors and sells their belongings at estate sales. Breck and Parks had a routine." Almost every paragraph has some completely f*d up situation. I can't believe this isn't flagged as a conflict of interest. Fleecing old people must be a great business.
- notyourday 9y ago
  That's because we as a society tolerate it. This behavior is no different from jewelers taking gold teeth in Nazi Germany or art dealers pretending that they did not know where the paintings came from. As a marginally civilized society, we have dealt with it - it involved international tribunals, nazi hunters, quick trials and bullets between the eyes after which gold dealers as if by magic were not taking gold teeth and art dealers were not taking magically re-appearing artworks.
CoolGuySteve 9y ago
They explain a little later in the article how Parks did her research: > O’Malley described a 2010 case in which Parks, after receiving a tip from a social worker, began “cold-calling” rehabilitation centers, searching for a seventy-nine-year-old woman, Patricia Smoak, who had nearly seven hundred thousand dollars and no children. Parks finally found her, but Smoak’s physician wouldn’t sign a certificate of incapacity. “The doctor is not playing ball,” Parks wrote to her lawyer. She quickly found a different doctor to sign the certificate, and Norheim approved the guardianship. (Both Parks and Norheim declined to speak with me.)

Top19 9y ago

Literally just came to Hackernews to post this article. I don’t really hangout with older people or come into contact on a frequent basis, but Jesus H. Christ this is the most horrifying thing I’ve read in terms of scams in a while. For what it’s worth, I think older Americans have a ton to offer to younger people in terms of mentorship. Probably the dumbest person you know now will grow into an older person with some valuable wisdom to share. Imagine then how smart most older people are...

jlavine 9y ago
For what it’s worth, I think older Americans have a ton to offer to younger people in terms of mentorship. Probably the dumbest person you know now will grow into an older person with some valuable wisdom to share. Imagine then how smart most older people are... This presumes there's something better about surviving to old age than not, that people learn correct lessons from their life experience, that experience is a better guide than information that can be easily accessed from books and the internet, and that people retain correct memories into old age. I don't think any of these presumptions really hold in a general sense.
- bitwize 9y ago
  Books and the internet can get you a long way in terms of things like learning JavaScript APIs, but life is a fair bit more complex. In particular, when someone tells you a story, especially in person, you can see how it affected them emotionally. Even if you decide to disagree with the person, you are enriched by the story having been told to you.
  - macintux 9y ago
    Closely related: the piece of information most often missing from, say, online documentation for software is the reasoning behind a feature, the decisions that led to it, the mistakes along the way. That's what talking to someone who's been around the block a few times can give you: comprehension of not just the what, but the why and the how.
9y ago

winter_blue 9y ago

Reading this is making me extremely angry. This is one of the most disturbing things I've read ever. It's sickening.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tosstossy 9y ago

Couldn't finish reading, and never felt such a strong urge to move back home to play caretaker before. It's always shocking to me when I see evidence of impossibly exploitive individuals participating in such scams. But then I remember how many people there are, and how that multiplier applies to all walks of life. Sigh.

rhizome 9y ago
I had to start skipping through just to find out some glimmer of hopeful resolution, what a pit of despair. I am livid having read this.

gshakir 9y ago

Is this a problem with the laws of Nevada? Can it be prevented? Hopefully it is not exploitable in other states.

alexanderstears 9y ago

This is terrifying, I have elderly parents and I hope that they would call me if something like this happened to them but I don't doubt that they could get ambushed and something hard-to-unwind could happen. The crux of the problem seems to be that the State allows guardians to profit from their arrangement. It's ludicrous that courts enforce guardian's financial claims against people who are presumed to be incapable of independence. Edit - it looks like April Park was doing things illegally. She's facing >200 felony charges: http://www.ktnv.com/news/contact-13/four-indicted-in-unprecedented-guardianship-abuse-case http://www.ktnv.com/news/contact-13/four-indicted-in-unprece...

zitterbewegung 9y ago
IANAL but If you want to fix this get your parents to sign a power of attorney over to you.
- crispyambulance 9y ago
  Yes, absolutely essential. Best done with a reputable elder law attorney who can walk you through all the complex messes that can occur when old folks transition to assisted living and skilled nursing. The next step after POA is getting it filed with the banks so that you can monitor everything that happens and intervene as needed.
  - Flammy 9y ago
    Does this mean sending a copy to literally every bank? Dozens of major ones? Or just banks which your parents have a relationship with? Is there a central authority for this sort of thing?
    - crispyambulance 9y ago
      No, sorry I wasn't clear, just the bank(s) that your parent has accounts in.
- Swizec 9y ago

gknoy 9y ago

What can we do to prevent such things from happening? Would having a trust, rather than an estate, prevent this? (I am not even sure if that is an intelligent question.)

gshakir 9y ago
Yes, I have the same questions and it also depends on your state laws.
bitdiddle 9y ago
yes, revocable and irrevocable trusts, combined with solid powers of attorney, living wills, etc.. Trusts essentially keep estates out of probate. Since it's the money these criminals are after they work well towards that goal.

millstone 9y ago

How can I help protect my parents from this scam?

bitdiddle 9y ago
estate planning
- mitochondrion 9y ago
  Trusts and LLCs out the ass. Legal entities within legal entities within legal entities, held offshore in some cases, and so on. Personally, I literally don't hold a single titled property in my own name, and never will.
  - tome 9y ago
    Interesting. Can you explain more about that?
  - travisp 9y ago
    Talk to a lawyer and don't follow this blindly. In most cases, this is a bad idea and Family LLCs, entities within entities, offshore trusts or corporations, and other such things in estate planning often border on scams themselves. A very simple living trust that holds assets, with instructions on what happens if you become disabled is probably most of the protection that the vast majority of people need (disclaimer: this is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer).
    - yason 9y ago
      disclaimer: this is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer Just curious since this keeps coming up. Why would people add these IANAL disclaimers, especially on an anonymous forum? I would assume that if you wanted to stand out as a lawyer in a discussion you would have to explicitly announce yourself to be one and because this is internet most people still wouldn't believe you (even if you really were a lawyer). I cannot fathom how would that go the other way around. Disclaiming that "I'm not a lawyer" sounds a bit like an introduction to a string of other disclaimers, as in me not being a medical doctor, CS professor, airline pilot, or law enforcement official either. Is there a court case where someone took, out of thin air, someone else's word as if he was a lawyer while he wasn't and never said he was, suffered some losses because of it, and actually won in court? Or what's the reason for adding the IANAs?

MarkPNeyer 9y ago

"I robot" describes three laws of robotics. These laws were intended to prevent robots from killing all humans, and, surprise surprise, bad things happened. Jesus' message largely seemed to be "the rules exist for a reason, and you Pharisees are focused on the rules while ignoring the reason." The Pharisees knew the letter of the law well, and they'd often try to trip Jesus up, getting him to break the letter of the law. Rules may be necessary but they are clearly not sufficient. I think whatever the rules are, people will find ways to do horrible things, unless we all value something higher than the law. Unless we talk about and promote values directly - and all try to act in accordance with the values - these sorts of outcomes are inevitable. This means mindfully considering context always - instead of outsourcing our moral decision making to courts and police and politicians. A society where everyone agrees "injustice anywhere is a mark of shame on me" would be a very just society. This seems like the inevitable end of "not my problem" writ large.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

mindslight 9y ago

Yet another pathological outcome from a legal system that operates above the law itself. The "judges" here should be in prison for conspiracy, and everything that was sold should be recovered as stolen property. Yet because reams of paperwork were filled out, dated, and stamped, legal fiction continues to override the obvious reality! This system no longer exists to mediate between real people, but as an independent organism claiming unfettered control over us. Burn it.

pnathan 9y ago

The article describes inadequate accountability, crony relationships in the legal & medical systems, nepotism, lack of transparency. All of these are alleviated and addressed through proper governance measures. This is a problem that is solvable in large part.

louithethrid 9y ago

God im so angry on how they basically evicted the old man and his wife. I might be finally able to contemplate why having a gun as final defense against such lawfull robberys is a good option. This type of behaviour can happen at insolvencys in germany too. If you get a corrupt insolvency-manager, he will ride the remains of your company (even if it could be saved) into countless law battles with creditors - where the insolvency managers firm is the defending party of the company its managing. This can go on until the company-corpse is sucked dry.

0xfeba 9y ago
I have to admit, the daughter murdering Parks and the judge seemed more and more possible as the article went on with the government seemingly fully in on it. That would definitely send a message. It must be terrifying to feel so helpless against the state.
- busterarm 9y ago
  Absolutely 100% justifiable homicide.
- gertef 9y ago
  Defense of self and family is not murder.
  - komali2 9y ago
    It is when you kill the members of the ruling body. This is why "2nd amendment protects you from the government" arguments are absurd. Attacking the government is illegal - if you find a legal way to do it, the government will protect itself from bodily harm by declaring whatever you did illegal. EDIT: This is not an argument of moral right versus wrong, this is about the definition of "illegal," which only has function as a concept if there's an actual government. For example, we can all agree that shooting unarmed civilians is wrong, right? Or taking their cash money? But, it's not illegal. Cops do it all the time, and in the case of cash money it's explicitly legal. I would love to be challenged on this point, so I would greatly appreciate if you could spice your downvotes with a quick thought on why I'm wrong.

lisper 9y ago

It doesn't surprise me a bit that this happened in Nevada. That state puts on a good show of being governed by the rule of law, but in fact it is corrupt to its core. And they don't just screw the elderly and the gambling-addicted. I learned this the hard way back in 2011: http://blog.rongarret.info/2010/12/cosmo-and-me-part-1.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2010/12/cosmo-and-me-part-1.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/01/cosmo-and-me-part-2.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/01/cosmo-and-me-part-2.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/12/cosmo-and-me-part-3-how-wall-street.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/12/cosmo-and-me-part-3-how-w... And the denouement: http://blog.rongarret.info/2012/01/i-am-about-to-be-silenced.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2012/01/i-am-about-to-be-silenced... The last post is entitled "How Wall Street Screwed Me" because Deutsche Bank was the principal actor, but they could not have done it without the Nevada legal system as a co-conspirator.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
Meh. Almost all government is corrupt if you look in the right places. Most states have at least a few corrupt departments. Based on my experience and knowledge wealthy, coastal states with lots of laws on the books (and lots of departments to enforce these laws) generally have a little more breadth to the corruption. Flyover states generally have a little more depth where corruption is found.
- 1_2__4 9y ago
  So all states are corrupt equally and there’s no point in having a discussion about it? Is that your assertion?
aidenn0 9y ago
Indeed, a friend of mine had her inheritance stolen by her father's attorney in Nevada. He had apparently been disbarred in California for similar scams, but was operating without issue in Reno.

nindalf 9y ago

Off topic, but this is why I read the comments first when I see links to some websites. They simply take too long to get to the point. I spent 5 minutes on this and all I've learned so far is that for some reason, courts deem certain people incompetent and appoint guardians. I don't know why they do this, how the assess the people, and how the guardian benefits. I want to find out but I lack the patience to read through the New Yorker's somewhat pompous style and rely on the quotes in the top comments.

bjelkeman-again 9y ago
Isn't this the normal writing styke for a lot of US traditional media? European newspapers I think start from the key point they want to get across and expand from there.
- RUG3Y 9y ago
  It's long-form journalism and I think it's perceived to have more value than bullet-point style reporting. While there can be value in long-form stories, 98% of the time I just want the bullet points so I can decide if the story is worth reading.
cabaalis 9y ago
Absolutely. I lost track of the article and started skimming to get the a resolution. There didn't appear to be one. I do recognize this is likely due to my own lack of attention span :)
bluGill 9y ago
There are some people who are incompetent. The most drastic case is somebody in a comma - they are unaware and unresponsive, but the body is breathing and there are all other signs of life. Somebody needs to make decisions that that person is unable to make.
throwawaymaroon 9y ago
glad we can enable your illiteracy
9y ago

eppp 9y ago

This same thing happened to a family friend. Her family fought it for a couple of years but lost and all of her assets were sold. The guardian then billed the estate for attending the funeral when she died. She was charging $200 an hour for taking her to get her hair done. Years later she was finally removed from the job. http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2014/03/10/judge-tosses-wards-claim/6251363/ http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2014/03/10/judge-... Get your power of attorney's and medical POAs filled out to protect yourself.

edw519 9y ago

I usually read the comments first but this time I read the article first because there weren't any comments yet. I was aghast. Then I saw I wasn't alone when I read the comments from you guys. How could something so horrible happen to so many so routinely? Any what can we techies do about it? I'm always searching for meaning in my work and I'm having trouble remembering anything I've worked on lately that's nearly as important as this issue. Then I realized that the solution is already in the article: In the course of his thirty-five-year career, Shafer has assumed control of more than three thousand wards and estates and trained a generation of guardians. and When Concetta Mormon, a wealthy woman who owned a Montessori school, became Shafer’s ward because she had aphasia, Shafer sold the school midyear, even though students were enrolled. and Parks and other private guardians appeared to gravitate toward patients who had considerable assets. It's all about the money! They don't go after poor people. How can we high achievers turn this into a business opportunity that's a win-win-win for everyone and put the bad guys out of business? It's almost like we need a watsi for senior citizens. Thoughts?

gaelenh 9y ago
My parents shrewdly and pre-emptively reorganized their "estate" (feels silly calling their meager savings that) with a lawyer that specializes in this. In Central Florida, their are enough retires that many know what's at stake (RE: OP article, plus other money grabs when elderly required assisted living), and lawyers have setup to attempt to prevent it. While listening to my dad explain it all, I wrote down "Stripe Atlas for old people's estates" in my idea notebook. Another poster mentioned setting up nested LLC's, just a service to scale and productize it. Not just for the elderly either, I can think of a lot of people that would want the protection and power of obscuring money that real estate developers and politicians have benefited from for years. It would be a real game changer.
- lozenge 9y ago
  It could quickly be mimicked by less scrupulous people though?
- ringaroundthetx 9y ago

pfarnsworth 9y ago

This is literally a security bug in the legal code. Why doesn't anyone care about this? How do we FORCE our politicians to fix these legal bugs so that we are protected?

zanny 9y ago
> How do we FORCE our politicians By design, you don't force politicians to do anything, you just vote against the ones doing what you don't want. In the US, the entire electoral system is built around (for the benefit of both politician and sponsor) obfuscating responsibility away from representatives and holding them to the least account for laws passed or policy in place as possible, and then limiting the ability of constituents to replace them when they want to via gerrymandering / private campaigning. This is just one drop in a sea of evil brought about by broken election systems enabling corrupt laws and policy that nobody is ever held to account for.
rocqua 9y ago
It feels more like a bug in the implementation. Specifically, the rubber stamping by the Clark County guardianship commissioner Jon Norheim.

mrguyorama 9y ago

While this seems horrible, taking care of those who are in true danger without stripping the rights of the still cognizant is a hard problem. It's very likely for those who need help to deny it or fight it, so in the end, you need to be able to exert that final control, but how do you do verify that the person being protected really needs it?

diggernet 9y ago
For starters, involve the people and their families instead of excluding them by force. How can you possibly determine whether someone needs protection without hearing from them or those nearest them?
- mrguyorama 9y ago
  That's a problem in instances where parts of the family is in denial about the parent's state. For instance, my grandfather is struggling with Alzheimer's, but my grandmother is combative about it, along with a few family members. This means, instead of my grandfather regularly seeing a doctor and getting some sort of treatment, he continues to degrade, day by day, including even driving around on his own. Driving seems perfectly fine on a good day, but if he were to experience a serious episode while out on his own, he could strand himself out in the middle of nowhere and die from exposure. In fact, this isn't hypothetical, this exact scenario happened just the other week to an old priest from the exact same small (less than 5000 people) town
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
It doesn't seem particularly difficult. A discerning judge, a caring social worker, and an honest doctor with adequate time to consider the issue carefully should have little problem seeing the right course of action. It only becomes difficult when you also have to fight against the incentives. When the 'guardian' gets to bill the estate when their doctor friend writes something down, and the judges are listening to the letter of the law as argued by the expert lawyers rather than the flabbergasted victims, then it's a hard problem.
- 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

burntrelish1273 9y ago

My mom and aunt are fighting over this right now. My aunt moved in next to my grandparents some 30 years ago and has cared for them since that time. Then around 10 years ago, my grandfather died. Since that time, her assets have reduced by over $400k while receiving spouse military and civil service retirement and social security and payments for long-term care (over $7k in income per month). In the past 3 years, my grandmother has become more difficult and lost her mind. More recently, my mother is getting more and more upset that my aunt got financial and medical POA without informing her because my aunt pays her personal credit card bills, uses my grandmother's card as hers, eats out often/pays for other people's meals and generally seems irresponsible with money. So my mom, in an effort to prevent all the money from being wasted, cashed out a significant certificate of deposit and created a new account for it at a new bank. That way, if my grandmother (their mother) needs money, it will be there. Un/fortunately, my mother also involved the state's elder financial abuse protection department whom made a determination that she was the elder abuser when my aunt recently gifted my grandmother's house to herself, in addition to two vehicles (a car and a van). And now there are also lawsuits, so now lawyers will get what scraps they were fighting over. Ugh. Stupid money family drama sucks. Summary: Don't put any adult children's names on any accounts. Bank accounts, investments, CDs, etc. should be payable upon death. Do a will and living revocable trust. Probate and taxes can also take your kids' inheritance. All adult children able to see but not use or modify credit card and banking accounts, and agree to financial decisions together. Place a lock on elderly parent's credit reports. Have parents split up/allocate inheritance before losing their mind/s or passing away. Make wills specific so there are fewer arguments. Have a single place (ie fireproof safe) where keys, documents, online passwords, bills, assets, properties are inventoried and include whom to call to cancel, transfer, etc. Make end-of-life and upon death directives clear and precise. If doing burial or cremation, get it pre-need because it's much cheaper and much nicer for the family.

caseysoftware 9y ago
I'd recommend adding the same restrictions to cell phone accounts too. An authorized user can do basically anything except close the account. I just helped grandma dig through her account and found cousins on the account, started with basic service, upgraded their service, and then got phones via monthly payment on the account. And not basic phones, it included an iPhone 7s Gold 128GB ($750 at the time).

johngalt_ 9y ago

This makes me distressed and angry. The last time I felt like this was when I read an article telling about several cases when cops raped women through "body cavity search". Unfortunately, there are several other cases of extreme injustice and evil acts committed by people who are not and will not be punished. An idea that has been on my mind is to create some sort of virtual wall of shame. It would put the name and picture of those people who have done such terrible things and have not paid for their crimes. It would spam their emails and social media accounts with messages. It would send emails and messages to their relatives and friends. It would create ads targeted to where those people live telling their story. The goal is to do everything in order to not let such crimes be forgotten and to not let those people live normal lives again, at least in the virtual world. I don't know if I will ever put this plan in practice and I know it is a dangerous idea, but each time I read something like this it makes me more willing to start this idea.

jlavine 9y ago
It's not just a dangerous idea. It's an unjust one that foregoes due process. It's vigilante justice, like witch hunting in early modern Europe and N. America, lynching in the Jim Crow era Southern USA, and the Hollywood communist blacklist in the 1950s. Just because ruining people's lives via social media is en vogue at the moment doesn't make it right. How could you possibly know whether claims you've read are true before you decided to ruin the lives of the accused?
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  You can't cry "due process" for those people who have abused the system to deny due process to others. The only reasonable counter to those offenders is an investigative report by a professional of the fourth estate that has a reputation for ethical practices. Which is to say an investigative journalist rakes the muck and publishes the embarrassing story. But those seem to be of a breed that is dying with the newspapers. The amateur crowdsourced journalists/influencers the likes of which come from Anonymous and SJWs and Antifa and Black Twitter may be the only ones who care enough to even do a cursory investigation. And they are unlikely to meet any reasonable standard of fairness, due to unaligned incentives. The only solution that preserves fairness is for those in the official legal system to police themselves and relentlessly attack the corruption occurring within their own ranks. If that does not happen, or worse, if it happens and those who fight corruption and blow whistles suffer damaging retaliation from it, then the corrupt should have no reasonable expectation that they will be treated fairly, nor those who present the appearance of corruption, or complicity with corruption. There are no good cops as long as bad cops retain their impunity. There are no good judges as long as the decisions from bad judges stand unexamined and unchallenged. There are no good lawyers as long as injustice persists. The system we have to ensure that the innocent are protected from witch hunts, kangaroo court, and drumhead trials is as vulnerable to subversion as any other, and replicating it in parallel in order to prosecute that subversion seems inconvenient at best. And yet "we investigated ourselves and cleared ourselves of all wrongdoing" is so depressingly common.

stuaxo 9y ago

Appalling. One of the few New Yorker articles I've read to the end, really hope more come to justice.

waltwalther 9y ago

Very well-written article that left me with a sick, sick feeling. I am glad attention has been brought to this blatant crime.

oh_sigh 9y ago

How did Parks get notes from their doctor? Why wouldn't that be confidential? The article said things about her finding doctors to write the notes, but how could they get them in the first place? Wouldn't the couple need to visit the doctor, and give the okay for them to give information to Parks?

mikx007 9y ago
That's a very good point considering all medical records are covered by HIPAA laws.

ringaroundthetx 9y ago

Jeez, the main stars of the article were just 66 and 68 years old. People are planning to live to 100+ and have to deal with this nightmare for the last 40 years, after everything they've done in their life. This pales in comparison to theoretical expropriation of your supposed riches in a divorce. Anybody that is 30 years old now, who hasn't started on children, will be in the same situation. Locked away while being completely competent, aged and experienced with children in a "sandwich generation" who aren't willing, interested, or established enough to really fathom taking care of their parents.

Animats 9y ago

Add Nevada to the list of places not to retire. Puerto Rico is out. The Florida Keys are still under heavy repair. South Florida is not looking good. And hurricane season just started.

ng12 9y ago
I'm planning on avoiding any "place to retire". In addition to the criminals and scam artists who target the elderly there is an entire legal industry doing the same -- and you can bet they flock to the South West and Florida. Your best bet is probably somewhere like the Dakotas or Montana.
- macintux 9y ago
  Living in bitterly cold states would certainly limit the amount of retirement savings I need. I live in a moderately cold one now, Montana would kill me before I reach 70.
  - rsynnott 9y ago
    Norway and Sweden, both countries which tend to get pretty cold in the winter, have life expectancies around 82 (a little higher than the US). Northern Europe in general, really; life expectancies are generally similar to the US or a bit higher, and it’s not particularly common to migrate to warmer countries for retirement. Actually, my impression was that extreme heatwaves in hot places tend to kill more elderly people than extreme cold in cold ones.
    - macintux 9y ago
      Using Wolfram Alpha it certainly looks like Billings compares unfavorably to Oslo in terms of coldest temperatures during the winter. Norway appears more moderate, I assumed thanks to the ocean. http://www.wolframalpha.com/widgets/gallery/view.jsp?id=af6f68d0d4a05be5938e0f09c414703a http://www.wolframalpha.com/widgets/gallery/view.jsp?id=af6f...

komali2 9y ago

>“You can’t just walk into somebody’s home and take them!” Belshe told her. >Parks responded calmly, “It’s legal. It’s legal.” Years ago in college, my friend was depressed, and as a coping mechanism would sometimes write suicide notes. He'd read them and realize he wasn't quite at that point and it would help him get along. It was a process. Anyway, somehow some of his notes were discovered, he was arrested (I still don't know the details here) and put into some weird absurd protective custody thing in a psychiatric hospital. I was allowed to see him exactly once. The one time I managed to get in he looked like shit. Bags under the eyes, light gone, just, hollow. He said they forced him to take these anti anxiety meds that make him feel like a zombie, that if he didn't take them and admit he needed medication, they wouldn't let him out. But he wasn't "earnest" enough about his treatment and so he still couldn't get out of that hellscape. After about ten days of being unable to contact him, being stonewalled by the cops and the doctors (working with his parents, who were out of state and just as confused/frustrated), I completely snapped. I loaded my remington and 2 boxes of shells into my truck and was planning on driving straight into the lobby of the hospital and forcefully removing him. I was furious but remember having a clear plan - wasn't going to shoot anyone, figured the truck through the lobby plus a crazy fucker in a mask with a shotgun would force their hand and let him go and then we'd drive to mexico or some shit. Consequences be damned, silly fucking laws be damned, I was getting my friend out. I was tossing my gunbag into the back when I got a call on my cell from him saying he finally got out and needed a ride. God only knows if I had gone through with it, maybe I would have come to my senses in the parking lot, I can only hope. All I know is that there was nothing more frustrating or infuriating I have ever experienced than watching him go through it and being completely stonewalled. I've had friends go to jail and I've gone to jail and that's fair, that makes sense. There's a process. There's bail. You broke a written rule and you spend some time for it. You get to talk to a judge. The judge gives you rules and you follow them and you get out. But where he was, there was no rules. You are in at the whim of the doctor and you get out at the whim of the doctor. I imagine the daughter felt something very similar here - where's the process? Who's the authority? Where are the rules written down and when did she agree to them? How could that daughter have protected herself and her family from some absurd hidden legalese?

gertef 9y ago

handy101 9y ago

The VA fiduciary program has similar problems to this.I believe their fees are capped to 3-4% of pay.

nisse72 9y ago

Ah, land of the free...

simulationimin 9y ago

Disgusting and terrifying.

defined 9y ago

This has to be one of the most vile, appalling stories about the widespread abuse of power on the weak and helpless for monetary gain. The perpetrators have as much mercy and empathy for their victims as animal predators have for their prey, with far less justification. And the punishment - if any - is likely to be far less than what is meted out to some afflicted person jailed for stockpiling prescription medications for self-treatment due to incurable pain (Richard Paey)[1]. [1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prisoner-of-pain/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prisoner-of-pain/

ransom1538 9y ago

Ok. First, DAs and jurys hate people that take advantage of children or the elderly. When I say hate - it is a true understatement. All that needs to happen here is a report to a DA. Second, if you have grand/parents over 75 ask them to put all their financials on mint and expose this account to multiple portions of the family. Mint is read only. This way when things get strange - off to the DA.

dennisgorelik 9y ago

tl;dr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgLe32qEnBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgLe32qEnBc

dennisgorelik 9y ago

This is a masterpiece that made judges biased toward professional guardians: --- In 1995, he persuaded the Nevada Senate Committee on Government Affairs to write a bill that allowed the county to receive interest on money that the public guardian invested. “This is what I want you to put in the statute, and I will tell you that you will get a rousing hand from a couple of judges who practice our probate,” he said ---