Financial Elder Abuse by Family Members: Yet Another Case

Estate handling splits family
By Michael A. Scarcella
Published: Sunday, July 27, 2008

BRADENTON - Soon after Sarasota psychologist Richard Gary Schulman took control of his father's cash and assets he bought a Corvette and a boat.
Less than a year later, he got married and the couple began house-hunting. They eventually bought a house in upscale subdivision GreyHawk Landing, just months before selling his father's Sarasota home.
In the meantime, Richard's brother Billy Schulman discovered that hundreds of thousands of dollars had disappeared from his father's accounts and as things devolved, Richard Schulman stopped taking calls from relatives, court records show.

The bills for prescription medicine their father, Bert Schulman, needed went unpaid. Bert Schulman was a retired elementary school science teacher who had Alzheimer's disease.
After four years of working to protect his father and a civil suit to get the missing money returned, Billy Schulman took the rare move of pressing criminal charges of elder abuse and neglect against his brother.

Most relatives work to settle such matters in civil court, and the Schulmans had done so before their father died. In a civil settlement, the family agreed that Richard Schulman and his wife would repay the money. Richard and Laurie Schulman even sold the house they bought in GreyHawk Landing to pay the bills.

But then Richard Schulman backed out of the agreement, and his brother decided to press criminal charges.

Richard Schulman was arrested in December 2007; his trial is set for next month. Laurie Schulman has not been arrested.

McIntosh said Schulman was the primary caregiver for his parents before they died.
Schulman, who has pleaded not guilty, is charged with exploitation of an elderly person or disabled adult and is free on $50,000 bond. His trial is set for Aug. 25.
The money and asset transfer was "malicious, willful and in utter disregard to the welfare of Bert Schulman," an attorney, Lori M. Dorman, said in the lawsuit against Richard and Laurie Schulman.

The father, Bert Schulman, who had been living at the Inn at Freedom Village in Bradenton, died in January 2007. He was 85. The Brooklyn native had lived in Sarasota for seven years.
Richard Schulman gained power of attorney for his father in 2004. Schulman family members question whether Bert Schulman knew what he was doing.

(Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Sarasota,FL,USA)

Abridged
SOURCE: The Herald Tribune
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