Amid Financial Abuse, A Blind Spot for Family (NY. USA)

By PAULA SPAN

May 19, 2009

Outside the courtroom where socialite Brooke Astor’s son and former attorney are on trial for conspiracy and scheming to defraud her estate, a witness stopped to talk to a columnist for the New York Post.

Betsy Gotbaum, New York City’s public advocate and Mrs. Astor’s close friend, had just testified to Mrs. Astor’s mental decline, which prosecutors say left her unable to understand the changes to her will that benefited her son, Anthony Marshall, 84. Whatever his culpability, Ms. Gotbaum said, “She wouldn’t want him to go to jail.”

It’s a sentiment that experts often hear in cases of alleged financial exploitation. One reason the crime proves difficult to detect and prosecute is that so often “the abuser is someone the elder has loved and trusted,” said Thomas Hafemeister, a University of Virginia law professor studying financial elder abuse. Who wants to see a loved one — even one who may be ripping you off — in handcuffs?

As with other forms of elder abuse, basic facts about financial exploitation — even how widely it occurs and to whom — remain elusive. Experts think all varieties are substantially underreported, and financial manipulation, unlike broken bones or bruises, can happen almost invisibly.

But in elder abuse cases substantiated by adult protective agencies in 11 states, the most common abusers weren’t strangers, but sons and daughters,the National Center on Elder Abuse has found (PDF). A recent report on financial abuse from the Metlife Mature Market Institute (PDF) also points to family, along with “trusted professionals,” as the primary predators.

Which complicates everything. Family dynamics represent “a major cause of underreporting,” said Joy Solomon, who heads the Weinberg Center for Elder Abuse Prevention at the Hebrew Home in the Bronx. A former prosecutor, Ms. Solomon has seen “the denial, the shame and the guilt — ‘If I was a better mother, my son would never have done this.’”

The parallels with domestic violence cases are striking. This is a crime, Ms. Solomon said, in which the victim may feel greater humiliation than the criminal. So even when a third party, a lawyer or financial advisor or another family member, does notice suspicious behavior, victims often vigorously deny that they are victims, either because they don’t want to acknowledge their incapacities as they age or because they want to protect their exploiters. Or both.

Abridged

SOURCE:    New York Times - United States

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