Jackson Country Establishes Elder Abuse Coalition (USA)

Jackson County establishes Elder Abuse Coalition

November 10, 2009

Jackson County now has an established Elder Abuse Coalition. The Elder Abuse Coalition is a multidisciplinary team, consisting of individuals possessing geriatric experience from varied backgrounds. All current coalition members are individuals who work in various community agencies, and businesses within Jackson County. The mission of the Coalition is “to preserve the dignity and rights of older adults and promote their independence by preventing abuse, neglect and exploitation through increasing community awareness and the development of additional protective services”.


The Coalition held their most recent meeting on Oct. 22, 2009, at Holzer Medical Center-Jackson. Holzer Medical Center-Jackson will be the host site for the Coalition meetings. There has never been a more urgent time to develop such a coalition. Ohio is currently experiencing major budget cuts, unfortunately resulting in a negative impact to Adult Protective Services.

SOURCE:    The Times Journal

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Vigilence Key to Elder Abuse Prevention (TX. USA)

Vigilence key to elder abuse prevention

By Eric J. Weilbacher
The Herald-Zeitung

November 10, 2009

It’s supposed to be the Golden Years. Instead, they are the dark years for many New Braunfels residents suffering at the hands of their caretakers — physically or financially.

Over the past five years, Daniel Perez, director of the Crisis Center of Comal County, has witnesses a disturbing trend.

Reports of abuse of the elderly have risen with each year.

He sees people in their 80s arriving at the Crisis Center’s shelter, looking for a place to recover from physical abuse or to piece their lives back together after financial ruin.

Until recently, abuse of the elderly often went unreported expect in extreme cases.

But abuse that takes place in the home from caregivers, be they the children of the elderly or privately hired help, has been reported more frequently as awareness of the issue becomes more mainstream, Perez said. 

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SOURCE:     The Herald-Zeltung
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Saving the Elderly From Mistreatment (CA. USA)

By Athan Bezaitis

November 9, 2009

The Los Angeles Caregiver Resource Center and the Andrus Center Volunteers hosted a seminar on preventing the mistreatment of older persons at the USC Davis School of Gerontology on Nov. 4.

Filmmakers Dorothy Breininger and Debby Bitticks and former Los Angeles Police Department detective Chayo Reyes provided information on such forms of elder abuse as predatory caregivers, financial scam artists and neglectful nursing homes to students, faculty and other visitors.

From 1987 to 1999, Reyes, a former member of the Elder Person’s Estate Unit, prevented the loss of or recovered more than $91 million in victim’s assets, which included homes, vehicles and life savings. He discussed ways to recognize and address theft from the estates of vulnerable adults.

“Elder abuse cases have a common theme,” he said. “The victims generally live alone, may be in poor health and, in 95 percent of cases, suffer from dementia or are subject to undue influence or duress.”

Shawn Herz, director of program development of the Caregiver Center, said the film and discussion provided “vital information for raising awareness of what people need to take into consideration when planning for care and in protecting the vulnerable.”

For more information on Saving Our Parents, visit www.savingourparents.com 

Abridged

SOURCE:    University of Southern California News

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Abandoned Elderly Find Hope Through Blessed Teresa's Nuns (Kathmandu, Nepal)

November 06 2009

In a country where it is increasingly commonplace to abandon the elderly, the Missionaries of Charity (MC) sisters provide a loving refuge in a government home they work in.

"Most youngsters consider their old parents a burden," Surendra Prasad Joshi, a retired university professor, says.

Traditional care of the elderly within the extended family is breaking down in Nepal, according to Joshi, who now volunteers as secretary to the MC Sisters in Nepal.

He said that economic pressures add to the problem as most youngsters head overseas to find work. Furthermore, with the trend toward nuclear families these days, fewer young people are looking after their parents. "Many parents are literally thrown out of homes; they are either dropped off at old age homes or in temples," he added.

At one government-run facility for the elderly at least, located on the premises of the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu, they get loving care from the MC nuns who work there.

"I am happy here," says 80-year-old Bir Bahadur Gurung, whose sons left him to fend for himself as he grew older and weaker. "I get to eat and I have friends with whom I can talk with, and the sisters always take good care of us."

The MC sisters first started their Nepal mission in 1980 following a visit to Kathmandu by Blessed Teresa of Kolkata.

"During her visit, 'Mother' cleaned the toilets at the home and later convinced the late Queen Aishwarya Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah to give the sisters a part of the home" to work in, said Sister Rose Therese, head of the MC sisters in Nepal.

They now have 32 elderly people in their care. The nuns bathe, feed and wash the clothes of residents who cannot perform daily chores.

According to HelpAge International, a global network working for the elderly, six percent of the 28.5 million people in Nepal are aged over 60.
There are currently nine MC sisters stationed in three centers in Nepal.

Abridged
SOURCE:    Indian Catholic News
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Red Tape Stands in Way of Police Volunteers

Red tape stands in way of police volunteers

By: BRENT BEGIN
Examiner Staff Writer
November 7, 2009

There are financial experts waiting to donate their time to help San Francisco police crack down on elder fraud, but they have been held up by bureaucracy.

New police Chief George Gascón is pushing for creative ideas as the Police Department deals with budget cuts, and one of those ideas could be to let civilian investigators assist in solving crimes instead of always using additional police officers. Several studies on the department have recommended civilianizing positions, such as clerks and statisticians, to allow higher-paid officers to fight crime, but that process has lagged.
Erika Falk, executive director of the San Francisco Institute on Aging, told the Police Commission on Wednesday night about financial crimes committed against older adults that are often overlooked.

She also lobbied the Police Department to invest more resources toward solving the problem.

Abridged
SOURCE:  The SFExaminer
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Grant Fights Elder Abuse (USA)

BY JESSE DUNSMORE

TIMES HERALD

NOVEMBER 8, 2009

It's a story Sarah Prout, managing attorney at Lakeshore Legal Aid, said illustrates how vulnerable senior citizens ar

In 2008, a 67-year-old woman was assaulted by her live-in daughter. But, the senior discovered she couldn't evict her daughter, who had used power of attorney to claim ownership of the home while her mother was in the hospital.

There are plenty of services in St. Clair County to help elderly people fight abuse, but Prout said a grant from the Office of Violence Against Women will help those agencies better work together to combat what officials consider a growing a problem.

The grant will provide $300,000 in three years to help train people to deal with elder abuse and enhance services provided by six county agencies: Lakeshore Legal Aid, the county prosecutor's office, Safe Horizons, the Port Huron Police Department, Adult Protective Services and Catholic Social Services.

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SOURCE:    The Times Herald

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Woman Accused in $20,000 Theft From Vulnerable Great Uncle (MI. USA)

By Laura Angus | Flint Journal

November 05, 2009, 8:00AM

FLINT, Michigan 

A Genesee Township woman is accused of stealing upward of $20,000 from her mentally disabled great uncle’s bank account to pay her cable bill and have her lawn mowed.

As a result, investigators say the 79-year-old man got kicked out of a Flint assisted living facility for an unpaid $18,000 bill.

Mary Anne Aitken, 43, was charged Wednesday with 22 counts of embezzlement from a vulnerable adult and uttering and publishing.

The county’s elder abuse team began looking at Aitken for misusing her great uncle’s funds in October 2008 but couldn’t make a case against her before the man was ousted from his home for the unpaid debt in January.

Investigators obtained the arrest warrant last week after spending months pouring over thousands of pages of bank and medical records, Pickell said. 

“None of the money was used for his needs,” Pickell said.

At the same time McKeown’s bills were going unpaid, Pickell said Aitken signed checks with her name or his name to pay her cable bill, give “big bucks” to her son for lawn care and pay a towing bill.

Aitken was in the Genesee County Jail on $1.1 million bond and she had no attorney on file Wednesday afternoon.

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SOURCE:   MLive.Com



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Grandparents Scammed (USA)

Intelligencer Journal
Lancaster New Era

Nov 05, 2009

Wallace and Marian Case have eight grandchildren.

So when the Penn Township retirees received a telephone call recently that one of their grandchildren was in trouble, they didn't hesitate to help.

Only problem was, police said, it wasn't really their grandchild in trouble, and the money they sent to help him instead went straight to a professional group of criminals.

"I feel stupid," Marian Case said on Wednesday, "but if telling other people about it can help someone else from becoming a victim, we're willing to talk about it."

Penn Township police said the scam artists who duped the Cases have been operating out of Canada for at least five years.

Authorities said "The Emergency Cash Phone Scam Double," as it's called, has been used to target an increasing number of elderly people in the past two months.

The Cases, unfortunately, were two such typical victims, police said, losing more than $6,000 to the scam.

Marian Case, 78, said the call came about two weeks ago from a con artist posing as their grandson.

"He said, 'Hi Grandpa,' and said he was in Canada and had rented a car but was in an accident," Marian Case said.

"He said he needed money to repair the car before they would let him leave the country."

And Marian Case said their "grandson" asked her 81-year-old husband not to tell anyone.

"I guess we thought his father would be mad at him for going to Canada without telling them," she said.

The caller posing as their grandson and his friend "were very convincing," Marian Case said. "They knew everything.

A Web site, phonebusters.com, which was set up by a Canadian law enforcement task force, contains a long list of such scams.

The Canadian scam task force can be reached by phone at 1-888-495-8501.

Pennsylvania residents concerned about scams or other issues also can contact the state Attorney General's Elder Abuse Unit.

The Attorney General's Office has a unit specifically designed to help protect senior citizens.

They can be reached by visiting the Web site at www.attorneygeneral.gov or by calling toll free 1-866-623-2137.

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SOURCE:    LancasterOnline

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Financial Elder Abuse: Families Cash In On Time's Terrible Toll (AUSTRALIA)

BY CHRIS BARRETT

November 5, 2009

Queensland's elderly are being financially exploited by their nearest and dearest at an alarmingly growing rate, the state's Public Trustee has warned.

Peter Carne told brisbanetimes.com.au that cases of financial elder abuse, particularly of those that are incapacitated, before the Queensland Guardianship and Administration Tribunal were on the rise.

Figures provided by the Department of Justice and Attorney-General also show that challenges to wills by family members have surged by 70 per cent in the past three years.

"One of the concerns that I have as the Public Trustee is the significant increase in financial elder abuse," Mr Carne said.  

"You are seeing individuals, normally family members, who are abusing the influence they have over a parent, normally, to take control of their assets for their own personal benefit."

Among the notable cases to come before the tribunal was that of a 91-year-old widower who made a $170,000 gift to a personal care worker at his RSL Care home, which she spent in less than two months.

The tribunal ruled the elderly man did not fully understand the nature and effect of the gift.

In another case the nephew of a 90-year-old man with age-related dementia was found to have placed the proceeds of  the sale of the elderly man's house in a family discretionary fund, predominantly for the use of him and his family.

The nephew was also found to have withdrawn more than $63,000 from the man's bank account, leaving him with a total loss of more than $450,000.

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SOURCE:    The Brisbane Times

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Elder Abuse Law Invoked to Block Fur Protesters (OR. USA)

By Steven Mayes, The Oregonian

November 04, 2009

Oregon's free-speech protections allow animal-rights activists to hurl accusations at Portland's last furrier, but the state's elder-abuse laws forbid intimidating him through obscenity, a Clackamas County judge ruled Wednesday. 

Horst Grimm,  75-year-old owner of Nicholas Ungar Furs,  won an order from Circuit Judge Jeffrey S. Jones  requiring four anti-fur activists to keep their distance from him and his store. 




Attorneys in the case believe it is the first time state laws to protect the elderly have been used to limit free speech. 

Both sides presented reasonable arguments, Jones said, but the level of the protesters profanity clearly violated state law. 

Abridged
SOURCE:   The Oregon Live

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