Elder Abuse, Financial Elder Abuse, Murder, Bedsores...

It wasn’t until a month after her father died that Linda Magel discovered something awry.

Sifting through boxes of bank statements, she realized $118,000 of her father’s life savings was missing, withdrawn from a Chase Bank branch her father had never stepped foot in.

After a months-long investigation, it became clear that John “Jack” Magel, a Livermore resident who suffered from dementia and early onset Alzheimer’s disease, had been swindled by a bank employee, who made off with a certificate of deposit worth $105,000 and other withdrawals using forged signatures. Magel, who wanted to pass the money to his heirs, died from cancer and Alzheimer’s in March at age 91.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/general-news/20150221/livermore-case-points-spotlight-at-elder-abuse



A Grayridge man is in custody after allegedly abusing his mother and holding a gun to her head.

Michael Davis, 40, of Grayridge, was arrested Monday after a domestic assault call to the Stoddard County Sheriff's Department concerning an altercation Davis had with his mother, according to a police report. It was allegedly during that assault Davis had put a gun to her head.
http://www.semissourian.com/story/2168904.html



The Prunedale man accused of killing his father and keeping the decomposed body hidden made an initial court appearance, but did not enter a plea to charges of murder and elder abuse.
Defense attorney Scott Erdbacher asked the arraignment of Matthew Roberts, 34, on charges in the death of 70-year-old Jerry Roberts, be continued to March 5. Monterey Superior Court Judge Marla Anderson granted the request. It was not immediately clear if Erdbacher will remain as Roberts' attorney; he told Anderson he was there by special appearance.
http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/blogs/crime_blog/prunedale-man-charged-with-murder-elder-abuse-in-slaying-of/article_9e61da20-b708-11e4-95c9-9b11c79b937c.html



For some time researchers, including those under the aegis of the U.S. government, have estimated the extent of losses to seniors each year from financial abuse to be $2.9B per year.  A new study by True Link, a private financial services company, concludes that the actual figure is over twelve times previous estimates, or $36.48 billion each year.

What gives the study credibility to me is certainly not that it was sponsored by a financial services organization that wants you to buy its online protection tools. Rather, it’s that according to their report, the design of this survey was guided by recommendations of an expert panel of fraud researchers convened by the Financial Fraud Research Center at the Stanford Center on Longevity.

Every research study I have read on elder abuse, which includes hundreds of pages reflecting years of data collected tells us that most cases of financial elder abuse are not reported.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolynrosenblatt/2015/01/29/have-we-grossly-underestimated-the-extent-of-financial-elder-abuse/



A case of alleged elder abuse in west St. Louis County is bringing attention to a problem that experts say is getting worse.

Fifty-six-year-old Timothy Barnes is charged with abusing his 82-year-old mother. Court documents show Barnes is accused of allowing his mother to live in total decay, among mold, feces, and broken glass. Police say she was deprived of food and clean water. And, the documents say she'd been bed-ridden for a year, and hadn't bathed in six months. Those documents also say the victim's other son would try and help, but Barnes would threaten him.

Experts say similar cases of alleged abuse go unreported all the time.

"It can be very devastating, to know that someone is either being treated like that, or has been treated in a manner that is inappropriate," said Donna Jasper, a social worker at the Mid-East Area Agency on Aging in St. Louis County.

Jasper has been in the business for 20 years. While she says abuse cases are 'not the norm,' even one case is too many.

"Primarily when you think about the frail senior adults that are most at risk, and someone can put them in such a situation that would cause them harm," said Jasper.

"They do it because the person is vulnerable, and they're not able to fight back unfortunately," said Mary Schaefer, executive director of the Mid-East Area Agency on Aging.
http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/crime/2015/01/28/elder-abuse-bigger-problem-diffin-martellaro/22498791/



A former social worker with the Alabama Department of Human Resources pleaded guilty Monday to allegations that she abused her elderly, mentally handicapped brother, according to court records.

Yolanda Genean Thurman, 43, entered a blind plea to one count of elder abuse and neglect on the same day jurors gathered to be chosen for her trial.

The plea means Thurman could face as many as 20 years in the penitentiary.

Mobile County deputies arrested Thurman on May 21, 2013, after her brother, 74-year-old Byrd Bunkley Jr., was found covered in bed sores and malnourished while laying in his own feces, according to investigators. Thurman was her brother's caregiver. Bunkley requires round-the-clock care.

Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich said Bunkley's condition was so poor when deputies found him that some of his bedsores required skin grafts.
http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2015/02/former_mobile_social_worker_pl.html

Court Cases

Los Angeles County Superior Court Cases

BP 099 211 Conservatorship of Edwina Fuller

BP 118 616 Probate Thelsey L. Fuller

BP 122 665 Thelsey L. Fuller Trust

BP 135 381 Probate Edwina J. Fuller

http://www.lacourt.org/casesummary/ui/

2nd District Court of Appeal

B241450

B241452

http://www.courts.ca.gov/2dca.htm

Proposed Settlement; Thelsey L. Fuller Trust

1.      Robert Fuller and Doris Fuller, will give up their respective shares in the Thelsey L. Fuller Trust.  This will be construed as full satisfaction of the judgment against them [$300,000.00].
           
2.      Their objections against the accounting and the petition to disinherit them will be withdrawn as well as their request for attorney fees. 

The settlement will be presented to the court at the March 23, 2015 hearing.  This settlement would resolve all the issues between the Thelsey L. Fuller Trust and against Doris Fuller and Robert Fuller. 

There would be no further litigation or issues.

This ploy, this so called settlement offer is viewed as an attempt to circumvent the judgement against Robert Fuller and Doris Fuller and owed to the Thelsy L. Fuller Trust.

What this alleged settlement does is shield Robert Fuller and Doris Fuller from any repercussions for their actions, i.e. fraud, undue influence and financial elder abuse against Mr. Thelsey L. Fuller.

That said, once the Trust falls to within $50,000.00 the Trust must be distributed to the beneficiaries.

Re: 7.13. Early Termination of Trusts, Page 18

At this point it makes no difference whether or not Trust assets are expended to collect the $235,000.00 plus interest of $65,000.00  owed to the Thelsey L. Fuller Trust from Doris Fuller and Robert Fuller.

Attorney Teddie J. Randall is alleged to have filed a lien against shares of the Thelsey L. Fuller Trust belonging to principals, Shirley, Sandra and Steven in the amount of $25,000.00 each, for a total of $75,000.00.

    [Attorney Randall was ordered by the Court to collect his fees from Doris and Robert years ago].

It is estimated that the Temporary Successor Trustee, attorney Tala R. Davis's fees for the administration of the Trust will be $50,000.00.

As of this writing, the value of the Trust is estimated to be roughly $210.000.00

Robert has been advised that to make the settlement agreement palatable he and or Doris would need to come up with the money to pay attorney Randall's fees and the fees of Madam Trustee Davis for administration of the Trust.

Doris could borrow $125,000.00 against her house, $75,000.00 to Randall; $50,000.00 to Davis, and keep her house... in order to make a righteous settlement with the Trust and their siblings.

Otherwise, Doris's house must be seized by the Trustee and sold for the full amount of $300,000.00 the amount of the debt owed to the Thelsey L. Fuller Trust.

Now, the Court will make a determination in regards to how much money attorneys Randall and Davis may collect from the Trust.

So, why does it make any difference whether or not the Court makes a determination whether or not Doris Fuller and Robert Fuller will be disinherited from the Thelsey L. Fuller Trust?


"Of all the illegal and illicit enterprises in the world, elder exploitation is among the safest and most profitable."

The Ageing Adult

Stage 8: The Ageing Adult

We return now to the stages. Any time from the late-fifties onwards, awareness may arise that the last main stage of life is approaching. From this point on certain evidences of decline start inevitably to declare themselves: changes in appearance, loss of agility, diminution in energy and initiative; perhaps some feeling of ennui or fatigue around activities – occupational business, child-care, or whatever – that may have been carried on happily enough over many past years. Of course, the onset of these things varies markedly from person to person, and perhaps with profession. Political or business leaders often remain both vigorous and committed to their work, well through their sixties. Many writers or creative artists may also go on producing through the same years, though they may have to find a ‘third period’ style.

However, for one and all in these later years a dilemma increasingly asks for resolution. As age advances, is the best thing simply to give up, more or less gracefully; to resign and prepare oneself for steady decline and death? Or should one fight to retain all the activities of earlier years (as well as the personal appearance that goes with them) as long as conceivably possible? Neither prospect is happy. On the one side there is a decline into second childhood and dependency, a status that modern society, with all its stress on high activity is only too willing to assign to the ageing. On the other, there is an ultimately ridiculous attempt to deny reality. On the one side, despair. On the other, impossible hope.

What is the way out? Here, even more than before, the difference should be noted between a compromise and a synthesis. Faced with the dilemma just described, it will be natural and sensible to strike balances: to lay down or reduce certain burdens, but to remain active in other spheres; to accept ageing appearance but still to groom and dress smartly; and so on. But a true synthesis does not just strike balances: it moves to a higher plane. What is really required, we suggest, is a final synthesis that may shortly be described ascaring acceptance. In this, the strand of giving-up is transmuted to a positive acceptance; acceptance of decline, likely ill-health, and death, as well as acceptance of the manifold happinesses, large or small, that life may bring until its very end. The strand of continuing drive and activity is transmuted into a more gentle and pervasive caring; caring in a giving and not just a feeling sense. In the fullest synthesis the two strands become so fused that each is simply an aspect of the other.

Speaking generally, every synthesis is a transcendence, literally a ‘climbing beyond’. But at this stage there is the possibility of transcendence of quite a new kind, namely, and unlike previous stages, a significant change from the hither-to-settled focus on one’s own immediate society and patch. There is a possibility of going beyond given family, friends, or tribe to an identification with human beings at large, to whatever classes, kinds or nations they may belong. To this may be added a new sense of closer communion with the natural world; with the world of plants, animals, and earth. There may be a lessening of a habitual concern for current affairs in favour of a greater recognition of the deeper processes of time and history. Overall, there may be a feeling of moving beyond one’s separate individuality to a sense of being simply a part of the great whole. Old age offers the last chance for such changes (though this does not mean to say that there cannot have been moves in this direction in earlier years).

In any event, age proffers one potential advantage for all concerned. In the nature of things, age implies some lengthy accumulation of knowledge and experience. Out of it, greater wisdom may grow. Much of the caring for others that may infuse a properly-developed old age will draw upon such a quality. Acting as the holders and purveyors of wisdom is the role of the grandparent in many traditional societies, and one that is in grave danger of being lost in many modern ones. Those in the prime of mature adulthood naturally carry most of the power in societies in their various roles as parents, trainers, executive leaders and mentors. But those in the stage beyond, as grandparents, counsellors, honorary presidents, or simply themselves, can offer something broader and greater. In all these ways then, the final stage need not be a miserable dwindling, but a yet-further evolution or transformation.

http://www.ralphrowbottom.info/the-stages-of-life-a-new-look/

Arrest Casey Kasem's wife

The late, legendary DJ Casey Kasem's daughter Kerri Kasem and family members staged a press conference at Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Los Angeles Friday to urge the Los Angeles Police Department to arrest Mr. Kasem's widow Jean Kasem.

Jean Kasem removed Mr. Kasem, along with his surgically implanted feeding tube, from a Santa Monica hospital on May 7 and took him to the Seattle area, where he died June 15, 2014. Then she took his body to Montreal and Oslo, where it sat in a freezer for months until he was buried in an unmarked grave shortly before Christmas. "If this isn't a case of elder abuse, I don't know what is," said Kerri Kasem attorney Martha Patterson. "It's equivalent to taking a baby out of an incubator."

"[Jean Kasem] took Casey on a five-day odyssey," private investigator Logan Clarke told THR. "They ran out of food, bought a six-pack of Ensure at a drugstore, poured it into the feeding machine, and jammed it -- and they're saying this woman didn't kill him? The nurse in the car took pictures of his colostomy bag full of blood. The cops have all the evidence. Belle Chen at the DA office told me she'd love to have a crack at this case. LAPD should be ashamed."

Read the entire article: 
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/casey-kasems-daughter-demands-lapd-768770