Wealth can make you even more susceptible

WASHINGTON — Just before the release of a survey about elder financial abuse, an arbitration panel awarded $34 million in damages, including hearing costs, to the estate of Roy M. Speer, a co-founder of the Home Shopping Network.

The award is further proof that rich people are just as vulnerable to financial exploitation as anyone else. In fact, their immense wealth can make them even more susceptible.

The case involved the investment firm Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and two stockbrokers. Speer died in 2012. His wife Lynnda brought a claim against the company, arguing that her husband's estate and his foundation funds had been mismanaged.

The arbitration panel agreed and found that Morgan Stanley and the brokers were guilty of "unauthorized trading, churning, breach of fiduciary duty/constructive fraud, negligence, negligent supervision, ... and unjust enrichment."

Read more:
Michelle Singletary: Do your part to stem elder abuse

Nurse pleads guilty to elder abuse; Gentrification evictions amount to elder abuse; Caretaker nearly kills man

Katherine Blevins Lenoir, 53, of Maplesville, pleaded guilty today to one count of reckless abuse of a protected person, according to an attorney general's statement. The hearing was held before Circuit Judge Ben A. Fuller.

Lenoir is a former employee of Don Hatley Healthcare and Rehabilitation of Clanton. A licensed practical nurse, Lenoir admitted she inadvertently administered a large dose of a narcotic pain medication to a resident of the facility instead of the requested cough medicine, according to the statement.

Instead of alerting the facility to her mistake, Lenoir manipulated treatment records to reflect that she had given the correct medication, according to the AG's statement. The patient, suffering from an overdose of the narcotic pain medication, was discovered by a nurse on a later shift and rushed to the hospital where she spent several days in the intensive care unit before being released, according to the statement.

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/03/alabama_nurse_pleads_guilty_to.html


Evictions in the Bay Area, where the cost of living has skyrocketed in recent years, appear to have taken a fatal turn.

The death of a 97-year-old woman in Burlingame on March 3 was widely reported by local and international news agencies, with quotes from friends and supporters of Marie Hatch claiming she was “done in” by the stress of being evicted from her home of 66 years.

But what many reports missed, according to a local housing activist, is that Hatch was only the latest Peninsula senior resident who died shortly after being hit with eviction notices or staggering rent increases.

Hatch lived with her friend Georgia Rothrock, 85, in a modest, brown-and-white cottage at the corner of California Drive and Oak Grove Avenue. Despite the home’s location on a noisy thoroughfare, next to a busy auto mechanic’s shop, real estate website Zillow pegs the dwelling’s value at $1.2 million.

Lawyer Nanci Nishimura, who represented Hatch on a pro bono basis, said she will continue to fight the eviction on Rothrock’s behalf. Nishimura’s firm, Cotchett, Pitre, & McCarthy, LLP, is suing landlord David Kantz.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/gentrification-evictions-amount-elder-abuse/


An elderly Arvada man hired a caretaker from jail, who proceeded to swindle him for $20,000 dollars and almost killed him, by pushing him down the stairs of his home and stomping on his head.

In November, Jana Bergman was sentenced to 208 years in prison for attacking 88-year-old Jack Woods.

While Woods’ story is horrific, it’s not unusual or rare.

http://www.9news.com/news/crime/elder-abuse-caretaker-nearly-kills-man/67953180