CONFIRMED BY ILL. SUPREME COURT– YOU ARE VIEWING THE MOST DANGEROUS BLOG IN ILLINOIS. This blog warranted a 3 year suspension by the ARDC/Jerome Larkin! Mottos: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant". Justice Louis Brandeis ; "If the truth can destroy something, then it deserves to be destroyed" Carl Sagan; "Justice is Truth in Action" Benjamin Disraeli. Illinois uses the ARDC to quash dissenting attorney activist blogs ; "The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Governments" — (1776-First Amendment preamble adopted by 8 US colonies)
This has been a slow moving case, which has worked to Pasulka’s benefit. There were a total of 5 cases against Pasulka.
-He beat 1 at a bench trial.
-Another was dismissed for the Statute of Limitations. I blame the ARDC for having knowledge of the criminal act and holding the information until it became public and they had to report it; but by then, it was too late for the State to prosecute.
-We have another one where I am unsure of the Status because the victim passed away recently. It’s a heartbreaking case and personal to many of us. The victim, Aneta, was one of us, one of our advocates. She was also a lawyer who filed a federal lawsuit against her family law judge and GAL to expose the system. What pisses me off is that while Aneta was dying, Pasulka was granted permission to leave the State to go to San Diego for two weeks last month. I do not believe that many people, or the court, knew she was dying, but the fact that the bastard gets to take off for two weeks while victims suffer bother me.
-There are still two active cases open.
Pasulka’s next court date is a Status Date set for August 6, 2025 at 9:00 AM, Court Room 706 at 26th and California. Zoom information is:
Zoom Meeting ID: 957 3244 3804
Zoom Meeting Password: 455947
When you log-in, include “Pasulka observer” in your name so the judge knows to let you in.
I am looking for lawyers, law students and attorneys to help me on this case. I am only a 67 year old mother of 4 and a no body. Most of my complaint was taken from another one professionally prepared by a group of think tank lawyers. Currently, this is what Judge April Perry and I discussed in the Northern District Court for the Eastern Division of federal court this morning, 7/17/25
United States District Court
Northern District of Illinois – CM/ECF NextGen 1.8 (rev. 1.8.3)Notice of Electronic Filing
The following transaction was entered on 7/17/2025 at 11:53 AM CDT and filed on 7/17/2025
Docket Text: MINUTE entry before the Honorable April M. Perry: Status hearing held 7/17/2025. The Court discusses with Plaintiff that, based on the allegations in the current complaint, there is no basis for Article III standing and that the injunctive relief sought by Plaintiff is impossible at this time for the Court to provide. Plaintiff expresses several ideas about how the complaint may be amended to establish both a viable form of relief and standing. While the Court expresses concerns that Plaintiff will be able to state a viable legal claim, she is given until 8/7/2025 to amend the complaint to attempt to do so. Mailed notice. (jcc,)
End docket quote
One of the ways to attain standing is by membership in an organization.
For example, in Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms24 the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), a division of the United States Department of Agriculture, had decided to deregulate a variety of generally engineered alfalfa. The district court held that APHIS violated a federal statute by issuing the deregulation decision without sufficiently assessing the environmental consequences. It vacated APHIS’s deregulation decision, ordered APHIS to prepare an environmental impact statement before deciding the deregulation petition, enjoined planting of the genetically engineered seeds pending APHIS’s completion of the environmental impact statement, and issued related relief. The government and owners of the intellectual-property rights in the seeds appealed, challenging the scope of the relief. The court of appeals affirmed, and the Supreme Court granted review. The respondents who opposed review (conventional seed farms and environmental groups) argued that the government and intellectual-property owners lacked standing to appeal.
The Supreme Court held that the appellants (petitioners in the Supreme Court) did have standing to appeal
you can find a copy of my file stamped complaint here.
it must be amended because so many things have changed since I first filed it.
I am looking for law firms and organizations that can help me with this lawsuit, so if you kow of any, please have them contact me. joanne@justice4every1.com
Legal research on Standing, Article sec 2 so far:
Google AI on standing Article 3, § 2:
Article III of the U.S. Constitution requires that federal courts only hear “Cases” and “Controversies,” which necessitates that a plaintiff have standing to sue. Standing requires demonstrating an injury in fact, causation, and redressability. Leading cases like Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, and TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez have shaped the understanding of these requirements.
Article III Standing Requirements: Injury in Fact: The plaintiff must have suffered or be imminently threatened with a concrete and particularized injury. This injury cannot be hypothetical or a generalized grievance shared by the public.
Causation: The injury must be fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct. The connection between the injury and the defendant’s actions cannot be too attenuated. Redressability: It must be likely that a favorable court decision will redress the injury. The requested relief must be able to remedy the harm suffered. Key Cases: Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992): . Established the foundational elements of Article III standing: injury in fact, causation, and redressability. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (2016): . Addressed the concreteness of injury, emphasizing that a statutory violation alone is not sufficient for standing; the injury must be concrete and particularized. TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (2021): . Further clarified the injury in fact requirement, holding that a statutory violation that does not cause a concrete harm does not confer standing. Baker v. Carr (1962): . Established that federal courts could hear cases about state legislative apportionment, a significant step in ensuring equal representation according to SpringerLink. Warth v. Seldin (1975): . Illustrates a situation where plaintiffs lacked standing because they failed to show a direct connection between the challenged zoning ordinances and an injury they suffered according to UMKC Law School. Clapper v. Amnesty International USA (2013): . Dealt with the standard for establishing standing based on future harm. Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013): . Clarified the government’s standing to appeal in cases involving constitutional challenges. DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno (2006): . Ruled that state taxpayers generally lack standing to challenge state tax or spending in federal court simply by virtue of their taxpayer status. Diamond v. Charles (1986): . Determined that citizens generally need a direct stake in the outcome to challenge a state statute in federal court. Standing to Appeal: To appeal a federal court decision, a party must demonstrate an injury fairly traceable to the judgment below and that a favorable ruling would redress that injury, according to the International Association of Defense Counsel. In essence, Article III standing ensures that federal courts only hear genuine legal disputes, preventing them from being used to resolve abstract grievances or issues of public policy that are best addressed by other branches of government.
The U.S. Supreme Court held that a group of doctors, nurses, and medical associations did not have the right under the U.S. Constitution, a doctrine known as “standing,” to challenge Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations governing the use of the abortion drug mifepristone in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, No. 23-235 (June 13, 2024). This ruling could make it harder for organizations to successfully challenge corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Standing and Why It Matters The concept of standing is fundamental to federal court jurisdiction. Article III § 2 of the U.S. Constitution limits the issues federal courts can resolve to “cases” (lawsuits seeking to protect and enforce rights or to prevent and punish wrongs) and “controversies” (disputes or disagreements between parties). To qualify as a case or controversy, a plaintiff must have a personal stake in the outcome. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to bring a federal lawsuit, a plaintiff must answer the basic question that embodies the concept of standing: “What’s in it for you?”
To establish standing, the plaintiff must demonstrate:
The plaintiff suffered or likely will suffer an injury in fact; The defendant caused or likely will be the cause of the injury; and The requested judicial relief likely will redress the injury. If the plaintiff cannot satisfy all three requirements, the court must dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.
Injury In Fact An injury in fact must be a specific and actual harm. A general complaint or harm that may happen is not an injury in fact. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the doctrine of standing “screens out plaintiffs who might have only a general legal, moral, ideological, or policy objection” to a particular action.
In cases involving challenges to DEI initiatives, courts have ruled the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate an injury in fact because they could not show they would have received the benefit sought in the absence of the alleged discrimination. In two cases against the same defendant, White plaintiffs alleged that a grant program available only to Black, Latinx, and Native American applicants was unlawful race discrimination. Courts in both cases ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they failed to show the defendant would have chosen them as grant recipients were it not for their race, making the plaintiffs’ alleged injury too speculative to be an injury in fact. Similarly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dismissed a case for lack of standing where the plaintiff failed to allege they met the non-race-related requirements for that grant and therefore failed to allege an injury in fact.
In Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the Alliance argued the loss of considerable resources spent unsuccessfully opposing the FDA’s regulation constituted an injury in fact. Rejecting this argument, the Court stated, “[A]n organization that has not suffered a concrete injury caused by the defendant’s actions cannot spend its way into standing.”
Causation Once a plaintiff has shown an injury in fact, the plaintiff must establish a chain of events leading from the defendant’s actions to the asserted injury. The Court’s analysis of causation in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is instructive. The Alliance alleged that the FDA’s rule would injure a doctor’s conscience by forcing the doctor to provide a life-saving abortion to someone experiencing complications from taking the drug mifepristone. The Court emphasized federal statutes expressly and definitively protect doctors from providing medical care that violates their consciences. These statutes break the chain of events that would connect the FDA’s rule authorizing the use of mifepristone to the alleged injury and thus defeat the plaintiff’s attempt to show causation.
Redressability The third prong of the standing test is whether a court can redress, or cure, a claimed injury. Redressability and causation are closely related. If the defendant did not cause the injury, then the court cannot redress the injury by any order to the defendant. Even if the plaintiff plausibly alleges causation, redressability may depend on the nature of the relief requested.
For example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit found a plaintiff challenging an employer’s mandatory DEI training lacked standing because he could not demonstrate redressability. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant’s mandatory DEI trainings caused him to suffer the injury in fact of a hostile work environment. The plaintiff sought an injunction prohibiting the defendant from using or distributing DEI materials. However, because the plaintiff had resigned from his employment by the time he filed the lawsuit, the court held that a change in the defendant’s policy would not redress any ongoing injury to the plaintiff.
Associational Standing The Supreme Court has long recognized that, in appropriate circumstances, organizations may have standing to pursue claims on behalf of their members. This is known as “associational,” “organizational,” or “third party” standing and is a heavily litigated issue in organizations’ lawsuits challenging DEI programs and practices.
To prove associational standing, the plaintiff organization must demonstrate:
The organization’s members would have standing in their own right; The interests the association seeks to vindicate are germane to the association’s mission; and Neither the claim nor the relief requested requires the participation of the individual members. Whether establishing standing requires an organization to identify members by name depends on where the plaintiff filed the lawsuit. The Eleventh Circuit held in a 2-1 decision that an organization had standing to sue even though it declined to identify by name any member that suffered an injury in fact. (The dissenting judge observed that the organization offered no good reason for withholding members’ names and suggested that the anonymous members suffered no injury in fact but were merely lending their identities for the purpose of the litigation.)
The Second Circuit came to the opposite conclusion, dismissing an organization’s challenge to a fellowship program for lack of standing because the plaintiff organization refused to name even a single member who had suffered harm. The First Circuit also has held that a plaintiff organization must name an injured individual to support associational standing. The U.S. Supreme Court likely will have to resolve this split in the circuits.
Takeaways for Employers The first line of defense for employers facing legal challenges to DEI practices is to evaluate whether the plaintiff has the right to bring the case at all. Although standing arguments are fact specific, employers can ensure those who challenge private sector DEI programs have a demonstrable connection to such programs. A successful defense based on an individual or organization’s standing allows employers to evaluate and, if necessary, modify DEI programs to withstand legal challenges.
Jackson Lewis attorneys are available to answer your DEI questions and help you ensure your DEI programs are carefully designed, documented, and implemented to comply with applicable law.
Focused on employment and labor law since 1958, Jackson Lewis P.C.’s 1,000+ attorneys located in major cities nationwide consistently identify and respond to new ways workplace law intersects business. We help employers develop proactive strategies, strong policies and business-oriented solutions to cultivate high-functioning workforces that are engaged and stable, and share our clients’ goals to emphasize belonging and respect for the contributions of every employee. For more information, visit https://www.jacksonlewis.com.
Federal-court practitioners will likely have heard of the “irreducible minimum”1 of standing, which Article III of the United States Constitution requires of every plaintiff on every claim: the party invoking the court’s jurisdiction must have an actual or imminent, personalized, concrete injury; the injury must be traceable to the conduct complained of in the lawsuit; and there must be a reasonable probability that a favorable court ruling would redress the injury. Lack of Article III standing is a silver bullet: it is jurisdictional, it cannot be waived, the court must notice a standing defect even if no party raises it, and the appellant’s lack of standing requires dismissal.
Less well known is that an appellant in federal court – whether plaintiff or defendant – must separately have standing to appeal. Standing can present a fatal obstacle to appeals of interest to business lawyers, including class-action settlements, bankruptcies, challenges to government action, cases involving intervenors, and even occasionally appeals from jury verdicts. Understanding appellate-standing requirements can help you stop an adversary’s appeal cold and can keep you from spending time and money on your own client’s appeal that cannot succeed. This article examines the obscure-but-useful area of standing to appeal, highlighting recurring scenarios where parties do or don’t have standing and the considerations at play.
I. Article III Standing
A. Basic Requirements for Article III Standing
Article III of the United States Constitution limits the federal judicial power to “Cases” and “Controversies.”2 To reach the merits of a case, an Article III court must have jurisdiction. “One essential aspect of this requirement is that any person invoking the power of a federal court must demonstrate standing to do so.”3 To establish Article III standing, the party invoking a federal court’s jurisdiction must establish (1) that he or she has actually suffered, or imminently will suffer, a concrete and particularized “injury in fact;” (2) that the injury is fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct; and (3) that it is “‘likely,’ as opposed to merely ‘speculative,’ that the injury will be ‘redressed by a favorable decision.’”4 The Supreme Court has described these three requirements as the “irreducible minimum” of Article III standing.5
These requirements serve several purposes. They help assure that legal questions will be resolved in a “concrete factual context conducive to a realistic appreciation of the consequences of judicial action.”6 They additionally are meant to ensure that the party invoking the federal court’s jurisdiction has a “‘personal stake’ in the outcome of the controversy” and that the dispute “touches upon the ‘legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests.’”7 They are also meant to keep federal courts within their lane, restraining them from reaching out to decide issues committed to other branches of government.8
These rules also have their own important glosses. A party must demonstrate standing for each claim they press and each form of relief they seek.9 The party claiming standing must show that he “personally would benefit in a tangible way from the court’s intervention.”10 Because the injury must be concrete and personalized, the desire to vindicate “value interests,” “psychic satisfaction,” and the desire to see that “laws are faithfully enforced” cannot support Article III standing.11 Only the party invoking the court’s jurisdiction (normally the plaintiff in the trial court or the appellant in an appellate court) must have standing; the party objecting to relief against itself (normally the defendant or appellee) need not.12
Article III standing is essential to a federal court’s subject-matter jurisdiction.13 Since federal courts are presumed not to have jurisdiction until it is affirmatively shown,14 the record must contain facts affirmatively establishing standing, appropriate to the stage of the litigation.15 If the plaintiff fails to demonstrate standing, the court must usually dismiss the case.16 As with other subject-matter jurisdiction requirements, the absence of standing cannot be waived or forfeited17 and a court must notice a standing defect sua sponte even if no party raises it.18
Article III standing should not be confused with “prudential” standing, a set of principles that formerly limited which plaintiffs could sue even if they had standing in the constitutional sense. The Supreme Court eventually clarified that “prudential standing” was a misnomer. It untangled the prudential-standing doctrine into multiple strands, most of which are irrelevant here.19 When this article speaks of standing, it means Article III standing unless otherwise specified.
B. Article III Standing Applied to Appeals
“Although rulings on standing often turn on a plaintiff’s stake in initially filing suit, ‘Article III demands that an ‘actual controversy’ persist throughout all stages of litigation.’”20 Thus “[t]he requirement of standing ‘must be met by persons seeking appellate review, just as it must be met by persons appearing in courts of first instance.’”21 An appellant–or petitioner in the Supreme Court–must satisfy Lujan’s three requirements, tailored to initiating an appeal rather than filing an initial lawsuit. The test for standing looks to injury to the appellant caused by the lower court’s judgment instead of injury to the plaintiff caused by the defendant’s conduct. “To show standing under Article III, an appealing litigant must demonstrate that it has suffered an actual or imminent injury that is ‘fairly traceable’ to the judgment below and that could be ‘redress[ed] by a favorable ruling’” from the appellate court.22 If the appellant lacks standing to appeal, the court must dismiss the appeal.23
For example, in Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms24 the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), a division of the United States Department of Agriculture, had decided to deregulate a variety of generally engineered alfalfa. The district court held that APHIS violated a federal statute by issuing the deregulation decision without sufficiently assessing the environmental consequences. It vacated APHIS’s deregulation decision, ordered APHIS to prepare an environmental impact statement before deciding the deregulation petition, enjoined planting of the genetically engineered seeds pending APHIS’s completion of the environmental impact statement, and issued related relief. The government and owners of the intellectual-property rights in the seeds appealed, challenging the scope of the relief. The court of appeals affirmed, and the Supreme Court granted review. The respondents who opposed review (conventional seed farms and environmental groups) argued that the government and intellectual-property owners lacked standing to appeal.
The Supreme Court held that the appellants (petitioners in the Supreme Court) did have standing to appeal. Its decision illustrates how the standing requirements apply to appeals as well as some of the intricacies in evaluating standing. The Court started with the bottom line: “Petitioners are injured by their inability to sell or license [the genetically modified seeds] to prospective customers until such time as APHIS completes the required EIS. Because that injury is caused by the very remedial order that petitioners challenge on appeal, it would be redressed by a favorable ruling from this Court.”25
The respondents’ counter-arguments, which the Supreme Court rejected on the facts, also help illustrate how the traditional standing requirements translate to appeal. The respondents contended that the petitioners lacked standing to appeal because their inability to sell or license the seed was caused by a part of the injunction that petitioners did not challenge, namely the district court’s setting aside of APHIS’s deregulation decision. Thus, the argument apparently went, a favorable ruling on appeal would not redress the injury caused by the district court’s judgment (the third Lujan requirement) because even a favorable ruling would not remedy petitioners’ injury (their inability to sell or license the seed). The Supreme Court rejected the argument because the petitioners had always contended that their own proposed judgment should be entered, and that judgment would have allowed planting, and thus sales, of the seed. Additionally, the Court held, the judgment prevented even partial deregulation of the seed without an environmental impact statement, and the appellants were harmed by the preclusion of even partial deregulation. To the respondents’ argument that the injury from precluding partial deregulation was not “actual or imminent” (the first Lujan requirement) because APHIS might not partially deregulate even if allowed to, the Supreme Court explained that APHIS’ litigation conduct showed that there was “more than a strong likelihood that APHIS would partially deregulate [the seed] were it not for the District Court’s injunction.”26
Even a party that seeks United States Supreme Court review of a state-court decision must meet these standing requirements – and can obtain review even if the state-court suit did not satisfy Article III. In ASARCO, Inc. v. Kadish,27 plaintiffs brought a state-court suit against an Arizona land agency, seeking a declaration that a state statute governing mineral leases on state lands was void under both federal law and the state Constitution. Mineral lessees of state school lands intervened as defendants. The trial court upheld the statute, but the Arizona Supreme Court reversed and held the state statute invalid as applied to certain mineral leases. The U.S. Supreme Court granted the mineral lessees’ petition for certiorari. It explained that while the original plaintiffs did not have a sufficient injury to have Article III standing to bring suit in federal court, state courts were free to entertain suits that federal courts cannot. The parties seeking to invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court – the United States Supreme Court – were defendants that had lost in the Arizona Supreme Court: leaseholders who had been granted leases under the law and procedures held invalid by the Arizona Supreme Court.28 They had Article III standing to seek Supreme Court review because they were injured by the Arizona Supreme Court’s judgment. The state supreme court’s decision “poses a serious and immediate threat to the continuing validity of those leases by virtue of its holding that they were granted under improper procedures and an invalid law.”29 If the United States Supreme Court agreed with petitioners’ legal argument, it would reverse the Arizona court’s decision and remove the decision’s disabling effect on the petitioners. Thus, the petitioners “first invoking the authority of the federal courts” had met all of the Article III standing requirements: the state courts’ adverse adjudication of their legal rights was “the kind of injury cognizable in this Court on review from the state courts.” They had personally suffered actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct. The injury could fairly be traced to the challenged action, and the injury was likely to be redressed by a favorable decision.30 “When a state court has issued a judgment in a case where plaintiffs in the original action had no standing to sue under the principles governing the federal courts, we may exercise our jurisdiction on certiorari if the judgment of the state court causes direct, specific, and concrete injury to the parties who petition for our review, where the requisites of a case or controversy are also met.”31
An intervenor can also have standing to appeal, if it meets the Article III requirements. In Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media,32 the district court compelled the United States Department of Agriculture to disclose certain data about grocery stores under the Freedom of Information Act. The USDA declined to appeal, but the Food Marketing Institute (a trade association of grocery stores) intervened and appealed. The court of appeals affirmed, and the Supreme Court granted review. Discussing whether the Institute had Article III standing to appeal, the Supreme Court explained that the disclosure ordered by the trial court “likely would cause [the association’s members] some financial injury” because the grocery-store industry was highly competitive and disclosure of store-level SNAP data would help competitors win business from the Institute’s members.33 Further, this “concrete injury is … directly traceable to the judgment ordering disclosure,” and a “favorable ruling from this Court would redress the retailers’ injury by reversing the judgment.”34
C. Distinction Between Standing to Sue and Standing to Appeal
An appellant’s standing to appeal is different from the plaintiff’s standing to file the lawsuit in the first place. While an appellate court is obligated to satisfy itself that jurisdiction, and thus standing, existed in the lower court as well as in the appellate court,35 they are separate inquiries.
For example, a party that did not even have Article III standing in the trial court may still be injured by the judgment and have Article III standing to appeal. In Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,36 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had issued a civil investigative demand to a law firm, Seila Law LLC. The CFPB petitioned the district court to enforce the demand. Seila opposed the petition, contending that the CFPB’s leadership structure violated the United States Constitution because the President could only remove the agency’s director for cause. The district court enforced the demand, and the court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court granted Seila’s petition for review, and an amicus argued that Seila lacked standing to appeal because the demand would have been issued even in the absence of the CFPB director’s removal protection. The Supreme Court held that the argument did not defeat the district court’s jurisdiction. Seila, it explained, “is the defendant and did not invoke the [District] Court’s jurisdiction,” and “[w]hen the plaintiff has standing, ‘Article III does not restrict the opposing party’s ability to object to relief being sought at its expense.’”37 The Court continued that Seila’s “appellate standing is beyond dispute” because it had been “compelled to comply with the civil investigative demand and to provide documents it would prefer to withhold,” that “injury is traceable to the decision below and would be fully redressed if we were to reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals ….”38
In ASARCO, Inc. v. Kadish,39 a party injured by a state-court decision on a question of federal law obtained United States Supreme Court review, even though there would not have been standing to bring the action in federal court to begin with. By adjusting legal relations, the state court’s judgment can cause the losing party an Article III injury even if there would not previously have been an injury sufficient to support standing.40
II. How Article III Standing Can Make or Break an Appeal
Even where a client is upset enough about a trial judge’s ruling to spend the time and expense to appeal, Article III standing can block the appeal unless a favorable ruling from the appellate court will concretely and personally benefit the client. The issue most often arises in cases seeking injunctive or declaratory relief rather than money, but it can occasionally arise on appeal from a damages judgment as well. To illustrate, we walk through some recurring (and overlapping) scenarios where appeals have been dismissed for lack of standing, then examples where the courts upheld standing even though on the surface the appellant appeared to lack the required personal stake in the outcome. These scenarios are not exhaustive, but they illustrate the considerations involved and should be of the most interest to business lawyers.
A. Example Situations Where Appeals are Dismissed for Lack of Standing
Appellants Challenge Aspects of the Judgment That Do Not Adversely Affect Them
If the appellant was not injured by the challenged aspect of the lower court’s judgment, or an appellate decision could not effectively redress that injury, the appellant lacks Article III standing to appeal.
In Waid v. Snyder (In re Flint Water Cases),41 appellants objected to a provision in a class-action settlement. They objected to a provision in the district court’s decision awarding 17% of their recovery to lead class counsel and 8% to their independently retained counsel. But, if that provision were struck down, those appellants would instead pay 25% of their recovery to lead class counsel. Either way, they would pay 25% in common benefit awards and fees. “[B]ecause [these] Objectors would fare no better with or without the Common Benefit Assessments applicable to their claims, they fail to demonstrate that they have suffered an injury in fact. Accordingly, [these] Objectors lack standing to appeal the Common Benefit Assessments” at issue.42 They also could not challenge common benefit fund assessments associated with child plaintiffs, because the objectors were adults and would not be affected by any change to the common-benefit fund related to minors.43
An appellant similarly lacks Article III standing to appeal a ruling that only harms someone else. In Kimberly Regenesis, LLC v. Lee County,44 the plaintiff noticed the deposition of a county commissioner in a disability-discrimination case. The county moved for a protective order, arguing that the commissioner had quasi-judicial immunity from discovery, but the commissioner did not. When the district denied the protective-order motion, the county appealed. The Eleventh Circuit held that the county lacked Article III standing to appeal because any immunity belonged solely to the commissioner, not the county, so the county was not adversely affected by the order.45
The Original Party Does Not Appeal, An Intervenor Does Appeal, But the Intervenor Lacks Independent Standing
Diamond v. Charles46 and Hollingsworth v. Perry47 each illustrate how the appellant must personally stand to obtain a concrete benefit from a favorable appellate ruling – and the corollary that when only an intervenor appeals, the intervenor must personally stand to gain a concrete benefit. In Diamond, plaintiffs, challenging the constitutionality of an Illinois law restricting abortion, sued state officials charged with enforcing it. The would-be appellant, pediatrician Eugene Diamond, intervened as a defendant supporting the law. The district court enjoined enforcement of certain provisions but not others; all parties appealed; and the court of appeals affirmed and expanded the injunction. Diamond appealed to the Supreme Court, but the state did not.
The Supreme Court held that Diamond lacked Article III standing to prosecute the appeal. To continue the suit in the absence of the defendant state, Diamond, himself, had to satisfy Article III.48 None of the benefits he hoped to achieve through a favorable ruling, the Court explained, satisfied Article III. If the Court held the Illinois law constitutional, Diamond could not compel the state to enforce the law. A private citizen lacks a cognizable interest in the prosecution of someone else.49 Nor did he have a concrete interest on the theory that a law banning abortion would yield more live births and, eventually, more patients for him as a pediatrician. That benefit was speculative.50 His desire, as a doctor, to litigate the standards that should apply to physicians practicing abortion did not suffice, because “Article III requires more than a desire to vindicate value interests.”51 In short, “Diamond has an interest, but no direct stake, in the abortion process” and his “abstract concern … does not substitute for the concrete injury required by Art. III.”52
In Hollingsworth v. Perry,53 California state voters had passed a ballot initiative amending the state constitution to preclude same-sex marriage. Plaintiffs, same-sex couples who wanted to marry, sued in federal court, contending the state constitutional amendment violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. They named as defendants California’s governor and other state and local officials charged with enforcing California’s marriage laws. The officials refused to defend the law, so the district court allowed the initiative’s proponents to intervene to defend it. After trial, the district court declared the amendment unconstitutional and enjoined the public officials named as defendants from enforcing it. Those officials did not appeal, but the intervening initiative proponents did. The California Supreme Court meanwhile held that official proponents of a ballot initiative have authority under state law to assert the state’s interest in defending the constitutionality of the initiative when public officials refuse to do so. The court of appeals held that the intervenors had standing to defend the law and affirmed the district court’s order on the merits.
The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the intervening proponents did not have Article III standing to appeal. The Court reiterated that standing “must be met by persons seeking appellate review, just as it must be met by persons appearing in courts of first instance.”54 It explained that plaintiffs had standing to file the case in the district court, against the officials responsible for enforcing the state constitutional amendment. But once the district court issued its order, the Court held, the plaintiffs no longer had any injury to redress. The state officials had not appealed. The “only individuals who sought to appeal” were the ballot proponents. But they had not been ordered to do or refrain from doing anything. Their only interest was to vindicate the validity of a generally-applicable California law. Under settled law, the Court continued, such a “generalized grievance,” no matter how sincere, is insufficient to confer Article III standing.55 The intervenors had no “personal stake” in defending the law that was distinguishable from the general interest of every California citizen, which was not a “particularized interest” sufficient to create a case or controversy under Article III.56 Even though the California Supreme Court had held that the initiative proponents could assert the state’s interest, “standing in federal court is a question of federal law, not state law. And no matter its reasons, the fact that a State thinks a private party should have standing to seek relief for a generalized grievance cannot override our settled law to the contrary.”57
The Appellant’s Only Remaining Interest is Overturning an Attorney-Fee Award
Diamond and Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp.58 also illustrate that wanting to overturn an attorney-fee award is not enough to confer standing to appeal the underlying substantive decision.
In Diamond, the Court held that petitioner Diamond did not have standing on the merits, as already discussed. The Court then held that Diamond did not have Article III standing to appeal on the ground that a successful appeal would overturn the attorney-fee award against him. The district court had ordered him, as a losing defendant, to pay attorney fees of the prevailing plaintiffs. That award would be overturned if the Supreme Court reinstated the law on appeal. The Supreme Court held that even this concrete, direct pecuniary interest in the outcome of the appeal did not provide Article III standing. Standing, the Court held, “requires an injury with a nexus to the substantive character of the statute or regulation at issue” but the “fee award … bears no relation to the statute whose constitutionality is at issue here…. [T]he mere fact that continued adjudication would provide a remedy for an injury that is only a byproduct of the suit itself does not mean that the injury is cognizable under Art. III.”59
Lewis similarly holds that an interest in attorney fees is not enough to satisfy Article III. Continental Bank, an Illinois bank holding company, applied to Florida to establish and operate an industrial savings bank. The Florida state controller, Lewis, refused to process the application because two state statutes prohibited out-of-state holding companies from operating industrial savings banks. Continental sued Lewis in federal court, claiming Florida’s statutes violated the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. The district court agreed with Continental and ordered Lewis to process the application. Lewis appealed, and the court of appeals affirmed. But while the appeal was pending, Congress changed the governing federal statute so that it now authorized states to prohibit out-of-state ownership of the kind of bank Continental wanted to open. The Supreme Court held the Commerce Clause challenge moot because Florida’s statutes were now authorized by a federal statute.60 And just as Diamond had held that an interest in overturning an attorney-fee award was not enough to confer Article III standing, the Court held that Continental’s interest in preserving its attorney-fee award as a prevailing party also did not keep the case alive. The “interest in attorney’s fees is, of course, insufficient to create an Article III case or controversy where none exists on the merits of the underlying claim.”61
These holdings articulating that Article III is not satisfied by a litigant’s interest in an attorney-fee award are hard to reconcile with the Court’s classic and still-good-law holding that a class representative does have a sufficient Article III stake to appeal denial of class certification at the end of the case, even though the class representative’s own claim has been adjudicated. The Court held that the class representative’s interest in shifting attorney fees to absent class members, by obtaining class certification, was a sufficient stake to satisfy Article III.62 It is difficult to understand why a plaintiff’s interest in obtaining attorney fees from a defendant, or a defendant’s interest in overturning an attorney-fee award against itself, is insufficient, but a plaintiff’s interest in forcing other plaintiffs to bear some of the attorney fees is sufficient.
The Appellant’s Personal Stake Disappears During the Litigation
Sometimes the plaintiff’s personal stake, which conferred Article III standing at the commencement of the litigation, disappears during the litigation or on appeal. But “[t]he ‘case-or-controversy requirement subsists through all stages of federal judicial proceedings, trial and appellate.’”63 As such, the Supreme Court has consistently held that there is no longer an Article III case or controversy when the appellant’s personal stake disappears during an appeal.
Wittman v. Personhuballah64 illustrates this holding. After the Commonwealth of Virginia adopted new congressional districts to reflect the results of the 2010 census, voters in one of the affected districts sued, claiming the redrawing of their district’s lines was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Members of Congress from several Virginia districts intervened to defend the redistricting. A three-judge district court agreed with the voters and set a deadline for the Virginia Legislature to adopt a new redistricting plan. The Commonwealth of Virginia did not appeal, but the intervening members of Congress did. The only parties seeking to defend the redistricting plan, and seeking review of the district court’s conclusion that it was unconstitutional, were the intervening members of Congress. While the appeal was pending, the Virginia Legislature failed to meet the district court’s redistricting deadline, so a special master appointed by the district court developed a new districting plan. The Supreme Court held that because of events during the litigation, “the intervenors now lack standing to pursue the appeal.”65
One of the three members of Congress claiming standing was Representative Randy Forbes, the incumbent in District 4. He had maintained that unless the legislature’s plan was upheld, his district would be transformed from a 48% Democratic district into a safe 60% Democratic district, harming his reelection chances there. As a result, he said, he was running in District 2 instead. He had maintained that the Supreme Court’s decision would make a concrete difference. He would run in District 2 under the current plan, but District 4 if the legislature’s plan were reinstated. His attorney ultimately informed the Court that Forbes would seek election in District 2 regardless of whether the legislature’s plan were reinstated. The Court held that given this letter, “we do not see how any injury that Forbes might have suffered ‘is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.’”66 Redressability is an essential element of standing, as detailed above. The Court explained that it “need not decide whether, at the time he first intervened, Representative Forbes possessed standing. Regardless, he does not possess standing now.”67
Still, the two other appealing members of Congress – representing Districts 1 and 7 – claimed they had standing to challenge the district court’s order because, unless the legislature’s plan were reinstated, a portion of their electorate would be replaced with voters unfavorable to them, reducing their likelihood of winning reelection. The Supreme Court rejected this argument because the record contained no evidence supporting it. The Court explained that “‘the party invoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing’ that he has suffered an injury by submitting ‘affidavit[s] or other evidence.’”68 When challenged by a court or opposing party concerned about standing, “the party invoking the court’s jurisdiction cannot simply allege a nonobvious harm, without more.”69 The representatives claimed that unless the legislature’s plan were reinstated, “their districts will be flooded with Democratic voters and their chances of reelection will accordingly be reduced,” but they “have not identified record evidence establishing their alleged harm.”70 Given the holdings about the three representatives, “we conclude that none of the intervenors has standing to bring an appeal in this case. We consequently lack jurisdiction and therefore dismiss this appeal.”71
Trump v. New York72 also treated the disappearance of the plaintiff’s personal stake as a lack of standing to appeal. Trump concerned the decennial census of population in the United States. The President had issued a memorandum announcing a policy of excluding aliens who were not lawfully in the country from the decennial census. The memorandum directed the Secretary of Commerce to report, to the extent possible, not only the tabulation of population, but information permitting the President to carry out the new policy. Several plaintiffs, including the State of New York, challenged the memorandum. The district court held that the plaintiffs had Article III standing because the memorandum was chilling aliens and their families from responding to the census, degrading the quality of census data used to allocate federal funds and forcing plaintiffs to spend resources to combat the chilling effect. The district court enjoined the Secretary from reporting the newly requested information. The government appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that the appeal no longer presented an Article III case or controversy. The chilling effect that had supported standing in the district court no longer existed, because the census response period had ended.73 The threatened impact of an unlawful apportionment on congressional representation and federal funding did not suffice, because it was not yet clear whether or how the President’s policy would be implemented or what effect it would have on apportionment.74 The Supreme Court concluded that under the current facts, the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing, and the case was not ripe.75
The Appellant Obtained All its Requested Relief in the Trial Court, But Wants Review of Alternative Grounds or Unfavorable Findings
Though not technically grounded in Article III, a closely-related doctrine normally precludes appeal unless the appellant is “aggrieved” by the judgment or order being appealed. A party that received all the relief it requested in the trial court normally cannot appeal because the relief was granted on one ground rather than another,76 or to review unfavorable findings unnecessary to the judgment.77 “Ordinarily, only a party aggrieved by a judgment or order of a district court may exercise the statutory right to appeal therefrom. A party who receives all that he has sought generally is not aggrieved by the judgment affording the relief and cannot appeal from it.”78 The “rule is one of federal appellate practice, however, derived from the statutes granting appellate jurisdiction and the historic practices of the appellate courts; it does not have its source in the jurisdictional limitations of Art. III.”79 So “[i]n an appropriate case, appeal may be permitted from an adverse ruling collateral to the judgment on the merits at the behest of the party who has prevailed on the merits, so long as that party retains a stake in the appeal satisfying the requirements of Art. III.”80
The prudential “aggrieved” requirement may be ripe for reappraisal. The most-commonly-used appeal statutes do not say the appellant must be aggrieved. The Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Lexmark International v. Static Control Components, Inc. suggests that courts should not apply “prudential” doctrines to conclude that parties lack standing, but should decide non-constitutional standing issues as a matter of statutory interpretation.81 A judge-made “aggrieved” requirement that limits who can appeal, but is not found in the Constitution or statute, is arguably in tension with Lexmark.82 Several lower federal appellate courts have grappled with how Lexmark applies to the judge-made “person-aggrieved” limitation in bankruptcy appeals. Though sometimes changing terminology in response to Lexmark, they have continued to apply the person-aggrieved requirement.83
The Appellant’s Interest is in Advancing Values or Vindicating The Rule of Law
The personal stake required by Article III must be concrete, and the issue must particularly affect the party invoking federal-court jurisdiction.84 Consequently, one cannot appeal to vindicate value interests,85 the rule of law, or to obtain psychological satisfaction.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry86 illustrates this principle. As discussed above, state voters passed a ballot initiative amending the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The district court held the amendment unconstitutional and enjoined the defendant officials from enforcing it. The proponents appealed, but the state officials did not. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order. The Supreme Court reversed, concluding that the proponents did not have standing to appeal. Whereas a “litigant must seek relief for an injury that affects him in a ‘personal and individual way,’” and “possess a ‘direct stake in the outcome of the case,’” the proponents had no “‘direct stake’ in the outcome of their appeal.”87 “Their only interest in having the District Court order reversed was to vindicate the constitutional validity of a generally applicable California law” – and such a “generalized grievance,” held in common with the public at large, is “insufficient to confer standing.”88 Vindication of “value interests,” the Court repeated, is “not a ‘particularized’ interest sufficient to create a case or controversy under Article III.”89
Carl F. Schier PLC v. Nathan (In re Capital Contracting Co.)90 illustrates many of the limits on Article III standing to appeal. The facts are complicated, but the Article III holding is simple. The would-be appellant, Carl F. Schier LLP, was a law firm. It had represented the bankruptcy debtor, Capital Contracting, in a state-court lawsuit. Capital Contracting filed bankruptcy, and in the bankruptcy proceedings, Schier filed a claim for legal fees. The bankruptcy trustee then countersued Schier, claiming Schier had committed malpractice in the state court. They settled, and Schier withdrew its fee claim. When the bankruptcy trustee filed a final report, Schier objected that the appeal in the state-court litigation was a valuable asset of the bankruptcy estate that the trustee had failed to administer or abandon. The bankruptcy judge overruled the objection and approved the report, and Schier appealed to the district court. The district court dismissed the appeal, and Schier appealed to the Sixth Circuit.
The Sixth Circuit held that Schier lacked Article III standing to appeal to the district court.91 It recited that to establish injury in fact under Article III, the plaintiff must show an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized and actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. On appeal, the focus shifts to injury caused to the appellant by the judgment, rather than caused to the plaintiff by the underlying facts.92 The court concluded that “Schier has not shown that it suffered an Article III injury from the bankruptcy court’s order approving the trustee’s final report” despite the report’s failure to list as an asset the right to appeal in the state-court lawsuit.93 “[T]he failure to list those rights could not financially harm Schier” because Schier had settled with the trustee and withdrawn its attorney fee claim.94 Even if a state-court appeal would reduce the state-court judgment against Capital Contracting to zero (and, in the process, vindicate Schier’s position that it had not committed malpractice), “that reversal could not provide Schier with one cent more in attorney’s fees,” since it had withdrawn its fee claim.95 The bankruptcy court’s order did not affect Schier in a “personal and individual way.”96 Schier’s “strong feelings … over the validity of its proposed appeal” did not provide standing, because “Article III courts are not the place for ‘concerned bystanders’ to vindicate ‘value interests.’”97 Schier could not gain standing by saying the trustee and bankruptcy court were required to fix the purported error in omitting the appeal rights as an asset, because “vindication of the rule of law” is not a basis for Article III standing, nor is Schier’s “psychic satisfaction” from enforcement of the law.98
The Facts Claimed to Establish Standing are Not Set Forth in the Record
Standing to appeal creates a potential trap for the unwary. Appeals are typically decided on the factual record made before the trial court. But the appellant’s lack of standing to appeal may not come into focus until the appeal is well under way. Standing to appeal sometimes fails because the facts relied on to establish it are not in the record.
In Bender v. Williamsport Area School District,99 students contended that the school district violated the First Amendment by refusing to allow a student religious club to use school facilities on the same basis as other student clubs. The district court ruled in the students’ favor. The school district did not appeal, but one member of the school board (Youngman) did appeal. No one raised any question about his standing in the court of appeals, which ruled in his favor. After the Supreme Court granted the students’ petition for certiorari, it noticed that neither the school board nor any defendant besides Youngman opposed the students’ position, and only Youngman had appealed. The Supreme Court held that he lacked standing to appeal. He did not have standing to appeal in his capacity as a member of the school board, because he was only one member of the board, and the board, as a whole, had decided not to appeal.100 His alternate theory of standing contended that the judgment injured him in his personal capacity as parent of a child in the school. The Supreme Court rejected that argument, partly because the record did not contain evidence of that injury. As relevant here, it explained that the “presumption … is that the court below was without jurisdiction unless the contrary appears affirmatively from the record,” that the “factual predicate may not be gleaned from the briefs and arguments themselves,” and “[t]here is nothing in the record indicating anything about Mr. Youngman’s status as a parent” or that “he or his children have suffered any injury as a result of the District Court’s judgment, or as a result of the activities of [the club] since subsequent to the entry of that judgment.”101
D. Appeals Allowed Despite Superficial Absence of Standing
Even where these principles would normally require dismissal for lack of Article III standing, the Supreme Court, in some instances, allows appeals for policy reasons. These holdings apparently confirm at least the first part of Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famous observation that “[t]he life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.”102
Appeal by Individual Plaintiff, Who Has Received All Possible Individual Relief, From Denial of Class Certification
In 1980, the Supreme Court held in Deposit Guaranty National Bank v. Roper103 that if class certification is denied and individual judgment is eventually entered in the plaintiff’s favor, the plaintiff can then appeal the denial of class certification in a post-judgment appeal. Roper held that the plaintiffs, despite having judgment in their favor for all the damages they could hope to obtain, had Article III standing to challenge denial of class certification because they had an economic interest in shifting part of their attorney fees to class members (which required class certification).104
Roper is limited to situations where the appellant asserts a continuing economic interest in shifting attorney fees and costs to others. Where the appellant asserts no such interest, Roper does not apply.105 The Supreme Court has also strongly suggested that Roper is unique to class actions. It likely does not apply even to the superficially similar issue of denial of collective-action status under the Fair Labor Standards Act.106
While Roper’s holding has diminished in importance given the subsequent enactment of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f) (authorizing courts to allow immediate appeal from denial of class certification), it creates an apparent inconsistency in Article III dogma. The usual rule is that Article III is not satisfied by the appellant’s interest in either recovering, or avoiding having to pay, attorney fees incurred in the litigation itself. The Roper opinion makes clear that the Court was animated largely by a desire to prevent defendants from “picking off” class representatives by offering the representatives full relief to moot their individual claims, denying them the injury needed to satisfy Article III on appeal and obtain class certification.107 The Court apparently seized on the only available injury to satisfy Article III. Regardless, Roper makes the appellant’s desire to shift attorney fees sufficient to satisfy Article III in the setting of denial of class certification, when it is insufficient elsewhere. The Supreme Court has noted, but not resolved, the inconsistency.108
Appellant Prevailed on the Judgment, But is Allowed to Appeal for Policy Reasons
Normally, a party that received an entirely favorable judgment cannot appeal to obtain review of an unfavorable determination, because of the statutory rule that a party must be aggrieved by the judgment.109 However, the Supreme Court has sometimes recognized exceptions to this rule when there is a “policy reason … of sufficient importance to allow an appeal” by the winner below.110
One example involves patent cases. When a patentholder sues a defendant for infringement, the defendant can defend on the grounds, among others, that it is not infringing the patent or that the patent is invalid. Suppose the trial court finds that the patent is valid but the defendant did not infringe it. Can the defendant appeal the conclusion that the patent is valid? Yes, but the scope of review depends on the procedural setting.
Electrical Fittings Corp. v. Thomas Betts Co.111 was a patent-infringement suit. The defendant raised an affirmative defense that the patent was invalid. The trial court held one claim of the patent to be valid, but not infringed. The successful defendant appealed, seeking reversal of the finding that the claim was valid. The court of appeals dismissed the appeal based on the rule that the prevailing party cannot appeal a judgment in its favor. The Supreme Court reversed. It held that the prevailing defendant could not force the appellate court to review the finding that the patent was valid, which did not affect the outcome as the defendant had not infringed the patent anyway. But, the Court held, the defendant was entitled to have the validity decision eliminated from the trial court’s judgment.112
As the Court later explained, in Electrical Fittings, “policy considerations permitted an appeal.”113 The finding that the patent was valid might scare other potential infringers into complying with the patent rather than challenging it, and there was a public interest in eliminating invalid patents.114 The dispute was not moot in the Article III sense, because the defendant still “alleged a stake in the outcome.”115 And when the defendant files a counterclaim seeking a declaratory judgment that the patent is invalid, that counterclaim provides a separate basis for jurisdiction, and the court has jurisdiction to entertain defendants appeal from the validity determination.116
Another policy-driven exception to the requirement that a prevailing party cannot appeal concerns civil-rights cases. A public official sued for damages for a civil-rights violation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 can defend not only on the basis that his or her conduct did not violate the plaintiff’s constitutional rights, but also based on qualified immunity – that it was not clearly established that such conduct violated constitutional rights. Suppose an official is sued for a civil-rights violation, is found to have violated the plaintiff’s rights, but obtains a defense judgment based on qualified immunity. Can the official appeal to obtain review of the finding that he or she violated the plaintiff’s rights? The Supreme Court has held that at least the Supreme Court itself can review such an appeal, if the official regularly engages in such conduct as part of her job. In that event, the official retains the personal stake required by Article III and both she, the plaintiff, and the public all have an interest in resolving going forward whether the conduct violates the Constitution.117 An official who obtains a defense judgment in the trial court on the basis of qualified immunity can appeal to challenge the holding that her conduct violated the Constitution. Otherwise, the holding that such conduct violated the Constitution would affect the official’s and others’ conduct going forward, and there is a public interest in moving forward with such an appeal.118 The Court left open whether federal courts of appeals can review such appeals.119
The Electrical Fittings, Camreta and Roper exceptions are narrow. But, they are not necessarily exhaustive. A party that received an entirely favorable judgment in the trial court, but wants review of an unfavorable decision reached by the trial court, should consider whether the issue to be reviewed affects an important public interest going forward such that it should be resolved or the adverse finding, at least, eliminated. If so, and if the party has a continued personal stake required by Article III, there could be a policy-based reason for allowing it to appeal.
III. Conclusion
“Chance favors the prepared mind.”120 The lawyer who knows the standing requirements, and pauses to ask why the appellant has standing, will occasionally be rewarded with a silver bullet that stops the adversary’s appeal cold. Occasionally the careful lawyer may also discover a fatal defect in her own appeal, or even a way to cure the standing problem, before spending the client’s money on an appeal that will be dismissed. Either way, knowing the Article III standing requirements can give you an edge, or at least give you something to talk about at law-nerd conventions.
View Article
Greater specifics:
I have social security. Defendant constantly threatens social security
I have Medicare. Defendant constantly threatens Medicare.
I run a charity that serves the poor and immigrants. Defendant constantly threatens to cut funding to these NGOs, and has in fact, cut grants and programs to the indigent and to immigrant charity NGOs serving those groups.
I get food stamps. Defendant constantly threatens that and plans to cut food stamps are in the works
I am a voter. Trump constantly threatens voting rights and to disenfranchise millions of US citizens.
Sanctuary City. I have lived in Chicago for 30+ years since 1989 (except for 3 years in North Carolina). Defendant constantly threatens the rights of those that live in Sanctuary Cities and their funding.
Wrongful firings of govt lawyers that protect our rights. Defendant’s DOJ recently fired Maureen Comey, daughter of James Comey (who was previously fired for not pledging allegiance to Defendant). Maureen Comey had been prosecuting the Defendant in the Epstein case (his possible murder and disappearing client list)
Membership in organizations that protect immigrants, medicare, social security, food stamps, Sanctuary Cities, women’s rights (I am/was a member of NOW and Feminist Majority) and reproductive rights and rights to health care, access to Planned Parenthood which he constantly threatens. I still have 3 weeks to join some more of these to give me standing. Medicarerights.org looks good. I will like and follow to join (new web based forms of membership?) ACLU will join or at least like and follow on Instagram and FB NOW National Organization of Women. Like and follow Feminist Majority. Like and follow Planned Parenthood. Signed up to volunteer to help Planned Parenthood as a volunteer. Planned Parenthood is constantly under attack by Defendant and his thugs and goons and cronies.
I am a Medicare insurance recipient,
what Google AI says about Medicare status under Defendant’s present administration:
Based on the latest reports available from July 2025, there are several actions and proposals by the Trump administration that could be perceived as “cuts” or have a negative impact on Medicare, along with statements emphasizing protection of the program: Potential Medicare Cuts Triggered by Deficit: A budget reconciliation bill signed into law by President Trump in July 2025, while focused on various areas, including tax cuts, is projected to increase the deficit significantly. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes that this could trigger mandatory spending cuts to Medicare under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010. The Medicare Rights Center estimates these cuts could total nearly $500 billion over the next decade, including a $45 billion reduction next year alone, unless Congress steps in to prevent them. Weakened Medicare Advantage Oversight: The Trump administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule for the 2026 Medicare Advantage (MA) program that reportedly omitted several consumer protections that were part of a previous proposed rule, according to the Center for Medicare Advocacy. Restricted Access to Care through Medicare Advantage: Project 2025, which aims to prepare for a second Trump term, proposes making Medicare Advantage (MA) the default enrollment option for all Medicare beneficiaries. The Center for American Progress warns that this could restrict older Americans’ access to care, limit choices, require prior authorization for services, and deny recommended care. They also estimate that a higher MA enrollment could lead to billions in overpayments to corporations at the expense of Medicare enrollees and taxpayers. Faster Clawback of Hospital Payments: The Trump administration plans to accelerate the clawback of $7.8 billion in Medicare payments to hospitals related to the 340B drug program. The American Hospital Association expressed concerns about this accelerated timeline and potential further cuts based on drug acquisition cost surveys. Executive Actions Impacting Drug Costs: The Trump administration rescinded an executive order designed to lower prescription drug costs for Medicare and Medicaid recipients, removing a $2 copayment cap on generic medications for Medicare beneficiaries and terminating a pilot program assisting states with expensive cell and gene therapies, according to Congressman Steve Cohen. However, The White House published a fact-check article stating that President Trump would always protect Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits, and that the administration would not cut these programs. They highlight President Trump’s repeated statements to that effect and emphasize the administration’s focus on eliminating fraud and waste in entitlement programs, citing estimates from the U.S. Government Accountability Office regarding improper payments in Medicare and Medicaid. It’s important to consider that the interpretations of these actions and proposals, and their potential impact, can differ depending on the perspective and priorities of different organizations and individuals.
Next Pasulka (Sex for Custody) Court Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2025 for Status
kenneth ditkowsky
3:35 PM (39 minutes ago)
It is amazing that clout heavy politician and Attorney Pasulka is still on the loose. Can the politicians wait out the situation until prosecution become impossible. Why is law enforcement (STATES ATTORNEY) not pushing the case to trial? Why is the judge allowing Pasulka to wait out the lives of his victims? Where is the Bar Association? Of course we all know the “skinny!” The reason is the same that the Court appointed guardians are able to prey on the elderly and their families. The delay in this case is more proof of the corruption in the Courts and an affirmation that OPERATION GREYLORD’s termination was grossly premature. I appreciate being kept informed on this case of predation in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. Corruption is subtle, difficult to prove and almost impossible to get resolved in the America public’s favor. Pasulka’s averred sex for child custody scam is just as venal and dishonorable as Financial Elder Abuse (720 ILCS 5/17 – 56) and both just as difficult to get prosecuted. I wonder, if the delay in this case may be a cover for illicit sexual misconduct by some of the presiding Judges in these Pasulka child custody cases! John Kass’ article has disappeared from Goggle – this is the article that exposed how to become a Judge in Cook County, Illinois.
Ken Ditkowsky
from a Chicago Trib Article
Chicago family lawyer charged with sexually attacking a client and two associates at law firm
A prominent Chicago family attorney has been charged with sexually attacking a client and two associates at his law firm.
David Pasulka, 61, is accused of sexually assaulting one of the associates at least five times in the firm’s offices, prosecutors said in court Monday.
He’s also charged with inappropriately touching another associate more than 60 times, and sexually abusing a client after telling her she would need to “do a little extra” in order to gain custody of her children.
Pasulka faces one count of criminal sexual assault, one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and one count of criminal sexual abuse. A judge ordered Pasulka held on $10,000 bond, rejecting prosecutors’ argument that he be denied bail.
The allegations against Pasulka were made public late July in a complaint filed by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
Pasulka was taken off Cook County’s list of approved court-appointed child representatives by the presiding judge of the Domestic Relations Division, according to an internal email provided by the Office of the Chief Judge.
Grace Dickler also suspended Pasulka’s participation in any other of the division’s court committees.
The criminal charges accuse Pasulka of sexually assaulting a female lawyer at his firm several times over a six-year period beginning in 2012. Prosecutors said Pasulka would call the women into his office and remind her that he had the power to hurt her career if she ever complained publicly.
Another female lawyer at the firm said she was subjected many times to fondling, rubbing and touching while at work between 2015 and 2017.
In the third case, Pasulka allegedly demanded sex in return for a favorable custody recommendation in March of 2017.
Pasulka had been appointed to represent two children in a divorce case. During a private meeting with the children’s mother, Pasulka began inappropriately touching her, prosecutors said.
Pasulka told her she needed to be a “good girl” and “do a little extra” if she wanted custody of her children, prosecutors said. He then told the mother to return to the office that evening.
Instead, the mother told her own attorney that Pasulka had inappropriately touched her and, four days later, she reported the incident to police.
here are my sample letters and you can google contact my senator or congress person and click on the contact link. same for your governor.
JUSTICE 4 EVERY1, NFP
5958A N. Milwaukee Ave JoAnne Denison, Executive Director Chicago, IL 60630 Cell Phone 773-255-7608 ph 312-553-1300 http://www.justice4every1.com fax 773-423-4455 JoAnne@Justice4Every1.com A social Justice Services NFP
To: Illinois Gov. Pritzker
April 18, 2025–Good Friday so do something good!
RE: Immediate demand to return 238 wrongfully deported immigrants from a torture prison in El Salvador on 3/15/25
Dear Gov. Pritzker;
This is to demand that your offices immediately contact the nefarious President of El Salvador and his offices and work together to return some 238 wrongfully deported immigrants to the US where they should be provided with a skilled immigration lawyer to defend their immigration cases.
This is a dire travesty of justice and it undermines democracy, human and civil rights, not just in the US, but throughout the world.
Almost none of these men have committed any crime, many had green (LPR) cards and all of them were entitled to notice, a petition and a hearing prior to deportation and none of them received that. In essence, they were summarily kidnaped to El Salvador.
The US Supreme court has already agreed with such an analysis and has made the following finding:
“The order properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the Supreme Court’s ruling said. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf, p.2.
As a elected representative of Illinois voters , I am expecting that you and your offices work assiduously to remedy this situation since the present Trump administration is clearly infirm and has dilapidated into some deep dark abyss of full blown incessant unmitigated ineptitude.
The future of US and world democracy depends on your work, so please do it with all alacrity and earnest.
5958A N. Milwaukee Ave JoAnne Denison, Executive Director Chicago, IL 60630 Cell Phone 773-255-7608 ph 312-553-1300 http://www.justice4every1.com fax 773-423-4455 JoAnne@Justice4Every1.com A social Justice Services NFP
To: All US Senators & Congress People via email or fax Washington DC 20510
April 18, 2025–Good Friday so do something good!
RE: Immediate demand to return 238 wrongfully deported immigrants from a torture prison in El Salvador on 3/15/25
Dear Senator or Congressperson;
This is to demand that your offices immediately contact the nefarious President of El Salvador and his offices and work together to return some 238 wrongfully deported immigrants to the US where they should be provided with a skilled immigration lawyer to defend their immigration cases.
This is a dire travesty of justice and it undermines democracy, human and civil rights, not just in the US, but throughout the world.
Almost none of these men have committed any crime, many had green (LPR) cards and all of them were entitled to notice, a petition and a hearing prior to deportation and none of them received that. In essence, they were summarily kidnaped to El Salvador.
The US Supreme court has already agreed with such an analysis and has made the following finding:
“The order properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the Supreme Court’s ruling said. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf, p.2.
As a elected federal representative of US voters , I am expecting that you and your offices work assiduously to remedy this situation since the present administration is clearly infirm and has dilapidated into some deep dark abyss of full blown incessant unmitigated ineptitude.
The future of US and world democracy depends on your work, so please do it with all alacrity and earnest. I greatly appreciate your efforts in this matter.
About a week after President Donald Trump took office, Jonathan Guerrero was sitting at the Philadelphia car wash where he works when immigration agents burst in.
The agents didn’t say why they were there and didn’t show their badges, Guerrero recalled. So the 21-year-old didn’t get a chance to explain that although his parents were from Mexico, he had been born right there in Philadelphia.
“They looked at me and made me put my hands up without letting me explain that I’m from here,” Guerrero said.
An agent pointed his gun at Guerrero and handcuffed him. Then they brought in other car wash workers, including Guerrero’s father, who is undocumented. When agents began checking IDs, they finally noticed that Guerrero was a citizen and quickly let him go.
“I said, ‘Look, man, I don’t know who these guys are and what they’re doing,” said Guerrero. “With anything law-related, I just stay quiet.”
Less than two months into the new Trump administration, there has been a small but steady beat of reported cases like Guerrero’s.
In Texas, a 10-year-old citizen recovering from brain cancer was detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint and eventually deported to Mexico with her undocumented parents and other citizen siblings in February. The family said it was rushing her to an emergency checkup in Houston when Border Patrol agents ignored a hospital letter that the family had used to go through checkpoints before. An agency spokesperson said the family’s account was inaccurate but declined to provide specifics.
It’s unclear exactly how many citizens have faced the Trump administration’s dragnet so far. And while previous administrations have mistakenly held Americans too, there’s no firm count of those incidents either.
The government does not release figures on citizens who have been held by immigration authorities. Neither Customs and Border Protection nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles interior immigration enforcement, would provide numbers to ProPublica on how many Americans have been mistakenly detained.
Experts and advocates say that what is clear to them is that Trump’s aggressive immigration policies — such as arrest quotas for enforcement agents — make it likely that more citizens will get caught up in immigration sweeps.
“It’s really everyone — not just noncitizens or undocumented people — who are in danger of having their liberty violated in this kind of mass deportation machinery,” said Cody Wofsy, the deputy director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Asked about reports of Americans getting caught up in administration’s enforcement policies, an ICE spokesperson told ProPublica in a written statement that agents are allowed to ask for citizens’ identification: “Any US immigration officer has authority to question, without warrant, any alien or person believed to be an alien concerning his or her right to be, or to remain, in the United States.” The agency did not respond to questions about specific cases.
The U.S. has gone through spasms of detaining and even deporting large numbers of citizens. In the 1930s and 1940s, federal and local authorities forcibly exiled an estimated 1 million Mexican Americans, including hundreds of thousands of American-born children.
Spanning both Obama administrations, an NPR investigation found, immigration authorities asked local authorities to detain about 700 Americans. Meanwhile, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report found that immigration authorities asked to hold roughly 600 likely citizens during Trump’s first term. The GAO also found that Trump actually deported about 70 likely citizens.
The GAO report did not get into any individual cases. But lawsuits brought against federal immigration agencies detail dozens of cases where plaintiffs received a settlement.
When local deputies in Pierce County, Washington, arrested Carlos Rios on suspicion of drunken driving in 2019, not even the fact that he had his U.S. passport could convince the deputies — or the ICE agents who took him into federal custody — that he was a citizen.
Rios, who immigrated from Mexico in the 1980s and became a citizen in 2000, often carried his passport with him in case he picked up a welding job on a Coast Guard ship or a commercial fishing job that took him into international waters. But no one listened to him when Rios insisted repeatedly that he was a citizen and begged Pierce County jail officials and ICE officers to check his bag. Rios ended up being held for a week. ICE did not comment on the case.
Rios received a $125,000 settlement but is still haunted by his time in detention.
“I don’t even have to close my eyes,” Rios said. “I remember every single second.”
There are other, more recent instances too. This January, in the last days of President Joseph Biden’s time in office, Border Patrol conducted raids in Kern County, California, more than four hours from the border.
Among those detained was Ernesto Campos, a U.S. citizen and owner of a Bakersfield landscaping company. Agents stopped Campos’ truck and slashed his tires when he refused to hand over his keys.
At that point, Campos began recording on his phone and protested that he is a U.S. citizen.
In the video, agents said they were arresting Campos for “alien smuggling.” (His undocumented employee was in the truck with Campos.) Border Patrol told a local TV station that agents were also concerned about human trafficking.
Campos has still not been charged. His lawyer said he was held for four hours.
Campos’ case is mentioned in a recent lawsuit by the ACLU of Southern California and the United Farm Workers contending that agents in the same operation detained and handcuffed a 56-year-old grandmother who is a legal permanent resident. The suit argues that Border Patrol agents “went on a fishing expedition” that profiled Latinos and farmworkers.
Asked about Campos’ case and the lawsuit, Customs and Border Protection said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.
While there are a number of fixes the government could make to limit the wrongful detention of citizens, immigration authorities have often failed to follow through.
After a series of lawsuits against the Obama administration, ICE began requiring officers to consult with supervisors before detaining someone who claims to be a citizen, and to not arrest someone if the evidence of citizenship “outweighs evidence to the contrary.” But the GAO report on mistaken detention of citizens noted that ICE wasn’t actually training officers to follow the policy. (In response to the GAO report, ICE said it revised its training materials. It told ProPublica that agents are still following those policies for determining citizenship)
Customs and Border Protection and ICE are not even required to track how often they hold citizens on immigration charges, the GAO found. While ICE agents could note in their database if someone they’ve investigated turns out to be a citizen, the GAO found that they are not required to do so. As a result, records are often wrong and left uncorrected even after agents have been told of a mistake. Someone flagged incorrectly in an ICE database once may be forced to deal with questions about their citizenship for years.
Peter Sean Brown, another U.S. citizen born in Philadelphia, was mistaken more than 20 years ago for a Jamaican national living in the U.S. illegally. When he was later arrested in 2018 for a probation violation, immigration officials requested he be held, despite their own records documenting the case of mistaken identity, his lawyer said.
Brown repeatedly insisted he was a citizen, a claim agents are supposed to immediately review.
“I’M TRYING TO OBTAIN INFORMATION CONCERNING A UNVALID ICE HOLD,” Brown wrote to guards on April 19, 2018, while still detained at the Monroe County jail in Florida. “IM A US CITIZEN…HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE?”
ICE eventually released him — after three weeks in detention.
Correction
March 19, 2025: This story originally incorrectly referred to an agency that provided statements to ProPublica. It was Customs and Border Protection, not Border Patrol.
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
The for-profit prison company GEO Group has surged in value under President Donald Trump. Investors are betting big on immigration detention. Its stock price doubled after Election Day.
But despite its soaring fortunes, the $4 billion company continues to resist having to pay detainees more than $1 a day for cleaning facilities where the government has forced them to live.
At the 1,575-bed detention center GEO runs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tacoma, Washington, detainees once prepared meals, washed laundry and scrubbed toilets, doing jobs that would otherwise require 85 full-time employees, the company estimated. The state’s minimum wage at the time was $11 an hour. (It’s now $16.66.) In 2017, Washington sued GEO to enforce it, and in October 2021 a federal jury ruled unanimously in the state’s favor.
This year, GEO and Washington are back in court — for a third time — as the company tries to reverse the earlier decision that sided with the state. GEO has brought in contract cleaners at the Tacoma facility while the case plays out, keeping detainees there from paid work and from having a way to earn commissary money.
The legal battle has national repercussions as the number of ICE detainees around the country rises to its highest level in five years. The vast majority are held in private facilities run by GEO or corporate competitors like CoreCivic. If following state minimum wages becomes the norm, Trump’s immigration crackdown could cost the country even more than it otherwise would — unless private detention centers absorb the cost themselves or decide to cut back on cleaning, which Tacoma detainees have already accused GEO of doing.
GEO frames the lawsuit as a fight over the federal government’s authority to make the laws of the nation. Multiple courts have decided that the Fair Labor Standards Act, which sets the federal minimum wage, does not apply to detained migrants. At issue in the Tacoma case is the state minimum wage.
“Simply put, we believe the State of Washington has unconstitutionally violated the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution,” GEO wrote in a news release.
The company did not respond to a request for comment from ProPublica. ICE and CoreCivic declined to comment.
GEO’s latest legal salvo came last month.
A three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had recently affirmed lower courts’ rulings. GEO had to pay state minimum wage at the Tacoma facility. The company was also ordered to hand over $17 million in back wages, plus $6 million for “unjust enrichment.” The combined penalties amounted to less than 1 percent of GEO’s total revenues in 2024.
Rather than pay up, GEO petitioned on Feb. 6 for a rehearing by the full 9th Circuit. In the news release, it vowed to “vigorously pursue all available appeals.”
It isn’t that GEO lacks the ability to pay, the company has made clear in legal filings. Its gross profit from its Tacoma facility, today called the Northwest ICE Processing Center, was about $20 million a year when Washington filed its lawsuit. The company told a judge in 2021 it could “pay the Judgments twenty times over.”
The real issue is the precedent the Tacoma case could set. GEO, which manages 16 ICE detention facilities across the country, faces similar lawsuits in California and Colorado. The California case, also before the 9th Circuit, is on hold pending the outcome of Washington’s. Colorado’s is winding its way through a lower court.
GEO is expected to fight the case all the way to the Supreme Court, if needed.
If eventually forced to pay state minimum wages across the country, the company could decide to pay detainees more or else hire outside employees at all its locations – either of which would potentially eat into its profits, stock price and dividends.
The company also could try to renegotiate its long-term contracts with ICE for a higher rate of reimbursement, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, an expert in incarceration, noted in an article for the Brennan Center for Justice.
Or GEO could respond to higher labor costs another way. After the jury decision against it in 2021, the company paused Tacoma’s Voluntary Work Program, as it is known, rather than pay detainees there minimum wage. Some could no longer afford phone calls to family members. (For such detainees, the program had never been entirely voluntary. “I need the money desperately,” one testified. “I have no choice.”)
The facility also “got really gross” after the sudden stoppage, a Mexican detainee told the Associated Press at the time. “Nobody cleaned anything.”
GEO brought in contract cleaners eventually.
Mike Faulk, a spokesperson for the Washington state attorney general’s office, said testimony in the minimum-wage issue highlights the problem with housing detainees in private prisons: profit motive. Not only did GEO pay $1 a day for cleaning in Tacoma, it budgeted less than $1 per meal that each detainee ate, one kitchen worker testified. “So the grade of food is abysmal,” Faulk said of the detainee’s testimony. “He routinely picked out grasshoppers/insects from the food.”
For its part, GEO argues that Washington wants to unfairly — and hypocritically — hold the Tacoma facility to a standard that even state facilities don’t have to meet. The company has noted that a carveout in Washington law exempts state prisons from minimum-wage requirements, allowing the state to pay prisoners no more than $40 a week. The federal government, taking GEO’s side, has made the same point in “friend of the court” briefs under both the first Trump administration and the Biden administration. So did a dissenting judge in the recent 9th Circuit decision.
But to liken state prisons to a privately run immigration facility is an “apples and oranges” comparison, the 9th Circuit decided. Washington doesn’t let private companies run its state prisons. And the migrants in Tacoma are detained under civil charges, not as convicted criminals.
As judges have noted, GEO’s contract with ICE states that the prison company must follow “all applicable federal, state, and local laws and standards,” including “labor laws and codes.” It also holds that GEO must pay detainees at least $1 a day for the Voluntary Work Program. The federal government “made a deliberate choice to dictate to GEO the minimum rate,” the 9th Circuit wrote in its most recent decision, but “it also made a deliberate choice not to dictate to GEO a maximum rate.”
Conditions in Tacoma are worsening as the number of detainees rises, according to Maru Mora Villalpando, founder of the activist group La Resistencia. The group is in regular contact with people inside the detention center.
Meal service, Mora Villalpando said, is faltering: “Dinner used to be at 5. Then 6. Now it’s 9.”
Cleaning is faltering, too, she said. Without detainee labor, the outside cleaners have to do it all.
“But these people,” Mora Villalpando said, “can’t keep up.”
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Reporting Highlights
Unexpected Role: Flight attendants were told they would fly rock bands, sports teams and sun-seekers. Then Global Crossing Airlines started expanding into federal deportation flights.
Human Struggles: Some flight attendants said they ignored orders not to interact with detainees. “I’d say ‘hola’ back,” said one flight attendant. “We’re not jerks.”
Safety Concerns: Flight attendants received training in how to evacuate passengers but said they weren’t told how to usher out detainees whose hands and legs were bound by shackles.
The deportation flight was in the air over Mexico when chaos erupted in the back of the plane, the flight attendant recalled. A little girl had collapsed. She had a high fever and was taking ragged, frantic breaths.
The flight attendant, a young woman who went by the nickname Lala, said she grabbed the plane’s emergency oxygen bottle and rushed past rows of migrants chained at the wrists and ankles to reach the girl and her parents.
By then, Lala was accustomed to the hard realities of working charter flights for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She’d learned to obey instructions not to look the passengers in the eyes, not to greet them or ask about their well-being. But until the girl collapsed, Lala had managed to escape an emergency.
Lala worked for Global Crossing Airlines, the dominant player in the loose network of deportation contractors known as ICE Air. GlobalX, as the charter company is also called, is lately in the news. Two weeks ago, it helped the Trump administration fly hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador despite a federal court order blocking the deportations, triggering a showdown that experts fear could become a full-blown constitutional crisis.
In interviews with ProPublica, Lala and six other current and former GlobalX flight attendants provided a window into a part of the deportation process that is rarely seen and little understood. For migrants who have spent months or years trying to reach this country and live here, it is the last act, the final bit of America they may experience.
An ICE detainee waves from inside a bus that transported passengers to the airport before departing from Seattle’s Boeing Field on a GlobalX deportation flight in February. Credit:Emily Schultz
All but one of the flight attendants requested anonymity or asked that only a nickname be used, fearing retribution or black marks as they looked for new jobs in an insular industry.
Because ICE, GlobalX and other charter carriers did not respond to questions after being provided with detailed lists of this story’s findings, the flight attendants’ individual accounts are hard to verify. But their stories are consistent with one another. They are also generally consistent with what has been said about ICE Air in legalfilings, newsaccounts, academic research and publicly released copies of the ICE Air Operations Handbook.
That morning over Mexico, Lala said, the girl’s oxygen saturation level was 70% — perilously low compared with a healthy person’s 95% or higher. Her temperature was 102.3 degrees. The flight had a nurse on contract who worked alongside its security guards. But beyond giving the girl Tylenol, the nurse left the situation in Lala’s hands, she recalled.
Lala broke the rule about talking to detainees. The parents told Lala their daughter had a history of asthma. The mom, who Lala said had epilepsy, seemed on the verge of her own medical crisis.
Lala placed the oxygen mask on the girl’s face. The nurse removed her socks to keep her from further overheating. Lala counted down the minutes, praying for the girl to keep breathing.
The stories shared by ICE Air flight attendants paint a different picture of deportations from the one presented to the public, especially under President Donald Trump. On social media, the White House has depicted a military operation carried out with ruthless efficiency, using Air Force C-17s, ICE agents in tactical vests and soldiers in camo.
The reality is that 85% of the administration’s “removal” flights — 254 flights as of March 21, according to the advocacy group Witness at the Border — have been on charter planes. Military flights have now all but ceased. While there are ICE officers and hired security guards on the charters, the crew members on board are civilians, ordinary people swept up in something most didn’t knowingly sign up for.
When the flight attendants joined GlobalX, it was a startup with big plans. It sold investors and new hires alike on a vision of VIP clients, including musicians and sports teams, and luxury destinations, especially in the Caribbean. “You can’t beat the eXperience,” read a company tagline.
But as the airline grew, more and more of its planes were filled with migrants in chains. Some flight attendants were livid about it.
Last year, an anonymous GlobalX employee sent an all-caps, all-staff screed that ricocheted around the startup. “WHERE IS THE COMPANY GOING?” the email asked. “YOU SIGNED A 5 YEAR CONTRACT WITH ICE? … WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS BECOMING A PRESTIGE CHARTER AIRLINE?”
One flight attendant said he kept waiting for the sports teams his new bosses had talked about as he flew deportation routes. “You know, the NFL charters, the NBA charters, whatever the hockey one is …” he said.
A second said his planes’ air conditioning kept breaking — an experience consistent with at least two publicly reported onboard incidents — and their lavatories kept breaking, something another flight attendant reported as well. But the planes kept flying. “They made us flush with water bottles,” he said.
But the flight attendants were most concerned about their inability to treat their passengers humanely — and to keep them safe. (In 2021, an ICE spokesperson told the publication Capital & Main that the agency “follows best practices when it comes to the security, safety and welfare of the individuals returned to their countries of origin.”)
They worried about what would happen in an emergency. Could they really get over a hundred chained passengers off the plane in time?
“They never taught us anything regarding the immigration flights,” one said. “They didn’t tell us these people were going to be shackled, wrists to fucking ankles.”
“We have never gotten a clear answer on what we do in an ICE Air evacuation,” another said. “They will not give us an answer.”
“It’s only a matter of time,” a third said, before a deportation flight ends in disaster.
Lala didn’t think she had a chance at a flight attendant job. She hadn’t, in truth, remembered applying to GlobalX until a recruiter called to say the startup was coming to her city. “But I guess I did apply through LinkedIn?” she said. She’d been working an office job — long hours, little flexibility — and was looking for something new.
The job interviews were held at a resort hotel. The room was packed with dozens of aspirants when Lala showed up. After the first round, only about 20 were asked to stay. She couldn’t believe she was one of them. After the second round came a job offer: $26 an hour plus a daily expense allowance. Soon Lala got a uniform: a blue cardigan, a white polo shirt and an eye-catching scarf in cyan and light green.
For part of her Federal Aviation Administration-mandated four-week training, her class stayed in a motel with a pool at the edge of Miami International Airport. Just across the street, on the fourth floor of a concrete-clad office building ringed by palm trees, was GlobalX’s headquarters.
“In the beginning, we were told that because it’s a charter, it’s only gonna be elites, celebrities,” Lala said. “Everybody was really excited.”
But flying was not going to be all glitz. The real reason for having flight attendants is safety. GlobalX was certified by the FAA as a Part 121 scheduled air carrier, the same as United or Delta, and it and its crew members were subject to the same strict standards.
“We’re there to evacuate you,” one recruit told ProPublica. “Yes, we make good drinks, but we evacuate you.”
Lala’s class practiced water landings in the pool at the nearby Pan Am Flight Academy. They practiced door drills — yelling out commands, shoving open heavy exit doors — in a replica Airbus A320 cabin. They learned CPR and how to put out fires. They took written and physical tests, and if they didn’t score at least 90%, they had to retake them.
They were reminded, over and over, that their job was a vocation, one with a professional code: No matter who the passengers were, flight attendants were in charge of the cabin, responsible for safety in the air.
Lala’s official “airman” certificate arrived from the FAA a few weeks after training was done. She was cleared to fly, ready to see the world.
But what she would see wasn’t what she signed up for. The company was growing beyond glamorous charters. GlobalX was moving into the deportation business.
Her bosses delivered the news casually, she recalled: “It was like, ‘Oh yeah, we got a government contract.’”
The new graduates were offered a single posting: Harlingen, Texas. Deportation flights were five days a week, sometimes late into the night. Lala went to Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia and, for refueling, Panama.
A standard flight had more than a dozen private security guards — contractors working for the firm Akima — along with a single ICE officer, two nurses, and a hundred or more detainees. (Akima did not respond to a request for comment.) The guards were in charge of delivering food and water to the detainees and taking them to the lavatories. This left the flight attendants, whose presence was required by the FAA, with little to do.
“Arm and disarm doors, that was our duty,” Lala said.
The flights had their own set of rules, which the crew members said they learned from a company policy manual or from chief flight attendants. Don’t talk to the detainees. Don’t feed them. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t walk down the aisles without a guard escorting you. Don’t sit in aisle seats, where detainees could get close to you. Don’t wear your company-issued scarf because of “safety concerns that a detainee might grab it and use it against us,” Lala said.
“You don’t do nothing,” said a member of another GlobalX class. “Just sit down in your seats and be quiet.” If a detainee looked at him, he was supposed to look out the window.
A chained detainee boards a GlobalX flight at Seattle’s Boeing Field in February. Credit:Emily Schultz
A rare public statement from the company about life aboard ICE Air came in a 2023 earnings call with GlobalX founder and then-CEO Ed Wegel, when he discussed the company’s work for federal agencies like ICE. GlobalX employees “essentially don’t do much on the airplane,” Wegel said. “Our flight attendants are there in case of an emergency. The passengers are monitored by guards that are placed on board the airplane by one of those agencies.”
Fielding a question about how GlobalX ensures passengers are treated humanely, Wegel continued: “There have been threats made to our crew members, and they’re especially trained to deal with those. But we haven’t seen any mistreatment at all.”
Flight attendants said they had little to do but sit in their jumpseats after delivering the preflight safety briefing in English to the mostly Spanish-speaking passengers. Above 10,000 feet, the two in the rear usually moved to passenger rows near the cockpit, then sat again. Some did crosswords. Others took photos out the window. On a deportation to Guatemala, one saw his first erupting volcano.
Lala had been scared before her first deportation flight, worried that violence might break out. But fear soon gave way to discomfort at how detainees were treated. “Not being able to serve them, not being able to look at them, I didn’t think that was right,” she said.
Some flight attendants, drawn to the profession because they liked taking care of people, couldn’t help but break protocol with passengers. “If they said ‘hola’ or something,” one said, “I’d say ‘hola’ back. We’re not jerks.”
Another recalled taking a planeload of children and their escorts on a domestic transfer from the southern border to an airport in New York. He tried to slip snacks to the kids. “Even the chaperones were like, ‘Don’t give them any food,’” he said. “And I’m like, ‘Where is your humanity?’” (A second flight attendant said that children on a New York flight were fed by their escorts.)
While flight attendants were allowed to interact with the guards, the dynamic was uncomfortable. It came down to a question of who was in charge — and which agency, ICE or the FAA, ultimately held sway. (The FAA declined to comment on this story and directed questions to ICE.)
The guards often asked flight attendants to heat up the food they brought from home. They asked for drinks, for ice. “They treated us like we were their maids,” said Akilah Sisk, a former flight attendant from Texas.
“In their eyes, the detainees are not the passengers,” another flight attendant said. “The passengers are the guards. And we’re there for the guards.”
Some guards thumbed their noses at the FAA safety rules that flight attendants were supposed to enforce while airborne, multiple flight attendants recalled. “One reported me because I asked him to sit down in the last 10 minutes,” Sisk said. “But you’re still on a freaking plane. You gotta listen to our words.”
Flight attendants said that if they told guards to fasten seatbelts during takeoff or stow carry-ons under a seat, they risked getting reported to their bosses at GlobalX, who they said wanted to keep ICE happy. The guards would complain to the in-flight supervisor, Sisk said, and eventually it would get back to the flight attendant.
“We’d get an email from somebody in management: ‘Why are you guys causing problems?’” another flight attendant recalled. “They were more worried about losing the contract than about anything else.”
Nothing bothered flight attendants more than the fact that most of their passengers were in chains. What would happen if a flight had to be evacuated?
Most of the migrants crowding the back seats of ICE Air’s planes have not been, historically, convicted criminals. ICE makes restraints mandatory nonetheless. “Detainees transported by ICE Air aircraft will be fully restrained by the use of handcuffs, waist chains, and leg irons,“ reads an unredacted version of the 2015 ICE Air Operations Handbook, which was obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group.
The handbook allows for other equipment “in special circumstances, i.e., spit masks, mittens, leg braces, cargo straps, humane restraint blanket, etc.” Multiple lawsuits on behalf of African asylum-seekers concern the use of one such item, known as the Wrap, a cross between a straitjacket and a sleeping bag. A flight attendant said detainees restrained in the device are strapped upright in their seats or, if less compliant, lengthwise across a row of seats. Getting “burritoed, I call it,” the person said.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties investigated the asylum-seekers’ complaints and found ICE lacked “sufficient policies” on the Wrap, but how the immigration agency addressed the finding is not publicly known. ICE responded to one lawsuit by saying detainees were not abused; it said another should be dismissed, in part because it was filed in the wrong place. The cases are pending.
Use of the Wrap continues. A video from Seattle’s Boeing Field taken in February shows officers and guards carrying a wrapped migrant into the cabin of a deportation plane.A choppy video feed shows ICE officers and guards carrying a migrant in a full-body restraint into a GlobalX deportation plane at Seattle’s Boeing Field in February. Credit:Obtained by ProPublica via a public records request
Neither the ICE Air handbook, nor FAA regulations, nor flight attendant training in Miami explained how to empty a plane full of people whose movements were, by design, so severely hampered. Shackled detainees didn’t even qualify as “able-bodied” enough to sit in exit rows.
To flight attendants, the restraints seemed at odds with the FAA’s “90-second rule,” a decades-old manufacturing standard that says an aircraft must be built for full evacuation in 90 seconds even with half the exits blocked.
Lala and others said no one told them how to evacuate passengers in chains. “Honestly, I don’t know what we would do,” she said.
The flight attendants are not alone in voicing concerns.
In an interview with ProPublica, Bobby Laurie, an airline safety expert and former flight attendant, called the arrangement on ICE Air flights “disturbing.”
“Part of flight attendant training is locating those passengers who can help you in an evacuation,” Laurie told ProPublica. That would have to be the guards. “But if they have to help you,” who is helping the detainees, Laurie wondered.
According to formal ICE Air incident reports reviewed by Capital & Main, the deportation network had at least six accidents requiring evacuations between 2014 and 2019. In at least two cases, both on a carrier called World Atlantic, the evacuations were led not by flight attendants but by untrained guards. Both took longer than 90 seconds, though not by much: two-and-a-half minutes for the first, “less than 2 minutes” for the next. But in a third case, it took seven minutes for 115 shackled detainees to escape a smoke-filled jet.
In one of the World Atlantic incidents, part of the landing gear broke, a wing caught fire and the smell of burning rubber seeped in, according to investigative records obtained by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights. In an email to ICE Air officials, an agency employee aboard the plane later wrote that flight attendants made no emergency announcements for passengers. The flight attendants simply got themselves out.
The ICE officer, guards and nurse were “confused on what to do and in which direction to exit during distress,” the officer wrote. He said that other than the flight crew, “no one has received any training on emergency evacuation situations.”
The University of Washington’s collection does not include findings or recommendations from ICE based on what happened, and ICE did not say what they were when asked by ProPublica. The National Transportation Safety Board said that after the accident, World Atlantic launched a campaign to reinspect landing gear, gave employees and contractors further training, and revised its procedures for inspections. The airline did not respond to questions from ProPublica.
An ICE Air flight was evacuated in Alexandria, Louisiana, in April 2018 after a piece of the landing gear failed upon touchdown. All detainees were helped off the plane by guards, according to emails to ICE officials from an agency employee who was on board. Credit:Courtesy of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights
Other reports obtained by the University of Washington mention fuel spills, loss of cabin air pressure and a “large altercation” on ICE Air after 2019 but no more evacuations, at least as of June 2022. More recent incidents that have been mentioned in the press include an engine fire last summer on World Atlantic and a failed GlobalX air conditioning unit that sent 11 detainees to the hospital with “heat-related injuries.”
The rare guidance some flight attendants said they received on carrying out ICE Air evacuations came during briefings from pilots. What they heard, they said, was chilling and went against their training.
“Just get up and leave,” one recalled a GlobalX pilot telling him. “That’s it. … Save your life first.”
He understood the instructions to mean that evacuating detainees was not a priority, or even the flight attendants’ responsibility. The detainees were in other people’s hands, or in no one’s.
When asked if they got similar guidance from pilots, three flight attendants said they did not, and one did not answer. Two more, like the first, said pilots gave them instructions that they took to mean they shouldn’t help detainees after opening the exit doors.
“That was the normal briefing,” said a flight attendant from Lala’s class. “‘If a fire occurs in the cabin, if we land on water, don’t check on the immigrants. Just make sure that you and the guards and the people that work for the government get off.’”
“It was as if the detainees’ lives were worthless,” said the other.
The day the girl collapsed on Lala’s flight, the pilot turned the plane around and they crossed back into the United States.
The flight landed in Arizona. Paramedics rushed on board and connected the girl to their own oxygen bottle. They began shuttling her off the plane. Her parents tried to join. But the guards stopped the father.
Shocked, Lala approached the ICE officer in charge. “This is not OK!” she yelled. The mom had seizures. The family needed to stay together.
Most of the flight attendants who spoke with ProPublica are now gone from GlobalX. Some left because they found other jobs. Some left even though they hadn’t. Some left because the charter company, as it focused more and more on deportations, shut down the hub in their city.
Lala eventually left because of the little girl and her family, because she couldn’t do the deportation flights anymore. Her GlobalX uniform hung in her closet for a time, a reminder of her career as a flight attendant. Recently, she said, she threw it away.
She never learned whether the little girl lived or died. Lala just watched her mom follow her off the plane, then watched the dad return to his seat.
“I cried after that,” she said. She bought her own ticket home.
eager to hear from anyone connected to the business of immigration enforcement: technologists, data brokers, activists, airplane pilots, private-prison officials and insiders at ICE, CBP and DHS writ large.
Mudslinging and character assassination is an expected part of politics. It’s what you signed up for. Running for public office means opening yourself up to intrusive probings into your personal life, hit jobs from political reporters, and even attacks on your close friends and family members.
These types of dirty tricks, common in politics should be nowhere near our legal guardianship systems. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The legal system is supposed to provide a refuge of justice and protection for the innocent and the abused. It should never be used as a weapon to steal an unsuspecting person from their hard-earned possessions as well as their dignity.
Jan Garwood, 70, of Longwood, FL, was deemed to be incapacitated and placed under guardianship after being injured in an automobile accident while grieving the death of her son. She soon found herself an “inmate” at a locked-down memory care unit called the Palms of Longwood Assisted Living Facility in Seminole County.
Unsure where to turn for help, Garwood used a cell phone smuggled into the facility by a family member, to post a plea for help on social media. Garwood contacted WFTS ABC Action News I-Team, via Facebook, after watching their series on Florida’s broken guardianship system – The Price of Protection.
Hillary Hogue, a guardian reform advocate, also heard Garwood’s call for help. Hogue visited Garwood at the Longwood memory care facility and did not feel she medically belonged there. Hogue then put Garwood in touch with attorney Vitto Roppo.
Roppo worked with Garwood’s attorney of record to file a motion requesting Garwood’s capacity be re-examined. The judge agreed to the motion and following a doctor’s evaluation, Garwood was released from the control of the guardian.
For his efforts, Roppo was threatened by the attorney representing the Garwood’s guardian. In a letter, Roppo was put on notice he would face a Motion for Sanctions upon denial of his motion seeking a new medical evaluation for Garwood. Roppo was advised to “Govern yourself accordingly,” a phrase often included at the close of a legal correspondence intended to bully or intimidate the recipient.
Although vindicated and free, Garwood’s ordeal was not over. While under her control, the guardian sold Garwood’s home, below market value, directly to an employee of the Palms of Longwood. The guardian also placed all of Garwood’s belongings, valued at $300,000, in storage; however, the guardian is unable, or unwilling, to tell her the location of her property.
As the saying goes, “Once is happenstance.”
Consider the case of Joann Bashinsky, a beloved Alabama philanthropist with an estate estimated to be worth $200 million. Bashinsky was placed under Emergency Guardianship after two of her employees, John McKleroy and Patty Towsend, petitioned the probate court claiming she had dementia and was unable to manage her finances. At the same time the Emergency and Permanent Petitions for Guardianship were being filed, Mrs. Bashinsky was terminating their employment for ignoring and undermining her directives.
In a miscarriage of justice, a Jefferson County, AL Probate Court judge deemed Bashinsky had dementia and appointed a close associate of the ex-employees as guardian. Mrs. Bashinsky’s family and friends came to her aid and helped her fight back. In the summer of 2020, the Alabama Supreme Court (ALSC) vacated the guardianship, stating, “Ms. Bashinsky’s constitutional and statutory rights of due process” were violated by the probate judge when she was deprived of counsel and prevented from presenting evidence she was not incapacitated.
A strong rebuke by the Alabama Supreme Court has not persuaded the petitioners and Guardian Greg Hawley to remove their claws from Mrs. Bashinsky’s estate. The ALSC only ruled on the emergency petition, as the permanent petition had yet to be heard by the probate court. There was still a chance the ex-employees could see the permanent petition for guardianship enforced.
The legal battle took its toll on Mrs, Bashinsky, who passed away in January, after more than a year of fighting for her rights and freedom.
The petitioners and their lawyers, showing you a glimpse of what kind of people they are, filed new motions 8 minutes after Mrs. Bashinsky’s funeral service began. Family members and her legal team attending the funeral simultaneously received text messages alerting them they were being served new motions.
McKleroy and Townsend filed a motion to block a request by the Bashinsky estate to dismiss the permanent petition following Mrs. Bashinsky’s death, a motion to apply sanctions against Mrs. Bashinsky for comments she made in a reporter a week before her death, and (who is surprised by this?) a motion to seek compensation for attorney fees and other expenses.
To her family, friends, and the hundreds of people who were helped by Mrs. Bashinsky’s philanthropy, she lives on in their hearts and memory.
Probate Judge Lee Tucker now oversees the permanent petition for guardianship filed by McKleroy and Townsend, and despite having passed from this Earth, Mrs. Bashinsky’s case is still very much alive. We all know why…the “motion to seek compensation for attorney fees and other expenses” tells us why.
“This is a predatory and exploitive a case as I have ever seen,” stated legal counsel for the Bashinsky estate.
“Twice is coincidence.”
Mary Sykes noticed $4,000 missing from her bank account; she soon realized her oldest daughter was responsible. Sykes sought an order of protection from her daughter and reached out to the Illinois Department of Aging for assistance. Her daughter countered and filed a petition seeking to be appointed guardian. In a combined hearing a week later, Sykes found herself not receiving protection from her daughter, but being subjugated to her control.
When neighbors of Sykes heard what happened, they contacted Kenneth Ditkowsky, a Cook County, IL attorney (now retired). Ditkowsky had previously represented Sykes in a separate civil matter.
Ditkowsky began investigating and learned the contents of a safe deposit box belonging to Sykes, which contained over $1 million dollars in gold coins and other valuables, had vanished. He also learned Sykes’s primary care physician refused to certify her as incompetent, but the court system found a doctor who contradicted that diagnosis. Ditkowsky was no stranger to corruption in the Chicago legal community, having been encouraged years earlier a bribe to the judge would secure victory for his client. Many of these attorneys and judges were later indicted in Operation Greylord.
Shortly after seeking copies of filings in the Sykes case and reaching out to her physician, Ditkowsky received threatening calls from the guardian ad litem (GAL) and the attorney for the plenary guardian. Ditkowsky, who had been practicing in notoriously corrupt Chicago for years and argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, laughed off the threats.
The GAL and others filed complaints with the Illinois Attorney Disciplinary Review Committee (IARDC), claiming Ditkowsky defamed the court by calling out the corruption. For speaking out and trying to help a former client, the IARDC upheld the allegations against and suspended Ditkowsky’s law license for four years.
“Three times is a pattern.”
It is said that politics brings out the worst in people, as it taps into the things about which people are most passionate. The same can be said for the love of money. When power and money are at stake, it’s no surprise unscrupulous people will resort to dirty tricks and intimidation.
Guardianship abuse is real; these cases are just the tip of the iceberg.
In case you didn’t know, immigrants and visitors to the US are under attack by the present administration–even green card holders, so it’s important to know your rights.
One green card holder was protesting at his college, exercising his 1st amendment rights and is currently held in detention by ICE. He has a pregnant wife and has not yet been released.
Others in the US on valid tourist visa have been picked up, held for months and then deported. Some of these detainees report seeing other men and women being held without attorneys and no one to help them for months in detainment centers.
Here are the rules for visitors and immigrants, even those with green cards:
No social media, no blogging, delete all accounts. No activism, no protesting anything. Do not join or become a member of any organization, especially those of a political nature. If you receive emails from any political groups, delete those emails and email accounts. Your phone is subject to inspection by Border Patrol. Get a burner phone if you must cross the border. Let an US citizen keep your phone if they will not be subject to inspection. Or send your phone by international courier. If you have immigration visa(s) pending, USCIS may ask for those social media/blog account ID’s and passwords, either in a request or at an interview. Delete all that nonsense, it’s not worth it. Of course, anything public should be immediately deleted. But remember always there are nightly webcrawlers that permanently record all that stuff, so see if you can get past posts deleted from those sites.
Get cameras and put them on your front and back doors. Do not answer the door for any strangers. Use a rape chain or slider lock if someone claims to have a valid warrant. Remember, warrants signed by immigration officials are ineffective and you do not have to comply. Do not open the door if the authority says they have a valid warrant. Once the door is opened, while this is illegal, they may put a foot across the threshold and force their way in. That’s why use of a slider lock or rape chain is crucial or have them slip the warrant under the door. If there are others in the house, have them turn on cell phones to record. Try to record live on Facebook/Youtube and warn your friends to upload. If the authorities ask you to delete, upload instead. Keep open all laptops and computers in the house and upload live to Facebook/Youtube. If you are arrested, post to social media. Get your friends and family present to post/upload live also. Get plenty of active friends on Fb/YT who may be on line to upload or download any interactions with the authorities. If they see an arrest or search on FB/YT, ask them to immediately download it because the authorities may later delete it.
Try to get a job with a private area and make sure your employer will protect you. If ICE enters your place of work, do not run, do not hide, but walk to your car and leave. Your employer should get all immigrants to a private area and ask ICE to leave and not further answer any questions. They have no real police power. Only a warrant signed by a state or federal court judge is effective and can be enforced.
Absolutely no arrests. For sure no convictions. Get an attorney to get all convictions off your record, if at all possible.
It is now advised that even green card holders should not travel outside the US. You might not be able to come back.
If you are detained, review the prior post, Shut the F*** Up and practice it with friends and family. ICE may pressure you into surrendering your green card or sign form I-407. Don’t do it. They cannot make you surrender your green card. They do not have that authority. Just repeat you are invoking your right to remain silent and you want to call your attorney. If they ask you to do anything or go anywhere, just say “I object for the record.” Your attorney cannot help you if you do not object. If the authority asks to search you, your person or property, just respond “I object for the record”. As in the military, name, rank and serial number only. For you, name, address and drivers license only. Say and show nothing else. In some states, you do not even need to show your driver’s license or passport unless there is “reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause”, so get educated on interactions with state authorities.
If detained, repeatedly ask to call your attorney. If stopped, constantly ask if you can leave, and if they say you can leave, do so quickly. Don’t hang around, and don’t come back.
If you are undocumented, get documented. The fastest way to a green card is to marry an US citizen or green card holder. The fastest visa is a fiancé visa. This means the immigrant comes to the US on a tourist visa and they must wait 90 days to file the fiancé visa form and get married. After 90 days in the US on a tourist visa you are allowed to change your mind, file the fiancé visa and get married and the green card will come quickly. If the immigrant is already in the US, marry a US citizen or green card holder. The marriage must be bona fide or genuine and you must live with that spouse, share a lease or deed, and a bank account and finances. You must sleep in the same house or apartment every night. If you have children together, that is a huge help to your visa application. You can also join the US military and can have US citizenship in a year or two. If you are married, apply for citizenship after 3 years. Otherwise you have to wait 5 years. If your visa application is lingering, you or your attorney can file a “Request to Expedite”.
An immigrant with a green card can also sponsor an immediate relative with an I-130: parent, child, spouse or sibling.
After you submit your immigrant visa application, you should receive a receipt in about 6 to 8 weeks. Asylum applications are taking longer, 10 to 12 weeks. If you do not receive a receipt and any check was not cashed or credit card charged (about 2 weeks), resubmit the entire package with a letter explaining the original submission may have been lost. Your receipt is critical and if stopped by ICE or Border Patrol, that receipt number should save you from detainment/deportation proceedings. Keep your visa application receipt with you at all times. Remember, name, address and receipt number only. Say nothing else to the authorities.
Many immigrants have US born citizen children. Your citizen child over age 21 can sponsor you. Conversely, a citizen with a foreign born child unmarried, under age 21 can be sponsored by a citizen/green card parent. If paternity was not established and the parents were not married at the time of birth, a paternity test will be required for citizen/green card fathers.
You are allowed to have multiple applications pending at the same time–I-130 or sponsorship by citizen spouse, U visa, TPS, etc. If one falls thru that will save you from the dreaded NTA or Notice to Appear (for deportation/removal proceedings).
Asylum applicants can come to the US and then have up to a year to submit their Asylum application. This is because if your life is in danger, you can come right away.
What if you can’t find an US citizen to marry and you qualify under no other programs? Leave the US and re enter on a student visa. Take at least 12 hours of classes twice per year. Any courses will qualify, including ESL or English as a Second Language, art, sports or PE (physical education), dance, etc. If you need to work do an OTP. Look for an employer to sponsor your green card. Community college courses qualify.
Sign up for and watch carefully all the immigration attorney videos on You Tube. The Brad Show, McBean Immigration, Legal Eagle, etc. More changes are coming, and not all of them good.
Don’t forget there is a visa lottery every year. Here is this year’s information:
Results for the 2025 DV Lottery are available from May 4, 2024 to September 30, 2025.
Results for the 2026 DV Lottery will be available from May 3, 2025 to at least September 30, 2026.
Important caveat to Visa Lottery Program: The Diversity Visa (DV) or Green Card Lottery allows individuals from certain countries who meet education or work requirements to obtain a green card through a lottery. Undocumented immigrants typically cannot benefit from winning the lottery because they have violated immigration law by being present in the U.S. Accordingly, get documented. Important Note:If you are already in the US on a tourist visa and win the lottery, you will need to apply for an immigrant visa through consular processing outside of the US.
If you are in the US on a tourist visa, you can generally extend those 6 months which will give you time to get an immigration visa application on file. Do not file for immigration status until you have been in the US for at least 90 days, then you are allowed to change your mind. Canadian citizens have even more options and may be able to stay indefinitely under certain terms and conditions.
Remember US immigration laws are complex, technical and confusing. Even John Oliver had to admit that by using an immigration attorney you can double your chances of being approved by USCIS. And he generally says horrible things about lawyers, which of course are often deserved.
Good luck and stay safe
Now here are the videos that prompted this post.
Canada, UK, Germany and other European countries have issued travel advisories to the US
Germany issues travel advisory to US
Valid green card holders are asked to surrender their green cards at the US border and are being denied admission, some for many months
Legal Eagle: Defendant declares many foreign nationals terrorists without due process
Legal Eagle: Defendant deports legal green card holder on student visa for protesting him on campus
Horror stories from ICE/USCIS taking away green cards without due process.
Here in Chicago, the Democratic Party is funded in part by Esformes and his group. Who do you think keeps them in power? Worse yet, when JoAnne Denison stepped out to complain concerning the terrorism being meted out to the elderly – it was the Democratic Party’s IARDC that suspended her law license and has harassed her TO THIS DAY, NOT A SINGLE POLITICAL OPERATIVE (ALL DEMOCRATS) HAS STEPPED UP TO TAKE HER SIDE OR THE SIDE OF ANY OF THE PEOPLE ABUSED BY GUARDIANSHIP.
Going one step further – have you seen one Chicago or Illinois politician stand up for the elderly? I’ll bet a dollar to your penny that every one of these politicians have accepted money from the nursing home industry and in particular the Esformes group.
Hypocrisy is a bitter pill
Ken Ditkowsky
From Joanne;
Ken is right, I did nothing wrong except blog about corruption and because of my blog, at least Judge Jane Stuart was removed for her shameful perfidy in the Mary G Sykes case. Mary was granny napped from her home of decades and forced to live in Naperville and then a string of nursing homes–all places where she made it clear she did not want to go.
As for Ken, his charges were clearly bogus and trumped up. When a group of Mary Sykes’ friends came to him and begged him for help in protecting her, he did his due diligence and wrote letters to critical witnesses–her doctor and friends and neighbors, calling upon them to provide him with crucial information they might know about Mary Sykes. This was his Rule 137 duty to investigate every case before assuming his duty as attorney to any litigant in the case. Every attorney knows or should understand this very important duty of ethics to the court system and public.
The ARDC then twisted this around and said that Ken was asking Mary’s physician, Dr. Patel to breach his HIPA obligations, when that was not stated in the letter at all and Dr. Patel never even responded to the letter.
When brought before the ARDC tribunal to testify, Dr. Patel never testified he took the letter as an invitation to reveal any confidential information, yet Ken was hit with a 3 year suspension of his law license regardless of the facts, evidence and testimony.
In the end, Mary was murdered, grievances were filed with ARDC over the murder and no attorney involved–Adam Stern, Cynthia Farenga, Peter Schmeidel was ever disciplined over this clearly shameful case of egregious attorney misconduct.
The real kicker was that Gloria Sykes, who was part of the group and even spearheaded it, held Mary’s Power of Attorney for Health Care which meant that since she hired Ken, there could not possibly be any wrongful disclosure of healthcare information regarding Mary.
The ARDC has not apologized to Ken and reinstated him and for the most part, the probate court and its minion attorneys continue to violate the civil right and human rights of all litigants before it left and right. They summarily invalidate POAs without notice, a petition, service of a summons or any basic constitutional rights being afforded the victim and their family. They summarily evict family members from the victim’s residence, and often these family members are elderly and or disabled. Ruining lives and families, ripping them apart is still seen as “business as usual” on the 18th floor of the Daley center.
No one seems to care.
This corrupt system continues to use the OPG, Office of Public Guardian and OSG or Office of State Guardian to accomplish these illegal goals left and right, up and down and even sideways.
Worse yet, the OPG bills estates $275 per hour to destroy families and force the elderly and disabled into nursing homes against their consent and will.
Clearly that is double dipping from the state/government because the overhead of these attorney and their corrupt agencies–OPG and OSG has already been paid by the taxpayer!
That’s right, you the taxpayer pay to ruin families and destroy lives to a state agency, and then they turn around and bill estates $275 per hour! It’s nothing but fraud and elder financial abuse.
Why the FBI and states attorneys offices have not shut down all this corruption is beyond the pale.
As for me, all I did was blog about what was going on in the Mary Sykes case and I was summarily suspended for 3 years and my license has not been reinstated either. The ARDC has stated that my blog, this blog was a “danger to the public.”
They have not apologized, they have not made it clear to Illinois Licensed attorneys that blogging about corruption is protected first amendment speech and they continue to turn a blind eye to the horrors endemic to the public on the 18th floor of the Daley center.
If you are indigent and receive any government benefits, you should be able to file this lawsuit for free. Get a fee waiver petition from your local federal district court.
I would worry about service, but I’m sure we won’t be the only people filing these. The cases to ban him will likely be consolidated and while we will lose control, we can still appear and file stuff. Someone will have to do a motion to have the Federal Marshalls serve these, because you know, well, secret service.
I will leave space, just put in your own name, address as Plaintiff and turn this in. There are 5 spaces for yourself and 4 other friends, email me if you need more. joanne@justice4 every1.com.
Most likely these lawsuits will be consolidated and your local federal district court will make a decision.
I still have to do a Motion for Preliminary and Permanent Injunction.
CREW or Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington DC first came up with all this.
In this directory you will find one Wordperfect version which I am working in, a Word doc version and a PDF file.
I would be glad to amend it to your particular jurisdiction and federal district court so you can file locally and if this gets to the Supremes, I would be pleased to do the oral argument pro se. Because we can all participate in democracy in the US.
We can only dream. But if you dream, dream big.
Just finished and filed. I will await response from my Judge and magistrate Judge at the ND Illinois
Lawsuit filing done. ND IL case no. 1:24-cv-13332. Shd be on pacer.gov by now
18 SNF staff charged after patient’s death–nursing home director and 1 other denied bail
Mariah Taylor (Email) – Friday, December 20th, 2024
Apparently a 74 year old woman died after found laying in her own waste in an unchanged diaper for days, perhaps a week or more. Allegedly there were unexplained injuries and wounds not cared for.
At least 18 staffers at Colonial Heights (Va.) Rehabilitation and Nursing Center have been charged with elder abuse and neglect after a patient death, The Progress-Index reported Dec. 18.
On Dec. 18, the facility was raided by police, the attorney general’s Elder Abuse Task Force and the Virginia Department of Health Professions. Five staffers, including the director, were arrested, police said. The charges range from misdemeanors including falsifying records to obstructing the legal process, as well as felony counts of abuse and neglect of vulnerable adults.
Police began investigating the facility Oct. 5 after a report of possible elder abuse and neglect was made by the family members of a discharged patient. The patient died Oct. 29 while the investigation was ongoing, ABC affiliate WRIC reported.
On Thursday, Dec. 19, a spokesperson with the Colonial Heights Police Department said 16 people have been arrested out of 18.
“The Virginia Department of Health has been cooperating and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement on the current investigation of Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Home,” an agency spokesperson told ABC affiliate WRIC. “Independent of law enforcement, VDH’s Office of Licensure and Certification is currently conducting an investigation into this provider. Due to the ongoing criminal investigation, VDH cannot comment further on this matter at this time.”
Becker’s reached out to Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center and will update this story if more information becomes available.
here is a string of incidents at this same nursing home in VA
staff members appear in court. 2 staff nursing directors denied bail.
November 12, 2021, was a great day for Britney Spears and a great day for justice when a judge freed her from a conservatorship that controlled every aspect of her life. It was definitely something to celebrate, but it was also a solemn day because Spears had had to endure a more than decade-long nightmare orchestrated by her father and others. It was a solemn day, because there are at least a million other, less famous, individuals who are still trapped in exactly this kind of arrangement.
Guardianship is an alarming threat to everyone’s health and welfare. In secret in a judge’s chambers, one’s rights to make personal and financial decisions can be stripped in moments. It is very widespread, but little known, although because of Britney Spears’ chilling testimony last summer and the persistence of the Free Britney Movement, this practice has been catapulted into the public’s consciousness.
That is what happened to me and my parents. Our mistake was filing for guardianship, which others used to turn us into human ATM machines. We didn’t know that this had been going on for decades and didn’t find out until we were trapped. Today, I am part of a national human rights coalition, Victims and Families Harmed by Guardianship, whose purpose is to protect older Americans and disabled individuals of all ages from exploitation by state probate guardianships. We are a consortium of state coalitions that have joined together to contact our federal representatives and the media to demand reform. People who can’t take care of themselves need support and protection, and guardianship provides neither.
My Family’s Story
It is hard to imagine what goes on unless you have lived it. The following is what happened to me and my parents.
In January 2005, my father filed a complaint with the Nassau County, New York, District Attorney against my sister, Terri, who he’d recently discovered had been embezzling millions of dollars from both my parents, as well as from me. The DA began an investigation. Around the same time, an estates attorney recommended that my father and I file a petition to become co-guardians for my mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He told us it could help us recover the stolen money. However, instead of appointing us as co-guardians, a Nassau County Judge appointed a lawyer for my mother and an examiner to review the case. At a meeting I attended at my parents’ home, they both attacked us and told our lawyer they were not going to recommend us to the judge.
Without even a hearing, the judge appointed total strangers as my mother’s guardians instead. Both were private lawyers. When my father and I learned this, we asked to withdraw our guardianship petition, but were told we could not. This judge and the lawyers now controlled my parents’ money. But they didn’t protect it, meaning Terri still had access to it, nor did they look after my mother’s needs. At one point, the judge wanted me and Terri to become my mother’s co-personal needs guardian evens though by this point my sister had been arrested for grand larceny.
Creating Chaos
Everything in my life and my parents’ lives then became a nightmare. Different court-appointed guardians, all private attorneys, cycled in and out of our lives. All the while, they billed my mother hundreds in hourly rates for various clerical services but provided no benefit to her. After my father died in 2006, I tried to intervene, moving to New York to take care of my mother because I was not allowed to bring her back to California, where I lived. I again filed a petition to become my mother’s sole guardian of person and property, but was only appointed as her personal-needs guardian. The court-appointed lawyers still controlled all of her assets, including the house, and continued to pay themselves excessively for “managing” them.
For example, they hired their own accountants. One of these accountants billed us $12,000 for counting the money in my mother’s brokerage account—twice, in 10 months. Another accountant billed us $100,000 for looking over forensic accounting my accountant gave him. Meanwhile, my mother’s Social Security check and her retirement distribution were being deposited into a guardianship checking account, but none of that was being used on behalf of my mother. When I balked, I was told that I had no standing to ask how the money was being spent. Over time, the guardians depleted her estate. Every time they wrote a check to themselves, they claimed, “It is in the best interest of the ward.” These lawyers regularly scheduled court proceedings from 2005 until 2018 (the year my mother died), resolving nothing. All of this took place with a judge’s approval.
There’s a lot more to the story—including being harassed by my sister (who was charged with grand larceny and disowned by our father) and the fact that the court repeatedly sided with Terri whenever she tried to intervene (she rarely visited our mother but did try to have her placed in a nursing home so she could take the house). All of it is an example of how guardianship can create chaos within families.
Dragging on After Death
Both my parents are gone, but this case is still ongoing. The lawyers are demanding one-third of my father’s estate. My father had an estate plan which provided a lifetime trust for my mother, but this was overturned in a judge’s chambers. They also filed a right of election against my father’s will and appointed a public administrator and his lawyer to deal with the estate.
When my mother was alive, I was told that the deed to my parents’ house would be turned over to me; I was even copied on emails to that effect, but when I went to the clerk’s office after her death, I was told the deed was not in my name. It turned out that there was no money left, and the current guardian told me they were therefore going to do a reverse mortgage on the house.
When I resisted, the judge agreed to a conference among five lawyers (all of whom billed my mother, of course). At this conference, they also decided that the court-appointed guardian and the court-appointed evaluator would come to the house to do an inventory. For this “service,” they were getting ready to bill us way more than the value of anything in the home. I made it very clear that I wouldn’t allow it. The public administrator and his lawyer then sent me a letter demanding money and saying that if I didn’t pay, they would tell a judge to sanction me. They also told my lawyer that I had to compel them to turn the deed to my parents’ house over to me because “that’s how the system works.” The guardian still has still not done so, even though she was supposed to years ago. Meanwhile, I have been made to pay for everything involved in the home’s upkeep, including the property taxes.
A Powerful Legal-Industrial Complex
My story is routine when it comes to guardianship. In New York State, guardianship has become a powerful legal-industrial complex, a well-designed system to benefit court-appointed lawyers who are party loyalists, former judges, and partners in the law firms of New York’s most powerful politicians. These lawyers are appointed as court evaluators, court referees, court examiners, guardians and/or attorneys for the guardian, and accountants for the allegedly incapacitated person. They all work in concert to lure families who have sizable estates into guardianship to resolve a matter and then, instead of appointing the family member who petitioned to be the guardian, they give that role to a court-appointed lawyer.
That’s why Victims and Families Harmed by Guardianship is calling for an end to the state probate systems that have been usurped by professional guardians. With layers of lawyers, predatory guardians take vulnerable adults and their families hostage. The human suffering is enormous. New guardianships are created every day and families are helpless to prevent or reverse it, because it is entirely legal to usurp the rights of vulnerable people.
It’s not just New York. A 2010 special series on lobbying in the San JoseMercury News of California (Britney Spears’ home state) revealed how guardianship and conservatorship laws are made. They are essentially written by lobbyists who present them to legislators. This process has created a shadow system to exploit ordinary citizens using the courts as vehicles for financial abuse. Then, judges are hand-picked by politicians and/or their close associates, and after those judges are elected, they reward their friends with lucrative guardianships.
Everyone in this scenario gets paid from the assets of the person placed into the guardianship. So if there is an objection to the guardianship, the opposing party uses the ward’s assets to fight them ad nauseam. Britney’s battle mirrors ours in this way: The lawyer for her father/conservator, Jamie Spears, wrongly claimed that Britney had never asked to end the conservatorship—and then that lawyer fought like hell not to have him suspended. It was all paid for with Britney’s money.
What We’ve Been Doing
As a coalition, Victims and Families has educated the media and offered to share our stories and expose what is clearly systemic corruption. Outlets across the country have begun reporting on the issue. ABC10 Sacramento, The Intercept, ABC Denver 7, the Traverse City Record-Eagle, and Buzzfeed News, among others, have shared victims’ nightmares. The Free Britney movement has also joined us, inviting victims to speak at their most recent rallies. Mathew Rosengart, Britney Spears’ lawyer, has publicly acknowledged the systemic failures at each of his press conferences following Britney’s hearings.
Approaching state legislators hasn’t gone as well. In New York, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, victims have appealed to lawmakers and state Attorneys General only to be ignored. The message to us is: The courts can do whatever they like; we will not investigate. This is why guardianship must be eliminated.
Some Hopeful Attention
Fortunately, this issue has started to get attention at the federal level. On September 28, there was a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee titled “Toxic Conservatorship: The Need for Reform.” It was chaired by Senator Richard Blumenthal, who is also on the Special Senate Committee on Aging and so is aware of this decades-long abusive system. At the hearing, one victim, Nicholas Clouse, testified about his agonizing experience of being placed into a guardianship after an accident and losing control of everyday decisions. He was able to end the guardianship after an incredible struggle. When he spoke, it was clear that his court-appointed guardians had been given total power and they were using it to harm him.
The hearing mostly focused on preventing people from being put under guardianship in the first place, but there was little to no mention of how to address issues in existing guardianships, including law-enforcement investigations of reported abuse and exploitation. We need more hearings that feature the voices of victims who are currently under guardianship and want out. People will see that this system needs to end because is designed to benefit the people who control it rather than disabled individuals.
Also last fall, AB 1194 was signed into law in California, which allows those who are conserved to choose their own attorneys. But will the law be followed? As victims have pointed out, they have contacted the bill’s sponsor (State Senator Evan Low) in the past about their cases and he did nothing.
A Call to Action
We need to keep up the pressure on politicians and to continue to show that guardianship is a draconian, unconstitutional system that needs to be eliminated. Absolute power corrupts, and guardianship is a form of absolute power over a person’s life. The system invites exploitative behavior, as has been demonstrated over and over again in these cases. We need to get to the bottom of what court-appointed guardians and their representatives are doing in order to get justice. To do that, it is critical that we keep telling our stories in every forum.
Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.
Marian Kornicki grew up in Queens, NY and attended the Calhoun School in Manhattan. She received a BA in psychology and art history from Queens College and an MA in clinical psychology from Antioch University in Los Angeles. She is a psychotherapist. Marian is a daughter who cared for her mother when her mother developed disabilities due to Alzheimer’s disease.
Francesca Simpson Marian, I am outraged on your behalf. This is ludicrous! I vaguely knew about Britney Spears’ struggles but I had no idea the problem was so widespread. Thanks for getting this out there and, as an aside, you write beautifully.Report commentReply
ship2shore The sad thing is that so many people are just not aware of how often this is happening nationally, until it happens to their own family. But then it’s way too late. And it doesn’t have to originate with family strife among siblings. I’m an only child and it happened to my mother and nearly destroyed our family. And over the years I’m finding this happens to other female only children quite often. Would love to join forces to get my story out, so others are aware that this happens in the mainstream population, and not just wealthy celebrities.Report commentReply
Marian Kornicki Hi Ship2Shore:Please let me know if you would like to speak to an investigative reporter that I spoke to earlier today. He wants to talk to victims. Warm regards, MarianReport commentReply
Susan Roth I would like to talk to someone about what’s going on with my son’s case.Susan Roth 650 759-6915Report comment
Marian Kornicki THIS IS A REPLY FOR SUSAN ROTH: CAN YOU ALSO GIVE ME YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. MANY THANKS, MARIANReport comment
Patricia Femia I sent you my email address months ago. No reply from you or any investigative reporter. Is this spam ?Report comment
Marian Kornicki Hi: I did reply to you in 2022 and I gave you Braedon Waddell’s email address. You did leave an email address at that time. I sent you an email. Yesterday when I was asking for contact information, I was replying to Susan Roth who left her phone number as you can see in the comments section.Report comment
Someone Else I had a very persistent psychologist try – relentlessly – to get me to sign his “art manager” contract. Which was a classic “take a percentage of gross profit” thievery contract, mixed with a conservatorship contract – not a legitimate “art manager” contract. I was absolutely appalled when I read the contract, then reread it. I was just amazed at how evil that contract was.Finally, after saying NO to signing the contract God knows how many times, I filed a police report, and asked the policeman if such contracts were even legal, since they most definitely should be made illegal. The cop didn’t say they were illegal, but he likely called that appalling psychologist, and told him to leave me alone. The cop did seem to be a little amused, as I was explaining to him the staggeringly criminal nature of the contract.I’m glad to see a psychologist speaking out about how evil the conservatorship contracts are. And I hope you will send a message to your profession – and your industry’s partners, the psychiatrists, who make this all possible – that it is absolutely ethically unacceptable to hand those contracts out, under any guise, or force them upon anyone.I’m sorry for what happened to your family, Marian. And I hope some day the psychologists and psychiatrists – some of whom have been destroying the lives of individuals and families for decades – will some day apologize, too. And I’m not asking for you to apologize to me.It’s the individual psychologists and psychiatrists who misdiagnosed me, defamed me to my own husband, then anticholinergic toxidrome poisoned me – to cover up the abuse of my child for their pastors – then tried to steal from me, who need to apologize to me, not you.But this is a systemic problem within my former religion, the ladies of which have confessed to their “partnership” with the “mental health” industries. I’d be one of the many “widows” mentioned in the Preface of this book.https://books.google.com/books?id=xI01AlxH1uAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=falseReport commentReply
Elaine Jeffcoat Hello, I just lived through a two year guardianship nightmare her in Texas. I spent over $120k, fighting to keep my mother out of the hands of professional guardians. I was able to win guardianship of the person, however I finally handed over guardianship of the estate, with deal that I picked the estate trustee and negotiated the rates. My mother is in the final stages of dementia, and still wanted to be free. The unfortunate part, she was giving her money away to scammers claiming to be Keanu Reeves. Her dementia had already progressed and she was going to hurt herself or someone else, I had no choice. Never would I have guessed to be fighting Denton County Texas for my Mom’s well being and for the ability to take care of her. I would love to join this fight and tell others about the corrupt system.Report commentReply
Bananas I was aware of this, but not aware of how widespread it is. What are some things to do to prevent this abusive thievery?I wonder about holding real estate and investment portfolios in llc’s as possible safeguards. Public records do reveal assets to possible thieves. Hence, the llc question.Those accused of mental illness seem particularly at risk of this method of abuse. Some points concerning how to be safe would be so much appreciated.Report commentReply
Marian Kornicki Thank you Francesca. It is a very routine phenomena. I have been in connect with victims from all over the country.Report commentReply
Marian Kornicki Hi Bananas:The solution is to abolish guardianship. People need support and protection. Guardianship is neither one.Report commentReply
Carol Pickett The other victims being targeted are vulnerable, developmentally disabled dependent children with limited communication (identified as adults due to age alone), sometimes referred to as ‘autistic’. They have been torn from their families while all legal entities refuse to investigate the complaints of neglect, isolation, as well as medical, emotional, psychological and physical abuse. The isolation and separation are inhumane and torturous. This is happening, not only in Nevada, but nationwide and if you consider statistics showing 1 in 40 are afflicted with this disability and the billions of dollars of funding provided for their care you will understand how lucrative this racket has become. They have been either ‘medically or court kidnapped’ with guardianship transferred to the COUNTY PUBLIC GUARDIAN, DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENTAL SERVICES or another guardian APPOINTED BY THE COURT. Their human/civil and ADA rights became non-existent and/or have been consistently violated as soon as the limited conservatorship or guardianship was transferred. Their disability along with their limited communication is the excuse used to isolate them, remove their freedom to make/receive phone calls, for familial contact to be completely denied, their speech censored and all disability rights denied. Prisoners have more rights than they are given. No, we are not asking for compensation – we want them back and all those involved removed from their positions; thereby rendered incapable of tearing any more families apart. It is time to clean house and once again let family take care of family. All government agencies (especially in Nevada) have refused to stop this, have ignored, or are involved in some way. No media will report what is happening.Report commentReply
Shel369 This abuse is happening so over California snd had happened to my father. My family has been destroyed as well. My father was fraudulently conserved 3 years ago through a petition filed by an ex girlfriend who had no standing to initiate it in the first place..He was declared incapacitated without an examination by a complicit doctor. His valid estate plan was thrown out and everything he has was turned over to a fiduciary who he was forced to pay 150/hour to for litigation they created and services they ” provided’. They had the sheriff’s extract him from his home and I was assaulted and thrown in a police car and treated like a criminal. All in front of my 8 year old daughter. My dad managed to escape and we continued fighting. In order to keep my dad in his home with me i was forced to sign a settlement agreement or hostage negotiaton as I like to call it. In order to pay thsir fees a reverse mortgage was done on the house and with all the equity going to them plus my dad’s social security and pension they have been collecting for the last 3 years. Plus they have a lien on the house for additional fees that are still owed. . I was finally made conservator of his person which should have been a victory but doesnt much feel like one. So 3 years later I’ve been given my job back after they took all that they could. And now as we attempt to put this nightmare behind us , the ex girlfriend has filed an Objection dragging me through the mud all over again & is asking for visitation and working with my father’s court appointed attorney to get it! The stress of it is taking its toll on us all and I’m so angry and disgusted that this is being allowed to happen to us and so many others. Please speak out and expose these criminals!Report commentReply
Marian Kornicki The above comments from Carol and Shel 369 show that guardianship is a license to steal. It was used a century ago to steal the Osage in Oklahoma of proceeds from mineral rights which had been granted by treaty. There have been statutory changes and media exposes, BUT THE SYSTEM IN PRACTICE HAS NOT IMPROVED. Growing is a giant professional guardianship industry who can have hundreds of clients with absolutely no oversight. JUDGES DO NOT FOLLOW THE LAW. The state supreme courts are aware of the problem. No one is using their authority to ensure compliance. WE DO NOT KNOW THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN GUARDIANSHIP. No one is collecting data. This practice has to be investigated. That is why RICO was designed. Then it must be dismantled. Call guardianship what it is REMOVAL OF RIGHTS.Report commentReply
Jodee Sussman Marian what a well written article! I so appreciate your relentless work on exposing and ending this nightmare for victims and their families. In SoCal, there is a “Cabal” that has run the probate courts for over a decade. There are several attorneys and the court appointed GALs involved. They all just “change hats” in the next case. The for Profit Fiduciaries, The realtors and appraisers they use are involved. They overturn existing trusts and advance directives. They financially and emotionally try to ruin any friends or family that try to stop them. They get court approval of bogus restraining and eviction orders. The court ignores all proof of conspiracy and collusion. They boldly declare the court does whatever they tell it to do. No one is safe. They even turn on their own. This evil runs deep. Only God, in the name of Jesus Christ, can stop this! Victims keep fighting! Don’t let them silence you! God sees all!Report commentReply
TheWarner This line struck home for me: “They all work in concert to lure families who have sizable estates into guardianship to resolve a matter and then, instead of appointing the family member who petitioned to be the guardian, they give that role to a court-appointed lawyer.”I, too, am a psychotherapist and I went to an attorney for help when my family member would not provide me with the money needed to care for my 98-year-old grandmother, who was living in my home at the time. Instead of helping a family in crisis, the attorney licked his lips and recommended that I sign on to a “professional” conservator who would mediate between me and the family member. The story turned out pretty similar to Marian’s. They all seem uncanningly the same and that is because they all have the same evil authors.And if you don’t think you need to worry about corrupt guardianship, ponder this: many of the same elder attorneys you are going to to help write your wills and trusts are involved in the guardianship system. In many ways, the estate documents are an application process for future guardianship, since you voluntarily share all of your finances and family dynamics with these attorneys who may choose to use it against you at a later date. In fact, attorneys themselves can file a petition for guardianship in some or most states (without any support from family)!What has our nation come to to treat the most treasured amongst us in this manner?Report commentReply
Gilbert Marian Kornicki is a kind, loving and dedicated person and this tragedy could not have happened unless her parents had money and assets to steal. That is Marian Kornicki’s “crime” that her family had assets and property that was built from hard work and sacrifice over four decades in the USA. Marian Kornicki is a victim of an organized criminal enterprise masquerading as Conservatorship/Guardianship which provides for a legal framework designed to rob innocent people of their humanity, rights and property all in the name of “benefitting the AIP”.Anyone can file a Guardianship claim against any person at any time no matter if it truthful of accurate in order for a judge to set aside all wills and estate planning. Once the process starts and there is conflict in the family then a lawyer is appointed from a list to isolate, overmedicate and liquidate all the assets and money. All of the fees are paid out from the AIP– the Alleged Incapacitated Person. Fees per hour are typically $400 an hour. Lawyers assigned to Marian Kornicki’s mother’s Guardianship have stolen nearly all of her parent’s money and are trying to steal her mother’s home! Even after her mother died over six years ago!Report commentReply
Marian Kornicki Hi Gilbert: Thanks for your comments. It is so important for people to know this is going on. Speaking of $400 an hour. The last court-appointed guardian was billing at that rate and when she was named, she billed my mother and was paid $25,000 for reviewing files. It was approved by court order from a judge. She wrote the check to herself from my mother’s account. That was just a warm up. Another was billing at over $600 an hour and she always had a colleague w/her, so she billed for both of the ($375 for her colleague). She wrote a motion to have me removed as my mother’s personal needs guardian and billed my mother. She said that she visited my mother and when I said it wasn’t true, she said I was preventing her from visiting and filed her motion. I had to hire a lawyer to respond. And then she countered again – all of it billed to my mother and approved by a judge. What I have described is shockingly routine. It is criminal.Report commentReply
ship2shore In the final years of her life, my Italian-born mother, who was diagnosed with and suffered from dementia of the Alzheimer’s Type, fell victim to financial abuse by the very nursing home caregivers we had trusted to keep her safe and comfortable. The memory care facility – Paragon Village (now Bentley) in Hackettstown, NJ put her in touch with local unethical attorneys who manipulated her and bilked her out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and a large portion of her estate. We fought hard to stop them, but they had powerful connections. My petition for legal guardianship as her ONLY family went nowhere, and my family was unsure where to turn when the system is so irreparably broken. The last few years of my mother’s life were fraught with watching the attorneys and judges separate her completely from her family, until they fought for and won, legal guardianship over her, only 22 days before her death. She died alone in the nursing home, having fallen from her bed without rails, alone and completely isolated from her family. We all had been prevented from seeing her for the last 3 years of her life. Every May 14th marks a painful anniversary for our family. Eight years ago, my husband was suddenly fired from a long-time Vice President position with a small family-owned medical company called Glatt Air Techniques in Ramsey, NJ because of a completely untrue and slanderous article. This article appeared in a small local newspaper, naming both of us (and ALL the names of the universities we attended and companies where we worked) with a headline of “Couple Faked Alzheimers and Stole $980k from Elderly Mother”, thus making it go viral online in New Jersey. Ironically the newspaper was in the town next to one of the unethical lawyer’s offices and later the newspaper was forced to retract the article. But the damage had been done and it took a costly defamation attorney to have the article taken down from Google and later the pdfs off of my mother’s spiteful attorneys’ websites used as their marketing collateral (and reporting them to the NJ Ethics Board, which proved useless). That same day ALL of my bank accounts (including those I had with my 3 children) were wiped clean of all money because the judge (the not-so-honorable Donald Coburn) placed a judgement against me for savings bonds that were given to me by my mother over a period of 30 years as gifts. The timing of the draining of the accounts was terrible and the shock and embarrassment of my husband losing a job for the first time ever in his life for the wrong reason, was just crushing to our family. Especially after not being granted guardianship in the lengthy trial, which was what I had initially set out to do when my mother’s mental capacity was rapidly failing. Not to mention the whispers and gossip by the people who weren’t aware of the many sacrifices we had made over the years for my mom who had lived with us for 4 years prior, where she was well-cared for. However by some miracle, we lived through it and my husband found a new job and his excellent reputation in the pharmaceutical industry was not compromised, as the vindictive lawyers had hoped and planned for. But when May 14th rolls around every spring…..it’s a raw and painful memory to remember. I hope my story can help other innocent people avoid being dragged into a terrible situation like what happened to us. My message is to avoid probate court at all costs – because only the corrupt lawyers come out winning and the poor victims end up losing everything, just as my defenseless mother did.Report commentReply
Marian Kornicki I just read your other comment and commented there. If you are interested in speaking to an investigative reporter please let me know and I will put you in contact with him. I spoke to him earlier today and he is very interested in learning more about this.Report commentReply
ship2shore How do I reach you ? I would be happy to speak to an investigative reporter. I don’t see a way to private message you and am fearful of putting my email address out in publicReport commentReply
Steve McCrea POSTING AS MODERATOR:I am available to help people get together who don’t want to publicly share their emails. If both of you email me at smccrea@madinamerica.com or portland17@msn.com, and both of you agree to share, I can send you each the other’s email. Let me know if that’s something you want to do.SteveReport commentReply
AnnaM Just WOW! This is so scary. I truly hope the Britney Spears movement is going to reach over to non-celebrity cases. Perhaps she will help shine more light on this huge issue.Beautiful article, Marian!Report commentReply
Carol Pickett Myself, from Nevada, along with three other parents from California have joined in the effort to free our angels from government control. We filed individual and then a joint federal civil rights complaint. The art of the ‘pass the buck’ resolution used too often by government agencies has begun. Our joint and my individual complaint were referred to the Federal Department of Health and Human Services on December 14, 2021. It dead ended there.Making this a reality is not difficult. No new laws or legislation are needed as what is being done to Casey, Nate, Andrew, William and all of the others who are imprisoned is already against the law. WE JUST NEED THOSE LAWS ENFORCED, THOSE RESPONSIBLE HELD ACCOUNTABLE AND OUR SONS RETURNED TO US.Casey, Nate, Andrew and William are not celebrities and have only the voices of their parents, myself (Carol), Ilya, Deborah and Lynda to speak for them. Classified officially as vulnerable, developmentally disabled dependent children with limited communication (identified as adults due to age alone) and diagnosed as ‘autistic’. They have become the forgotten ‘middle child’ between the children and elderly and are the link that completes the circle of this corruptive guardianship system.They have the right to be with those who care for and love them. They have the right to enjoy life instead of being drugged just to make it easier for their ‘caregivers’ to get through each day. They have the right to be happy. They are not a paycheck. They are not disposable. They are important.They have been torn from their families while all legal entities refuse to investigate the complaints of neglect and isolation combined with medical, emotional, psychological and physical abuse. The isolation and separation are inhumane and torturous. Convicted felons are treated better in prison. Families are left bankrupt as they seek ‘legal’ assistance to get their loved ones returned to them only to find that the attorneys are already in the game or drafted once they accept a guardianship case. We mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers have watched in horror as our loved ones are ‘court kidnapped’ or ‘medically kidnapped’ for profit. We are tired of seeing the truth trampled on in our ‘justice’ system, tired of watching our loved ones deteriorate before our eyes as they beg us to free them and tired of seeing them shrink when making the mistake of trying to say something that is not allowed. We are also tired of seeing our state, county and court systems along with everyone else who is tied to this racket obtaining financial security under the guise of the guardianship systems that they have severely corrupted while EVERYONE INVOLVED TURNS A BLIND EYE TO THEIR SUFFERING. In addition, any attempts to expose what is happening to them by group house staff or others while they are wards of the court assigned to the COUNTY PUBLIC GUARDIAN, DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENTAL SERVICES or another guardian appointed by the court are silenced and/or ignored. Yes, COUNTY PUBLIC GUARDIAN – what better way to keep all that funding under government control and in one nice, neat little package. ALL INTEREST IN THEIR CASES SEEMS TO END WHEN THE EXTENT OF GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT IS REVEALED. Why? How can it not make sense to keep things under full control in this way? This has been going on for decades in Nevada alone. Please read the following quote from an attorney, in response to a request for contact information to organize a rally for one of the victims of a fraudulent guardianship/limited conservatorship:“The sad truth is that no one is going to rally for —-. The media doesn’t care about a man with autism, the politicians don’t care either, so I can certainly try and let some of the young people know that you are suffering, and that your son is suffering, but don’t expect anyone to show up. Your federal congressional rep is your best chance. All around us is evidence of a broken system, but do you hear a peep from any judge? Nope, they can’t be embarrassed into taking action. I am very sorry. I know this is terrible. I will share your contact information but otherwise, I don’t know what to do.”The horrific ‘court kidnapping’ and ‘medical kidnapping’ cases of these voiceless individuals throughout the United States is a reality. The lengths that all agencies involved are willing to go in an effort to discredit those who are trying desperately to free their loved ones from this web of corruption is even more incredible. There is evidence – a lot. Think about it. If all of the garbage they are spewing about us were true, would we really be trying to bring any of this out in the open to so many and be pleading for an investigation? Now, consider why they are trying so desperately to silence us and what they have to lose if this is exposed. If one would listen to the different accounts taking place across this free country, it becomes glaringly obvious that each state is sharing a Standard Operating Procedure manual specifically for this very lucrative endeavor. If there is one known case in any state, you can be assured that there are many others. Why would these court and government entities do this? Because there is so much money involved. Some of these individuals have estates, most have Medicare or Medicaid, and all are easy targets once they are under the control of the government. Take a peek at how much funding is given for the purpose of aiding these vulnerable disabled adult ‘kids’ and then explain why these individuals are neglected so horribly. Where does all that money go? There are so many victims and this has been done for so long that there is no regulation or scrutiny. What is happening under the smokescreen of the term ‘PROTECTED PERSON’ is no more than legalized human trafficking. Another way for financial gain by ‘legally’ kidnapping these individuals and imprisoning them until they are used up. Should these innocents die it does not matter to them as there are so many others to fill the gap and more that will be added each day. At this time, please refer to the definition of RICO. No, we are not asking for compensation – we want our loved ones back and all those involved removed from their positions; and, thereby rendered incapable of tearing any more families apart to satisfy their financial greed. All Guardianships and Limited Conservatorships need to be abolished. It is too late for reform; it is time to clean house and once again let family take care of family.COALITION OF PARENTS Carol Pickett, Deborah Findley, Ilya Tseglin, Lynda Ente …and all of the John and Jane Doe’s not yet identifiedReport commentReply
Marian Kornicki Thanks, Erica. This is happening to too many individuals and families and has to eliminated. It is criminal and crooked. I read your book, I’m Not Playing about your efforts to rescue your mom. It is a beautiful blend of poetry and prose.Report commentReply
Marian Kornicki Hi: Thank you for your email. I sent you a message via twitter, but I have included more information here. In California, Disability Voices United. Email: info@dvunited.org. Tom Coleman of the Spectrum Institute is another helpful resource. tomcoleman@spectruminstitute.org. I have recently been introduced to the following.National Association of Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA.org)MindFreedom International (MindFreedom.org)One of their current efforts is this petition https://chng.it/cdqRmH4S5KThank you, MarianReport commentReply
Kathleen Bosse Ohio is just as bad.My Mother was a victim of a predatory guardianship. No one in the proper channel recourse disputed my claims of medical abuse/neglect and financial exploitation, yet all denied jurisdiction over probate court.I found over 40 more victims of this same regime through public records, finding financial exploitation in every single case! My proof is legally self-authenticating. Probate signed filings and Ohio Supreme Court case decisions are both considered self-authenticating. (Rule 902, 10)The state still would not intervene! However, I did get written/recorded recommendations to send my cases to the FBI Public Corruption Unit from Hamilton County Organized Crime Unit Detective, the Ohio Attorney General Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Special Investigator and the Auditor of the State Special investigator.My evidence of public corruption and racketeering has been in the mail awaiting a receipt signature since 2-7-22 to the local FBI as requested.Corruption has infiltrated our nation.Report commentReply
aligra An appeal for help. I previously posted a link for my son Cavan’s conservatorship story (below). I’m requesting that anyone concerned about this situation attend the San Gabriel Pomona Regional Center’s board meeting on 2/23 at 7:15PM PST on Zoom and make a three minute (or less) public comment. Zoom Meeting ID: 234 566 141 (Password 916227). Heartfelt thanks from our family.https://sgprc.tumblr.com/post/667770604157616128/britney-spears-is-free-cavan-is-notReport commentReply
Rasx This is one reason I don’t talk to my mother anymore. She was always abusive and manipulative but when I got older and I was still financially dependent she started speaking with my psychiatrist in private and scheduling meetings I wasn’t alerted I was to attend or for what purpose with him where they’d already decided what my next ‘treatment’ was to be. I’d show up and they’d tell me you’re going to do this and if I said no my mother would tell me she’d pull my funding first For college and then for my masters program, and then finally for my phd (the last one was a lie as they actually weren’t paying for it, my now active trust was but they withheld that info to have more leverage to coerce me). Now that I’m not financially dependent anymore one might wonder what leverage they have? Well, my mother was a federal prosecutor for decades and is now a millionaire heiress with extensive contacts in the legal system and expert knowledge of how to manipulate it that I don’t have, plus she managed to coerce me into a psychiatric system that has labeled me with conditions that would strip me of all credibility and make a good case for conservatorship. What is to stop her from using her power in this way the next time she decides I’m not living the way she wants me to? It’s very hard to explain to people. But I could lose my whole life, forever.Report comment
On Nov. 9, 2024 Diane Berkebile was falsely arrested and hauled off to the Lawrence County Corrections Center.
Please demand her release–fax and phone numbers and addresses given below
FALSE IMPRISONMENT PUBLIC NOTICE
False Imprisonment of Diane Berkebile, New Castle PA Booking No. 2039152, Lawrence County Corrections Center
This is to advise you that the recent incarceration of Diane Berkebile constitutes false imprisonment, false arrest, a violation of 18 USC 1983 and deprivation of civil rights under color of authority and I and others are demanding her immediate release. She is elderly and disabled and should not have ever been incarcerated.
It is my understanding that the arrest is for not appearing for a false collections proceeding where Ms. Berkebile was never served. She was sued for defamation over a series of Facebook posts which criticized DA Lamancusa in his official government functions which should be covered under 1st Amendment free speech provisions every US citizen possesses and an inalienable right.
In addition, the statements she made on social media were in fact truthful and would be subject to Pennsylvania’s new anti SLAPP act as her constitutional right under the 1st Amendment to the US constitution and under the Free Speech provisions to the Pennsylvania Constitution. See attached Statute details. Lamancusa is also a pubic figure and as such he cannot sue anyone for false light, defamation or libel. In addition, defamation claims are successfully defended by asserting the following affirmative defenses of hyperbole, opinion, substantial truth, etc. and the burden would be put on you to prove the statements are false and damaging in some manner. Be aware that these opinions of states attorneys and district attorneys are now commonly held by the public and it may be difficult or impossible to even find a jury on your side.
It is my understanding that during this false and malicious arrest: 1. She requested but was shown no warrant or court order; 2. She was not read her rights; 3. She had repeatedly requested a copy of her files, but the clerk of court would not send them to her. In addition, she was unable to obtain a pro bono attorney because no attorney wanted to go into that court systems due to overwhelming issues with corruption and not following state and federal law, rules and regulations.
From the Pennsylvania State Constitution:
§ 7. Freedom of press and speech; libels. The printing press shall be free to every person who may undertake to examine the proceedings of the Legislature or any branch of government, and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof.
Lamancusa should be utterly ashamed of yourself, immediately release Ms. Berkebile and pay her significant damages for her pain and suffering. All of the lawsuits Lamancusa should be immediately withdrawn with prejudice.
For More Information call me or see my blog at http://www.Justice4Every1.com Joanne Denison, court corruption advocate, 773.255.7608
The Lawrence County Government Center is located at 430 Court Street, New Castle, Pennsylvania 16101. Their phone number is (724) 656-1925.
Fax no. 724.646.2286(does not work)
Honorable Dominick Motto President Judge Lawrence County Government Center 430 Court Street New Castle, Pennsylvania 16101 Phone: 724-656-1925 Fax: 724-656-2286 James Fee, Law Clerk
Honorable J. Craig Cox Associate Judge Lawrence County Government Center 430 Court Street New Castle, Pennsylvania 16101 Phone: 724-656-1927 Fax: 724-656-2288
Honorable John W. Hodge Associate Judge Lawrence County Government Center 430 Court Street New Castle, Pennsylvania 16101 Phone: 724-656-1919 Fax: 724-656-2285 Sean Merritt, Law Clerk
Honorable David H. Acker Associate Judge Lawrence County Government Center 430 Court Street New Castle, Pennsylvania 16101 Phone: 724-656-1958 Fax: 724-656-2284 David DeRosa, Law Clerk
The court document clearly show NO SERVICE on Diane B. They show a huge verdict, an attempt at collections and when she didn’t appear, because she was never served, she was falsely arrested.
From Barbara Stone: Nursing homes are nothing but slums and ghettos for the elderly
From Me yesterday: You wouldn’t dump your dog at a shelter, why are the probate judges dumping grandma in a nursing home facility on a routine basis?
Although I have to admit, what they feed dogs and what they feed grandma at the nursing home is pretty similar.
But dogs at a shelter get walks. Grandma gets a feeding tube at one end and a diaper at the other. Grandma will never see the light of day again.
What if we did that to dogs and cats at the shelter/pound? Wouldn’t it be easier to take care of them too? Feeding tube at one end, diaper the other? Never change it but once per day and only if they holler?
We don’t like it when dogs and cats live at a shelter for months on end, so why is it okay to dump grandma in a nursing home for years? Take all her assets and money and give it to crony tied in lawyers and nursing homes?
On September 4, 2024 at approximately 8:30 PM, Jason Penrod, 47, the owner and attorney of Family Elder Law Firm in Lake Wales, was arrested by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office on a warrant issued by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Penrod is charged with felony Grand Theft as a result of an ongoing investigation for stealing over $1.7 million from the Living Trust account of a deceased Polk County resident.
Penrod, a resident of Wyndham Drive in Winter Haven, was located at outside of Ocala in Marion County. Marion County Sheriff’s Office helped PCSO detectives serve the warrant issued by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
According to PCSO detectives, Jason Penrod questioned why he was being arrested and was distraught at the time of his arrest. Penrod stated he had an attorney who contacted the State Attorney’s Office about this incident and believed the issue was being handled. He declined to speak with detectives further.
During the investigation, PCSO detectives discovered that Penrod had flown to Pennsylvania to confess his theft to the adult son and daughter of one of his clients, who had passed away.
Penrod gave the son of his deceased victim a letter addressed to both him and his sister, in which he claimed he was dealing with mental and personal stress and to cope he would frequently gamble. His gambling compulsion increased to where he had “exhausted our family’s savings, [and] my law firm’s profits.” He stated that “being out of money and having a personal bank account at the same bank holding the trust funds, the perfect storm ensued in October 2023” and “Over the next 3 months, I frequently transferred funds from your Trust account to my personal account” to fund his gambling at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino.
“It is heartbreaking and insulting that a lawyer, who this victim placed his trust in, would cheat not only his victim, but the victim’s family, including children and grandchildren. We rely on lawyers to uphold the law and demonstrate integrity. Penrod did neither. His excuses are just that – he promised when he was given his license to practice law that he would protect his clients – and he has done the exact opposite.” – Grady Judd, Sheriff
PCSO found that Penrod’s former associate attorney had discovered the misuse of client funds and reported him to the Florida Bar Association. Since the report by his former associate, Penrod then reported himself to the Florida State Supreme Court for misuse of funds from two clients’ trusts.
PCSO detectives have confirmed that Penrod has been to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa multiple times this year, and has lost over $1.7 million gambling. Detectives also obtained copies of the suspect’s bank records, which showed that he stole $1,705,000 from the victim’s trust account and put it into his own personal bank accounts. So far, his bank records show that Penrod has wired directly to the Hard Rock Casino was $1,207,120, and he has also withdrawn $24,511.45 from ATMs at the Hard Rock. Detectives are still investigating his financials.
The investigation into Jason Penrod is still ongoing. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office believes that he has stolen money from other client victims.
Commonality: potential class members must have all suffered an action or inaction that arises from a common set of facts, and should thus be decided by application of similar legal standards. Typicality: this element is met when the claims of the class representative are typical of the claims of the entire class.
Among the most fundamental of all class action criteria is the presence of common legal and factual issues among the potential class members. This means that the claims of the proposed class members must share common questions of law or fact that predominate over individual issues.
Class Actions can be filed in Federal or State court. To file in Federal court you have to have a violation of Federal Law. The Federal System, court or otherwise is always limited to things that affect the entire nation. Rights not specifically granted to the Federal government are reserved for the States.
So the states rights problems you may wish to review two common cases1) Rooker Feldman and 2) the Younger doctrine.
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is a legal principle that prevents federal courts from reviewing state court judgments, unless Congress has specifically authorized it. The doctrine is based on the idea that a litigant shouldn’t be able to re-litigate matters that have already been decided by a court of competent jurisdiction. The doctrine was established by the United States Supreme Court in two cases, Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co. (1923) and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman (1983).
The Younger abstention doctrine is a judicial rule that prevents federal trial courts from exercising jurisdiction in certain circumstances. It requires federal courts to defer to pending state court proceedings, even if federal jurisdiction exists. The doctrine was originally intended to prevent non-interference,
The Younger abstention doctrine applies when three factors are present:
There is an ongoing state proceeding
The claim raises important state interests
The state proceedings provide an adequate opportunity to raise the federal constitutional claims
The Supreme Court has expanded the doctrine in several ways:
In Middlesex County Ethics Committee v. Garden State Bar Ass’n (1982), the court held that the doctrine applies to noncriminal judicial proceedings when important state interests are involved.
In Exxon Mobile Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (2005), the court held that federal courts may need to recognize the preclusive effects of state-court judgments in cases with parallel litigation in both state and federal courts.
The Younger Doctrine Abstention under Younger holds that federal courts should abstain from cases that are pending in state proceedings. The facts of Younger involved a criminal defendant that challenged the state (California) criminal statute for which he was indicted.
The probate exception to federal jurisdiction is a principle that limits the jurisdiction of federal courts over wills and decedents’ estates. This exception prevents federal courts from hearing probate matters, such as: Probate of a will, Annulment of a will, Administration of an estate, and Distribution of property in a probate court’s custody.
The exception is intended to ensure that federal courts do not dispose of property belonging to a probate estate. It reserves these matters to state probate courts. However, the exception is limited, and federal courts can hear cases that may indirectly involve a probate estate. For example, in 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Marshall v. Marshall narrowed the exception, allowing for “federalized” inheritance litigation in some cases.
The fiasco with Mrs. West is outrageous. Tomorrow she goes before a Judge pro se – this e-mail was sent to here with the hope that she can remember: 1) The guardian’s appointment was limited – he was not appointed to be God – but only to assist Mr. West to address – without interfering with his 14th Amendment Rights and also within the limits that the guardian’s action is to be:
1) reasonable,2) necessary, and3) actually, provide a benefit to Mr. West. The standard for determining whether the criterion are met is – “by the clear light of hindsight.”
The guardian is not appointed GOD!
Ken Ditkowsky
On Monday, April 22, 2024 at 08:36:13 PM CDT, Joanne Denison <joanne@denisonlaw.com> wrote:
There is also freedom of association under the first amendment and probably also somewhere in the Illinois Constitution which means that parents and children and spouses can freely see and communicate with one another. That is being violated too
The foregoing notwithstanding. I think my note to Mrs. West can be used in both the SAllas and the Compansano cases.
April 16, 2014
To: Mr. David Chipman – dchipman@monzonlaw,com
Subject: William and Rose West/ financial elder abuse
Dear Mr. Chipman,
Please allow me to introduce myself. I have encouraged Mrs. Rose West to seek legal help in addressing the financial elder abuse that she and her husband are currently experiencing. As Mrs. West has contacted your office for that service, I’ve taken the liberty of contacting you in the hope that you will help her and her husband out of this totally amoral and deplorable situation. Indeed, it gets worse almost daily – this afternoon I understand that Mr. West’s trust has been depleted by almost ¾’s to about $100,000.00 from its original corpus of approximately $400,000.00 –
Financial elder abuse usually accomplished by breaches of fiduciary relationship by Court supervised guardians has become a National scandal. The West case is outrageous in that Mrs. West and the family pastor are both being denied not only the usual courtesy to which they are entitled, but visitation with Mr. West. And it appears to me and those who have contacted me that Mr. West’s convalescence at his current “sheltered care facility” is reported to be more in the nature of solitary prison confinement rather than any health care endeavor. Mrs. West today informed me that she has some documentation that is most disturbing and allegedly wrongful.
Unfortunately, the West case is not a lone situation of financial elder abuse, but part of a serious problem. It has been reported in the New York Times, the New Yorker magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Netflix, some GAO reports to Congress ***** etc.
Mr. and Mrs. West are being forced to address an alleged wrongful interference in their marriage along with the dissipation of their estate. Worse yet, Mrs. West (and many other victims) have reached deaf ears in their attempts to interest Law Enforcement in protecting them and similarly situated elderly. The fact that the guardian =as a matter of law – is a fiduciary and held to the highest of standards appears to be irrelevant. Mr. West is allegedly held captive far from his home. In my opinion = based upon Mrs. West’s statements to me – intended as a deterrent to Mrs. West demanding that Mr. West receive appropriate health care and services that are tailored to Bill West’s needs.
I am certain that Mrs. West’s very legitimate complaints were communicated to you and your office. I am communicating with you in the hope that you and your firm will undertake to assist Mr. and Mrs. West in addressing this very serious problem.
While I know nothing about Nebraska law, I do know that it is wrong for any individual to interfere with the rights of husband and wife in each other, and a claim for alienation of affections is usually recognized. I am also aware that a ‘bunch’ of laws have been passed to obviate the scandal associated with FINANCIAL ELDER ABUSE.
Recently I sent out an e-mail that summarized the situation here in Illinois, to wit:
Memorandum.
Pursuant to the 14th Amendment every person is guaranteed certain rights of civilization and in particular to be treated equally under the law. This right is not limited to a vague statement mumbled and forgotten but an honest recognition of each individual’s worth. The elderly and the disabled are included in this understanding and recognition.
Thus, when it became apparent that an individual might be suffering from a disability, or a mental deficiency society is faced with the prospect of assisting that individual with only such assistance as might be need for the individual to reasonably survive in a competitive environment/society. Illinois Law described this situation in 755 ILCS 5/11a – 3b. (It should be noted that each state has an amazing similar statute/statement, to wit:
(755 ILCS 5/11a-3) (from Ch. 110 1/2, par. 11a-3)
(b) Guardianship shall be utilized only as is necessary to promote the well-being of the person with a disability, to protect him from neglect, exploitation, or abuse, and to encourage development of his maximum self-reliance and independence. Guardianship shall be ordered only to the extent necessitated by the individual’s actual mental, physical and adaptive limitations. The order shall conform with Sections 11a-12 and 11a-14. (Source: P.A. 102-72, eff. 1-1-22.)
It should be noted that the 14th Amendment provision is mentioned, i.e. “ only as is necessary to promote the wellbeing of the person with disability” To protect the citizen’s rights from over-reaching the statute provides another limitation, to wit: “GUARDIAN SHALL BE ORDERED ONLY TO THE EXTENT NECESSITATED BY THE INDIVIDUALS ACTUAL MENTAL, PHYICAL & ADAPTIVE LIMITATIONS.
In the Sallas, Compasano, West, and just about every other guardianship case that has been discussed these limitations have been grossly ignored. In the West case, as an example, why should a guardianship place Mr. West more than 100 miles from his home when it bars him from having the companionship of his wife and family. In the Sallas Mrs. Sallas was placed for a decade right in her home with her husband. To facilitate the “Tyler” style theft of the equity of her home, she was removed into a nursing home mile from Skokie in Buffalo Grove. In the Campasano case not only was the marriage arbitrarily not recognized by the guardian, but to prevent Mr. Campasano from enjoying the rights of his marriage an order of protection was granted by Judge Boliker without notice to Mrs. Campasano. (We also believe that Mr. Campasano was not given the right to protest). ALL OF THE FOREGOING ARE DIRECT VIOLATIONS OF THE 14TH AMENDMENT to the United States Constitution.
American Law, prior to present assault on the rights of the elderly, honored the Bill of Rights and the Constitutional protections of the 1st Paragraph of the 14th Amendment. Indeed, protection was even provided prior to the appointment of a Guardian. Unfortunately, it appears that this protection was granted in form and not in substance. Such is manifest by the number of professional guardians rummaging through the estates and the absence of express findings of law and fact by judges. In Illinois, the applicable statute is 755 ILCS 5/11a – 3a, which states:
(755 ILCS 5/11a-3) (from Ch. 110 1/2, par. 11a-3) Sec. 11a-3. Adjudication of disability; Power to appoint guardian. (a) Upon the filing of a petition by a reputable person or by the alleged person with a disability himself or on its own motion, the court may adjudge a person to be a person with a disability, but only if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that the person is a person with a disability as defined in Section 11a-2. If the court adjudges a person to be a person with a disability, the court may appoint (1) a guardian of his person, if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that because of his disability he lacks sufficient understanding or capacity to make or communicate responsible decisions concerning the care of his person, or (2) a guardian of his estate, if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that because of his disability he is unable to manage his estate or financial affairs, or (3) a guardian of his person and of his estate. The court may appoint co-guardians in accordance with Section 11a-15.
If one reads section 3a and 3b together, we note the following requirements, to wit:
1) Due process averments must be made, served on all interested parties and proven by clear and convincing evidence. This is most procrustean of the burdens of proof.
2) The burden of proof is upon the person asserting that another person is disabled and in need of a guardian. This burden of proof has to be specific to meet the criteria of section 3b.
3) The person appointed to be guardian is A FIDUCIARY and as such is held to the highest standard of conduct.
4) The guardianship appointment is not a rote matter. A person being deprived of his/her rights is entitled to counsel, a written document detailing the basis upon which guardianship is sought, and the finder of fact a jury rather than the judge. (In fact the usual proceeding is a “joke!” if all the required people are indeed notified, they are silenced by a judge who 99 out of 100 times will appoint predatory Guardian’s ad litem, and listen to a physician who would if every person in the Courtroom was wearing a mask and dressed in the same attire as the elderly person would find them all in need of guardian including the esteemed judge. In too many cases this physician is not paid to give evidence, he/she is paid to provide a testimony that he has examined the elderly person, and he finds from his examination that the elderly person has no ability to do anything of substance.
(In the case of Amy Sallas, she was actually doing the shopping, engaging trades people to do work around the home, making meals, etc. She was so disabled that her guardian placed her back in her home where she and Dean lives for ten years with virtually no supervision. The guardian’s primary duty was to harass the couple and make demands of the court for compensation).
The statute is consistent [1] with the proposition that as a fiduciary the Guardian is held to highest standard of care and compliance with the RULE OF LAW. What this means in simple terms is that the guardian’s actions must be a) reasonable, b) necessary, and c) must provide a benefit to his ward.
If any of these 3 elements are not present not only is the guardian not entitled to compensation, but the guardian is subject to sanction and reimbursement of the guardian’s estate. In today’s guardianship lawfare, it is noted that.
a) In most of these guardianship cases the presiding judge does not make findings of fact and conclusions of law. Ergo, the Court cannot enter and order that comports with the requirements of 755 ILCS 5/11a – 3b.
b) The order entered by the Court makes no attempt to spell out the authority of the guardian and specifically limits the same to the criteria of 755 ILCS 5/11a – 3b.
c) That the Judge presiding in the Guardianship Court is essentially a rubber stamp and no matter what, if anything the Guardian requests he gets. In the Sallascase the guardian desired to ravage Mr. Sallas credit. It appears that a Judgement was entered against Mr. Sallas for support of his wife – no petition, no service of process, no domestic relations proceeding, no basis, no averment – the real purpose was to prevent Sallas from refinancing certain loans that were coming due. Such was successful. In the Campasano case the Order of Protection appears to have been entered – the real purpose is to prevent Ms. Campasano from preventing the neglect of her husband.
d) If a person KNOWS the object of his bounty, KNOWS the extent and nature of his property, and CAN PERFORM a simple business-like transaction such as purchasing something from the local store – -the need for a guardian is very questionable.
Every State in the Union has a Statute similar to the Illinois statute addressing the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on indenturing citizens for the benefit of public officials such as guardians and protection all citizens so that they enjoy the RULE OF LAW. In the Britney Spears case, the California Courts made a mockery out of the Guardianship law. Ms. Spears negotiated and performed multi=million-dollar contracts – the fact that she liked to wander around inappropriately dressed and say wild things did not warrant her rights being violated. But they were!
Across America, the elderly are being preyed upon but individuals who owe them fiduciary responsibility and corrupt judges. This aspect of Lawfare is being ignored by Law enforcement and government in general. It is corruption personified and cannot be further tolerated.
I assume that Nebraska has similar laws that are designed to protect its citizens. Illinois’ 720 ILCS 5/17 – 56 was remedial and in Illinois provides a civil lawsuit that is interesting and an incentive to the legal profession. In particular, it provides for Attorney fees, and triple damages – PLUS – the reduction of the burden of proof from clear and convincing to preponderance.
As I am retired, and pushing 88 years of age, I do not have ready access to Nebraska law, but section the financial elder abuse statute was enacted as a remedial statute based upon the overflowing number of financial elder abuse situations that are current being perpetrated -thus Nebraska mush have something similar.
Today, it is Bill West – tomorrow it may be me or thee! I hope that you can assist Mr. and Mrs. West in getting the remaining years of their life back.
Thank you for your courtesy and any assistance you can provide my friends.
Ken Ditkowsky
[1] Read together 755 ILCS 5/11a – 3 states, to wit:
‘
(755 ILCS 5/11a-3) (from Ch. 110 1/2, par. 11a-3) Sec. 11a-3. Adjudication of disability; Power to appoint guardian. (a) Upon the filing of a petition by a reputable person or by the alleged person with a disability himself or on its own motion, the court may adjudge a person to be a person with a disability, but only if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that the person is a person with a disability as defined in Section 11a-2. If the court adjudges a person to be a person with a disability, the court may appoint (1) a guardian of his person, if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that because of his disability he lacks sufficient understanding or capacity to make or communicate responsible decisions concerning the care of his person, or (2) a guardian of his estate, if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that because of his disability he is unable to manage his estate or financial affairs, or (3) a guardian of his person and of his estate. The court may appoint co-guardians in accordance with Section 11a-15. (b) Guardianship shall be utilized only as is necessary to promote the well-being of the person with a disability, to protect him from neglect, exploitation, or abuse, and to encourage development of his maximum self-reliance and independence. Guardianship shall be ordered only to the extent necessitated by the individual’s actual mental, physical and adaptive limitations. The order shall conform with Sections 11a-12 and 11a-14. (Source: P.A. 102-72, eff. 1-1-22.)
Ken Ditkowsky
On Monday, April 22, 2024 at 02:24:09 PM CDT, Joanne Denison <joanne@denisonlaw.com> wrote:
biden is not involved in the doj and the doj is mostly republican. remember the states are mostly going after clown 45, not the feds or the gop. the federal court judges are mostly gop.
Joanne M Denison, Executive Director
Justice 4 Every1, NFP, 5534 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60630
NOTE: Joanne Denison is not a licensed attorney and does not provide any legal opinions or advice. She is an expert consultant in political/court corruption only.
make an appt at https://joanne-denison.youcanbook.me/ and please bring a donation if you can. We do not charge, but we do ask for a small donation or whatever you can afford.
Interesting observation – apparently I’m not the only one to observe this situation.
Now let’s translate this to guardianship scenario. Trump has billions of dollars to defend him – Rose West, Dean Sallas, Sophia Campasano ***** do not. Have you noticed Rose and Sophia are being harassed with claims of orders of protection that may or may not exist. Dean has been threatened with arrest.
From SC: Desperate plea to find missing mom; kidnapped in guardianship–Seeking Virginia Danno
Information:
Mother: Virginia Danno Crest Hill, IL Daughter: Maria Danno Yorkville, IL dannomaria@gmail.com 815-212-7910
She is either in a nursing home or a hospital.
More info: She was at Silver Cross in New Lennox and Trust Well in Joliet.
anything in Joliet,Cest Hill, or New Lennox area. Her house is in Carillon Lakes,. It’s on Renwick rd in crest Hill.
Please give her your cell phone and call Daughter Maria who is worried sick about her mom.
16340 Montclare lake drive crest hill Il is her home address
SUCCESS. We have success and Mother has been found! And the court cronies were all furious and an unwritten order issued from the bench that Daughter cannot see or talk to mom for 14 days We all know that is unconstitutional and illegal and basically amounts to a gag order and intimidation and harassment. No due process no petition filed no 105b service. Biz as usual.
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE. more success. apparent the cronies are watching and fearful of this blog because when Daughter went back to court she was immediately socked with a court order (of course totally illegal) that she cannot see her mother for 14 days or talk to her.
So just another unconstitutional gag order, another imaginary “petition” for rule to show cause that does not actually exist, no due process, no 105b sheriff’s service and of course proof that none of the 1st, 5th and 14th amendment exist in that court room.
I am impressed that you read this blog; however, this is my blog. I post and decide what to post no one else. And this is pure harassment, intimidation and contemptuous conduct by the cronies. The Danno family has nothing to do with my posts, but you want to blame them for wanting to see a loved one?
The US constitution, 1st amendment guarantees freedom of association. This means that in the case of parent and child, I submit that throughout the US there is, and always has been the tort of loss of consortium between parent and child. If a parent wants to see a child and the child want to see a parent, that is a constitutional right.
In addition the following laws apply also to the cronies:
Nice confession cronies. But let me remind you this is a civil rights violation and it’s also criminal:
Federal Civil Rights Statutes Title 18, U.S.C., Section 249 – Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act This statute makes it unlawful to willfully cause bodily injury—or attempting to do so with fire, firearm, or other dangerous weapon—when 1) the crime was committed because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin of any person, or 2) the crime was committed because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person and the crime affected interstate or foreign commerce or occurred within federal special maritime and territorial jurisdiction.
(I would imagine the elderly and disabled are covered via the ADA or Americans with Disabilities Act and Illinois Elder Abuse Act).
The law also provides funding and technical assistance to state, local, and tribal jurisdictions to help them to more effectively investigate, prosecute, and prevent hate crimes.
The law provides for a maximum 10–year prison term, unless death (or attempts to kill) results from the offense, or unless the offense includes kidnapping or attempted kidnapping, or aggravated sexual abuse or attempted aggravated sexual abuse. For offenses not resulting in death, there is a seven–year statute of limitations. For offenses resulting in death, there is no statute of limitations.
Note, in most abusive gship cases, grandma, grandpa or both have been kidnapped under color of law, forced into a locked down nursing home and drugged against their will by lawyers in suits and judges in robes
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 – Conspiracy Against Rights This statute makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).
It further makes it unlawful for two or more persons to go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another with the intent to prevent or hinder his/her free exercise or enjoyment of any rights so secured.
Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to ten years, or both; and if death results, or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years, or for life, or may be sentenced to death.
Isolation, taking away glasses, hearing aids, protheses, etc. is a hinderance of the free exercise of US constitutional rights.
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242 – Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law This statute makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.
This law further prohibits a person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to willfully subject or cause to be subjected any person to different punishments, pains, or penalties, than those prescribed for punishment of citizens on account of such person being an alien or by reason of his/her color or race.
Acts under “color of any law” include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under “color of any law,” the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.
Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to one year, or both, and if bodily injury results or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire shall be fined or imprisoned up to ten years or both, and if death results, or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Now, I don’t want anyone to be “put to death” or even imprisoned. I want them confined to the dirtiest, most dangers nursing home in Illinois, diaper at one end, feeding tube at the other, 4 point restraints and restraint mittens. Never to be seen again. Probate victims can have the vote for the worst nursing homes.
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 245 – Federally Protected Activities 1) This statute prohibits willful injury, intimidation, or interference, or attempt to do so, by force or threat of force of any person or class of persons because of their activity as:
A voter, or person qualifying to vote…; a participant in any benefit, service, privilege, program, facility, or activity provided or administered by the United States; an applicant for federal employment or an employee by the federal government; a juror or prospective juror in federal court; and a participant in any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. 2) Prohibits willful injury, intimidation, or interference or attempt to do so, by force or threat of force of any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin and because of his/her activity as:
A student or applicant for admission to any public school or public college; a participant in any benefit, service, privilege, program, facility, or activity provided or administered by a state or local government; an applicant for private or state employment, private or state employee; a member or applicant for membership in any labor organization or hiring hall; or an applicant for employment through any employment agency, labor organization or hiring hall; a juror or prospective juror in state court; a traveler or user of any facility of interstate commerce or common carrier; or a patron of any public accommodation, including hotels, motels, restaurants, lunchrooms, bars, gas stations, theaters…or any other establishment which serves the public and which is principally engaged in selling food or beverages for consumption on the premises.
3) Prohibits interference by force or threat of force against any person because he/she is or has been, or in order to intimidate such person or any other person or class of persons from participating or affording others the opportunity or protection to so participate, or lawfully aiding or encouraging other persons to participate in any of the benefits or activities listed in items (1) and (2), above without discrimination as to race, color, religion, or national origin.
Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to one year, or both, and if bodily injury results or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire shall be fined or imprisoned up to ten years or both, and if death results or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be subject to imprisonment for any term of years or for life or may be sentenced to death.
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 247 – Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 Prohibits (1) intentional defacement, damage, or destruction of any religious real property, because of the religious, racial, or ethnic characteristics of that property, or (2) intentional obstruction by force or threat of force, or attempts to obstruct any person in the enjoyment of that person’s free exercise of religious beliefs. If the intent of the crime is motivated for reasons of religious animosity, it must be proven that the religious real property has a sufficient connection with interstate or foreign commerce. However, if the intent of the crime is racially motivated, there is no requirement to satisfy the interstate or foreign commerce clause.
Punishment varies from one year imprisonment and a fine or both, and if bodily injury results to any person, including any public safety officer performing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this section, and the violation is by means of fire or an explosive, a fine under this title or imprisonment of not more than forty years or both; or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire shall be fined in accordance with this title and imprisonment for up to twenty years, or both, and if death results or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined in accordance with this title and imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
In many cases, the elderly have their religious jewelry taken away, rosaries taken away, and they are no longer “allowed” to attend their house of worship. They often have religious pictures (Jesus, Mother Mary and the angels) taken away or thrown out at nursing homes)
Title 42, U.S.C., Section 3631 – Criminal Interference with Right to Fair Housing This statute makes it unlawful for any individual(s), by the use of force or threatened use of force, to injure, intimidate, or interfere with (or attempt to injure, intimidate, or interfere with), any person’s housing rights because of that person’s race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin. Among those housing rights enumerated in the statute are:
The sale, purchase, or renting of a dwelling; the occupation of a dwelling; the financing of a dwelling; contracting or negotiating for any of the rights enumerated above; applying for or participating in any service, organization, or facility relating to the sale or rental of dwellings. This statute also makes it unlawful by the use of force or threatened use of force, to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person who is assisting an individual or class of persons in the exercise of their housing rights.
Punishment varies from a fine of up to $1,000 or imprisonment of up to one year, or both, and if bodily injury results, shall be fined up to $10,000 or imprisoned up to ten years, or both, and if death results, shall be subject to imprisonment for any term of years or for life.
This statute is for all the courtroom criminals that think it’s okay to intentionally ruin or destroy a home, create a fake condemnation and toss out elderly disable children onto the street in hours. It should also apply to the disableds when the court forces them into a dirty, filthy disgusing nursing home against their will and consent.
Title 42, U.S.C., Section 14141 – Pattern and Practice This civil statute was a provision within the Crime Control Act of 1994 and makes it unlawful for any governmental authority, or agent thereof, or any person acting on behalf of a governmental authority, to engage in a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers or by officials or employees of any governmental agency with responsibility for the administration of juvenile justice or the incarceration of juveniles that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.
Whenever the Attorney General has reasonable cause to believe that a violation has occurred, the Attorney General, for or in the name of the United States, may in a civil action obtain appropriate equitable and declaratory relief to eliminate the pattern or practice.
Types of misconduct covered include, among other things:
Excessive Force Discriminatory Harassment False Arrest Coercive Sexual Conduct Unlawful Stops, Searches, or Arrests
I’m still trying to figure out why Child is responsible for my blog and my post and how the miscreants avoid these important Civil Rights statutes which provide for severe punishments, up to and including death. I’ll tell you right now, Child had nothing to do with this blog and even if she did, it’s clearly free speech and the miscreants need to review both the Citizens United case (distributing a trashy lie filled lengthy video about Hillary right before and election) and the Alvarez case (lying about having a medal of honor/valor). If strings of trash and lies are allowed, how can this stupid court and it’s cronies go after a child just trying to see his or her parent
Pursuant to the 14th Amendment every person is guaranteed certain rights of civilization and in particular to be treated equally under the law. This right is not limited to a vague statement mumbled and forgotten but an honest recognition of each individual’s worth. The elderly and the disabled are included in this understanding and recognition.
Thus, when it became apparent that an individual might be suffering from a disability, or a mental deficiency society is faced with the prospect of assisting that individual with only such assistance as might be need for the individual to reasonably survive in a competitive environment/society. Illinois Law described this situation in 755 ILCS 5/11a – 3b. (It should be noted that each state has an amazing similar statute/statement, to wit:
(755 ILCS 5/11a-3) (from Ch. 110 1/2, par. 11a-3)
(b) Guardianship shall be utilized only as is necessary to promote the well-being of the person with a disability, to protect him from neglect, exploitation, or abuse, and to encourage development of his maximum self-reliance and independence. Guardianship shall be ordered only to the extent necessitated by the individual’s actual mental, physical and adaptive limitations. The order shall conform with Sections 11a-12 and 11a-14. (Source: P.A. 102-72, eff. 1-1-22.)
It should be noted that the 14th Amendment provision is mentioned, i.e. “ only as is necessary to promote the well being of the person with disability” To protect the citizen’s rights from over-reaching the statute provides another limitation, to wit: “GUARDIAN SHALL BE ORDERED ONLY TO THE EXTENT NECESSITATED BY THE INDIVIDUALS ACTUAL MENTAL, PHYICAL & ADAPTIVE LIMITATIONS.
In the Sallas, Compasano, West, and just about every other guardianship case that has been discussed these limitations have been grossly ignored. In the West case, as an example, why should a guardianship place Mr. West more than 100 miles from his home when it bars him from having the companionship of his wife and family. In the Sallas Mrs. Sallas was placed for a decade right in her home with her husband. To facilitate the “Tyler” style theft of the equity of her home, she was removed into a nursing home mile from Skokie in Buffalo Grove. In the Campasano case not only was the marriage arbitrarily not recognized by the guardian, but to prevent Mr. Campasano from enjoying the rights of his marriage an order of protection was granted by Judge Boliker without notice to Mrs. Campasano. (We also believe that Mr. Campasano was not given the right to protest). ALL OF THE FOREGOING ARE DIRECT VIOLATIONS OF THE 14TH AMENDMENT to the United States Constitution.
American Law, prior to present assault on the rights of the elderly, honored the Bill of Rights and the Constitutional protections of the 1st Paragraph of the 14th Amendment. Indeed, protection was even provided for prior to the appointment of a Guardian. Unfortunately, it appears that this protection was granted in form and not in substance. Such is manifest by the number of professional guardians rummaging through the estates and the absence of express findings of law and fact by judges. In Illinois the applicable statute is 755 ILCS 5/11a – 3a, which states:
(755 ILCS 5/11a-3) (from Ch. 110 1/2, par. 11a-3) Sec. 11a-3. Adjudication of disability; Power to appoint guardian. (a) Upon the filing of a petition by a reputable person or by the alleged person with a disability himself or on its own motion, the court may adjudge a person to be a person with a disability, but only if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that the person is a person with a disability as defined in Section 11a-2. If the court adjudges a person to be a person with a disability, the court may appoint (1) a guardian of his person, if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that because of his disability he lacks sufficient understanding or capacity to make or communicate responsible decisions concerning the care of his person, or (2) a guardian of his estate, if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that because of his disability he is unable to manage his estate or financial affairs, or (3) a guardian of his person and of his estate. The court may appoint co-guardians in accordance with Section 11a-15.
If one reads section 3a and 3b together, we note the following requirements, to wit:
1) Due process averments must be made, served on all interested parties and proven by clear and convincing evidence. This is most procrustean of the burdens of proof.
2) The burden of proof is upon the person asserting that another person is disabled and in need of a guardian. This burden of proof has to be specific to meet the criteria of section 3b.
3) The person appointed to be guardian is A FIDUCIARY and as such is held to the highest standard of conduct.
4) The guardianship appointment is not a rote matter. A person being deprived of his/her rights is entitled to counsel, a written document detailing the basis upon which guardianship is sought, and the finder of fact a jury rather than the judge. (In fact the usual proceeding is a “joke!” if all the required people are indeed notified, they are silenced by a judge who 99 out of 100 times will appoint predatory Guardian’s ad litem, and listen to a physician who would if every person in the Courtroom was wearing a mask and dressed in the same attire as the elderly person would find them all in need of guardian including the esteemed judge. In too many cases this physician is not paid to give evidence, he/she is paid to provide a testimony that he has examined the elderly person, and he finds from his examination that the elderly person has no ability to do anything of substance.
(In the case of Amy Sallas, she was actually doing the shopping, engaging trades people to do work around the home, making meals, etc. She was so disabled that her guardian placed her back in her home where she and Dean lives for ten years with virtually no supervision. The guardian’s primary duty was to harass the couple and make demands of the court for compensation).
The statute is consistent [1] with the proposition that as a fiduciary the Guardian is held to highest standard of care and compliance with the RULE OF LAW. What this means in simple terms is that the guardian’s actions must be a) reasonable, b) necessary, and c) must provide a benefit to his ward.
If any of these 3 elements are not present not only is the guardian not entitled to compensation, but the guardian is subject to sanction and reimbursement of the guardian’s estate. In today’s guardianship lawfare, it is noted that.
a) In most of these guardianship cases the presiding judge does not make findings of fact and conclusions of law. Ergo, the Court cannot enter and order that comports with the requirements of 755 ILCS 5/11a – 3b.
b) The order entered by the Court makes no attempt to spell out the authority of the guardian and specifically limits the same to the criteria of 755 ILCS 5/11a – 3b.
c) That the Judge presiding in the Guardianship Court is essentially a rubber stamp and no matter what, if anything the Guardian requests he gets. In the Sallascase the guardian desired to ravage Mr. Sallas credit. It appears that a Judgement was entered against Mr. Sallas for support of his wife – no petition, no service of process, no domestic relations proceeding, no basis, no averment – the real purpose was to prevent Sallas from refinancing certain loans that were coming due. Such was successful. In the Campasano case the Order of Protection appears to have been entered – the real purpose is to prevent Ms. Campasano from preventing the neglect of her husband.
d) If a person KNOWS the object of his bounty, KNOWS the extent and nature of his property, and CAN PERFORM a simple business-like transaction such as purchasing something from the local store – -the need for a guardian is very questionable.
Every State in the Union has a Statute similar to the Illinois statute addressing the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on indenturing citizens for the benefit of public officials such as guardians and protection all citizens so that they enjoy the RULE OF LAW. In the Britney Spears case, the California Courts made a mockery out of the Guardianship law. Ms. Spears negotiated and performed multi=million-dollar contracts – the fact that she liked to wander around inappropriately dressed and say wild things did not warrant her rights being violated. But they were!
Across America, the elderly are being preyed upon but individuals who owe them fiduciary responsibility and corrupt judges. This aspect of Lawfare is being ignored by Law enforcement and government in general. It is corruption personified and cannot be further tolerated.
Ken Ditkowsky
[1] Read together 755 ILCS 5/11a – 3 states, to wit:
‘
(755 ILCS 5/11a-3) (from Ch. 110 1/2, par. 11a-3) Sec. 11a-3. Adjudication of disability; Power to appoint guardian. (a) Upon the filing of a petition by a reputable person or by the alleged person with a disability himself or on its own motion, the court may adjudge a person to be a person with a disability, but only if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that the person is a person with a disability as defined in Section 11a-2. If the court adjudges a person to be a person with a disability, the court may appoint (1) a guardian of his person, if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that because of his disability he lacks sufficient understanding or capacity to make or communicate responsible decisions concerning the care of his person, or (2) a guardian of his estate, if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that because of his disability he is unable to manage his estate or financial affairs, or (3) a guardian of his person and of his estate. The court may appoint co-guardians in accordance with Section 11a-15. (b) Guardianship shall be utilized only as is necessary to promote the well-being of the person with a disability, to protect him from neglect, exploitation, or abuse, and to encourage development of his maximum self-reliance and independence. Guardianship shall be ordered only to the extent necessitated by the individual’s actual mental, physical and adaptive limitations. The order shall conform with Sections 11a-12 and 11a-14. (Source: P.A. 102-72, eff. 1-1-22.)
After a docket check on the Marjorie Ivy case, it appears that the Estate is going be distributed to the rightful heirs and legatees. See the following motion
You will recall in the news about 10 years ago Marjorie Ivy was hacked to death by a Mordechai Faskowitz, brother of Miriam Solo. Since that time, Miriam Solo has been desperately trying to grab that Estate away from the relatives of Marjorie Ivy, the victim.
As you will recall the case went up on appeal once and Miriam Solo lost, see below decision.
After a stranger became their guardian, Rudy and Rennie North were moved to a nursing home and their property was sold.Illustration by Anna Parini
For years, Rudy North woke up at 9 a.m. and read the Las Vegas Review-Journal while eating a piece of toast. Then he read a novel—he liked James Patterson and Clive Cussler—or, if he was feeling more ambitious, Freud. On scraps of paper and legal notepads, he jotted down thoughts sparked by his reading. “Deep below the rational part of our brain is an underground ocean where strange things swim,” he wrote on one notepad. On another, “Life: the longer it cooks, the better it tastes.”
Rennie, his wife of fifty-seven years, was slower to rise. She was recovering from lymphoma and suffered from neuropathy so severe that her legs felt like sausages. Each morning, she spent nearly an hour in the bathroom applying makeup and lotions, the same brands she’d used for forty years. She always emerged wearing pale-pink lipstick. Rudy, who was prone to grandiosity, liked to refer to her as “my amour.”
On the Friday before Labor Day, 2013, the Norths had just finished their toast when a nurse, who visited five times a week to help Rennie bathe and dress, came to their house, in Sun City Aliante, an “active adult” community in Las Vegas. They had moved there in 2005, when Rudy, a retired consultant for broadcasters, was sixty-eight and Rennie was sixty-six. They took pride in their view of the golf course, though neither of them played golf.
Rudy chatted with the nurse in the kitchen for twenty minutes, joking about marriage and laundry, until there was a knock at the door. A stocky woman with shiny black hair introduced herself as April Parks, the owner of the company A Private Professional Guardian. She was accompanied by three colleagues, who didn’t give their names. Parks told the Norths that she had an order from the Clark County Family Court to “remove” them from their home. She would be taking them to an assisted-living facility. “Go and gather your things,” she said.
Rennie began crying. “This is my home,” she said.
One of Parks’s colleagues said that if the Norths didn’t comply he would call the police. Rudy remembers thinking, You’re going to put my wife and me in jail for this? But he felt too confused to argue.
Parks drove a Pontiac G-6 convertible with a license plate that read “crtgrdn,” for “court guardian.” In the past twelve years, she had been a guardian for some four hundred wards of the court. Owing to age or disability, they had been deemed incompetent, a legal term that describes those who are unable to make reasoned choices about their lives or their property. As their guardian, Parks had the authority to manage their assets, and to choose where they lived, whom they associated with, and what medical treatment they received. They lost nearly all their civil rights.
Without realizing it, the Norths had become temporary wards of the court. Parks had filed an emergency ex-parte petition, which provides an exception to the rule that both parties must be notified of any argument before a judge. She had alleged that the Norths posed a “substantial risk for mismanagement of medications, financial loss and physical harm.” She submitted a brief letter from a physician’s assistant, whom Rennie had seen once, stating that “the patient’s husband can no longer effectively take care of the patient at home as his dementia is progressing.” She also submitted a letter from one of Rudy’s doctors, who described him as “confused and agitated.”
Rudy and Rennie had not undergone any cognitive assessments. They had never received a diagnosis of dementia. In addition to Freud, Rudy was working his way through Nietzsche and Plato. Rennie read romance novels.
Parks told the Norths that if they didn’t come willingly an ambulance would take them to the facility, a place she described as a “respite.” Still crying, Rennie put cosmetics and some clothes into a suitcase. She packed so quickly that she forgot her cell phone and Rudy’s hearing aid. After thirty-five minutes, Parks’s assistant led the Norths to her car. When a neighbor asked what was happening, Rudy told him, “We’ll just be gone for a little bit.” He was too proud to draw attention to their predicament. “Just think of it as a mini-vacation,” he told Rennie.
After the Norths left, Parks walked through the house with Cindy Breck, the owner of Caring Transitions, a company that relocates seniors and sells their belongings at estate sales. Breck and Parks had a routine. “We open drawers,” Parks said at a deposition. “We look in closets. We pull out boxes, anything that would store—that would keep paperwork, would keep valuables.” She took a pocket watch, birth certificates, insurance policies, and several collectible coins.
The Norths’ daughter, Julie Belshe, came to visit later that afternoon. A fifty-three-year-old mother of three sons, she and her husband run a small business designing and constructing pools. She lived ten miles away and visited her parents nearly every day, often taking them to her youngest son’s football games. She was her parents’ only living child; her brother and sister had died.
She knocked on the front door several times and then tried to push the door open, but it was locked. She was surprised to see the kitchen window closed; her parents always left it slightly open. She drove to the Sun City Aliante clubhouse, where her parents sometimes drank coffee. When she couldn’t find them there, she thought that perhaps they had gone on an errand together—the farthest they usually drove was to Costco. But, when she returned to the house, it was still empty.
That weekend, she called her parents several times. She also called two hospitals to see if they had been in an accident. She called their landlord, too, and he agreed to visit the house. He reported that there were no signs of them. She told her husband, “I think someone kidnapped my parents.”
On the Tuesday after Labor Day, she drove to the house again and found a note taped to the door: “In case of emergency, contact guardian April Parks.” Belshe dialled the number. Parks, who had a brisk, girlish way of speaking, told Belshe that her parents had been taken to Lakeview Terrace, an assisted-living facility in Boulder City, nine miles from the Arizona border. She assured Belshe that the staff there would take care of all their needs.
“You can’t just walk into somebody’s home and take them!” Belshe told her.
Parks responded calmly, “It’s legal. It’s legal.”
Guardianship derives from the state’s parens patriae power, its duty to act as a parent for those considered too vulnerable to care for themselves. “The King shall have the custody of the lands of natural fools, taking the profits of them without waste or destruction, and shall find them their necessaries,” reads the English statute De Prerogative Regis, from 1324. The law was imported to the colonies—guardianship is still controlled by state, not federal, law—and has remained largely intact for the past eight hundred years. It establishes a relationship between ward and guardian that is rooted in trust.
In the United States, a million and a half adults are under the care of guardians, either family members or professionals, who control some two hundred and seventy-three billion dollars in assets, according to an auditor for the guardianship fraud program in Palm Beach County. Little is known about the outcome of these arrangements, because states do not keep complete figures on guardianship cases—statutes vary widely—and, in most jurisdictions, the court records are sealed. A Government Accountability report from 2010 said, “We could not locate a single Web site, federal agency, state or local entity, or any other organization that compiles comprehensive information on this issue.” A study published this year by the American Bar Association found that “an unknown number of adults languish under guardianship” when they no longer need it, or never did. The authors wrote that “guardianship is generally “permanent, leaving no way out—‘until death do us part.’ ”
When the Norths were removed from their home, they joined nearly nine thousand adult wards in the Las Vegas Valley. In the past twenty years, the city has promoted itself as a retirement paradise. Attracted by the state’s low taxes and a dry, sunny climate, elderly people leave their families behind to resettle in newly constructed senior communities. “The whole town sparkled, pulling older people in with the prospect of the American Dream at a reasonable price,” a former real-estate agent named Terry Williams told me. Roughly thirty per cent of the people who move to Las Vegas are senior citizens, and the number of Nevadans older than eighty-five has risen by nearly eighty per cent in the past decade.
In Nevada, as in many states, anyone can become a guardian by taking a course, as long as he or she has not been convicted of a felony or recently declared bankruptcy. Elizabeth Brickfield, a Las Vegas lawyer who has worked in guardianship law for twenty years, said that about fifteen years ago, as the state’s elderly population swelled, “all these private guardians started arriving, and the docket exploded. The court became a factory.”
Pamela Teaster, the director of the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Tech and one of the few scholars in the country who study guardianship, told me that, though most guardians assume their duties for good reasons, the guardianship system is “a morass, a total mess.” She said, “It is unconscionable that we don’t have any data, when you think about the vast power given to a guardian. It is one of society’s most drastic interventions.”
After talking to Parks, Belshe drove forty miles to Lakeview Terrace, a complex of stucco buildings designed to look like a hacienda. She found her parents in a small room with a kitchenette and a window overlooking the parking lot. Rennie was in a wheelchair beside the bed, and Rudy was curled up on a love seat in the fetal position. There was no phone in the room. Medical-alert buttons were strung around their necks. “They were like two lost children,” Belshe said.
She asked her parents who Parks was and where she could find the court order, but, she said, “they were overwhelmed and humiliated, and they didn’t know what was going on.” They had no idea how or why Parks had targeted them as wards. Belshe was struck by their passive acceptance. “It was like they had Stockholm syndrome or something,” she told me.
Belshe acknowledged that her parents needed a few hours of help each day, but she had never questioned their ability to live alone. “They always kept their house really nice and clean, like a museum,” she said. Although Rudy’s medical records showed that he occasionally had “staring spells,” all his medical-progress notes from 2013 described him as alert and oriented. He did most of the couple’s cooking and shopping, because Rennie, though lucid, was in so much pain that she rarely left the house. Belshe sometimes worried that her father inadvertently encouraged her mother to be docile: “She’s a very smart woman, though she sometimes acts like she’s not. I have to tell her, ‘That’s not cute, Mom.’ ”
When Belshe called Parks to ask for the court order, Parks told her that she was part of the “sandwich generation,” and that it would be too overwhelming for her to continue to care for her children and her parents at the same time. Parks billed her wards’ estates for each hour that she spent on their case; the court placed no limits on guardians’ fees, as long as they appeared “reasonable.” Later, when Belshe called again to express her anger, Parks charged the Norths twenty-four dollars for the eight-minute conversation. “I could not understand what the purpose of the call was other than she wanted me to know they had rights,” Parks wrote in a detailed invoice. “I terminated the phone call as she was very hostile and angry.”
Amonth after removing the Norths from their house, Parks petitioned to make the guardianship permanent. She was represented by an attorney who was paid four hundred dollars an hour by the Norths’ estate. A hearing was held at Clark County Family Court.
The Clark County guardianship commissioner, a lawyer named Jon Norheim, has presided over nearly all the guardianship cases in the county since 2005. He works under the supervision of a judge, but his orders have the weight of a formal ruling. Norheim awarded a guardianship to Parks, on average, nearly once a week. She had up to a hundred wards at a time. “I love April Parks,” he said at one hearing, describing her and two other professional guardians, who frequently appeared in his courtroom, as “wonderful, good-hearted, social-worker types.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Norheim’s court perpetuated a cold, unsentimental view of family relations: the ingredients for a good life seemed to have little to do with one’s children and siblings. He often dismissed the objections of relatives, telling them that his only concern was the best interest of the wards, which he seemed to view in a social vacuum. When siblings fought over who would be guardian, Norheim typically ordered a neutral professional to assume control, even when this isolated the wards from their families.
Rudy had assured Belshe that he would protest the guardianship, but, like most wards in the country, Rudy and Rennie were not represented by counsel. As Rudy stood before the commissioner, he convinced himself that guardianship offered him and Rennie a lifetime of care without being a burden to anyone they loved. He told Norheim, “The issue really is her longevity—what suits her.” Belshe, who sat in the courtroom, said, “I was shaking my head. No, no, no—don’t do that!” Rennie was silent.
Norheim ordered that the Norths become permanent wards of the court. “Chances are, I’ll probably never see you folks again; you’ll work everything out,” he said, laughing. “I very rarely see people after the initial time in court.” The hearing lasted ten minutes.
The following month, Even Tide Life Transitions, a company that Parks often hired, sold most of the Norths’ belongings. “The general condition of this inventory is good,” an appraiser wrote. Two lithographs by Renoir were priced at thirty-eight hundred dollars, and a glass cocktail table (“Client states that it is a Brancusi design”) was twelve hundred and fifty dollars. The Norths also had several pastel drawings by their son, Randy, who died in a motorcycle accident at the age of thirty-two, as well as Kachina dolls, a Bose radio, a Dyson vacuum cleaner, a Peruvian tapestry, a motion-step exerciser, a LeRoy Neiman sketch of a bar in Dublin, and two dozen pairs of Clarke shoes. According to Parks’s calculations, the Norths had roughly fifty thousand dollars. Parks transferred their savings, held at the Bank of America, to an account in her name.
Rennie repeatedly asked for her son’s drawings, and for the family photographs on her refrigerator. Rudy pined for his car, a midnight-blue 2010 Chrysler, which came to symbolize the life he had lost. He missed the routine interactions that driving had allowed him. “Everybody at the pharmacy was my buddy,” he said. Now he and Rennie felt like exiles. Rudy said, “They kept telling me, ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry: your car is fine, and this and that.’ ” A month later, he said, “they finally told me, ‘Actually, we sold your car.’ I said, ‘What in the hell did you sell it for?’ ” It was bought for less than eight thousand dollars, a price that Rudy considered insulting.
Rudy lingered in the dining room after eating breakfast each morning, chatting with other residents of Lakeview Terrace. He soon discovered that ten other wards of April Parks lived there. His next-door neighbor, Adolfo Gonzalez, a short, bald seventy-one-year-old who had worked as a maître d’ at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, had become Parks’s ward at a hearing that lasted a minute and thirty-one seconds.
Gonzalez, who had roughly three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in assets, urged Rudy not to accept the nurse’s medications. “If you take the pills, they’ll make sure you don’t make it to court,” he said. Gonzalez had been prescribed the antipsychotic medications Risperdal and Depakote, which he hid in the side of his mouth without swallowing. He wanted to remain vigilant. He often spoke of a Salvador Dali painting that had been lost when Parks took over his life. Once, she charged him two hundred and ten dollars for a visit in which, according to her invoice, he expressed that “he feels like a prisoner.”
Rudy was so distressed by his conversations with Gonzalez that he asked to see a psychologist. “I thought maybe he’d give me some sort of objective learning as to what I was going through,” he said. “I wanted to ask basic questions, like What the hell is going on?” Rudy didn’t find the session illuminating, but he felt a little boost to his self-esteem when the psychologist asked that he return for a second appointment. “I guess he found me terribly charming,” he told me.
Rudy liked to fantasize about an alternative life as a psychoanalyst, and he tried to befriend the wards who seemed especially hopeless. “Loneliness is a physical pain that hurts all over,” he wrote in his notebook. He bought a pharmaceutical encyclopedia and advised the other wards about medications they’d been prescribed. He also ran for president of the residents, promising that under his leadership the kitchen would no longer advertise canned food as homemade. (He lost—he’s not sure if anyone besides Rennie voted for him—but he did win a seat on the residents’ council.)
He was particularly concerned about a ward of Parks’s named Marlene Homer, a seventy-year-old woman who had been a professor. “Now she was almost hiding behind the pillars,” Rudy said. “She was so obsequious. She was, like, ‘Run me over. Run me over.’ ” She’d become a ward in 2012, after Parks told the court, “She has admitted to strange thoughts, depression, and doing things she can’t explain.” On a certificate submitted to the court, an internist had checked a box indicating that Homer was “unable to attend the guardianship court hearing because______,” but he didn’t fill in a reason.
The Norths could guess which residents were Parks’s wards by the way they were dressed. Gonzalez wore the same shirt to dinner nearly every day. “Forgive me,” he told the others at his table. When a friend tried to take him shopping, Parks prevented the excursion because she didn’t know the friend. Rennie had also tried to get more clothes. “I reminded ward that she has plenty of clothing in her closet,” Parks wrote. “I let her know that they are on a tight budget.” The Norths’ estate was charged a hundred and eighty dollars for the conversation.
Another resident, Barbara Neely, a fifty-five-year-old with schizophrenia, repeatedly asked Parks to buy her outfits for job interviews. She was applying for a position with the Department of Education. After Neely’s third week at Lakeview Terrace, Parks’s assistant sent Parks a text. “Can you see Barbara Neely anytime this week?” she wrote. “She has questions on the guardianship and how she can get out of it.” Parks responded, “I can and she can’t.” Neely had been in the process of selling her house, for a hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars, when Parks became her guardian and took charge of the sale.
The rationale for the guardianship of Norbert Wilkening, who lived on the bottom floor of the facility, in the memory-care ward, for people with dementia (“the snake pit,” Rudy called it), was also murky. Parks’s office manager, who advertised himself as a “Qualified Dementia Care Specialist”—a credential acquired through video training sessions—had given Wilkening a “Mini-Mental State Examination,” a list of eleven questions and tasks, including naming as many animals as possible in a minute. Wilkening had failed. His daughter, Amy, told me, “I didn’t see anything that was happening to him other than a regular getting-older process, but when I was informed by all these people that he had all these problems I was, like, Well, maybe I’m just in denial. I’m not a professional.” She said that Parks was “so highly touted. By herself, by the social workers, by the judge, by everyone that knew her.”
At a hearing, when Amy complained to Norheim that Parks didn’t have time for her father, he replied, “Yeah, she’s an industry at this point.”
As Belshe spoke to more wards and their families, she began to realize that Lakeview Terrace was not the only place where wards were lodged, and that Parks was not the only guardian removing people from their homes for what appeared to be superficial reasons. Hundreds of cases followed the same pattern. It had become routine for guardians in Clark County to petition for temporary guardianship on an ex-parte basis. They told the court that they had to intervene immediately because the ward faced a medical emergency that was only vaguely described: he or she was demented or disoriented, and at risk of exploitation or abuse. The guardians attached a brief physician’s certificate that contained minimal details and often stated that the ward was too incapacitated to attend a court hearing. Debra Bookout, an attorney at the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, told me, “When a hospital or rehab facility needs to free up a bed, or when the patient is not paying his bills, some doctors get sloppy, and they will sign anything.” A recent study conducted by Hunter College found that a quarter of guardianship petitions in New York were brought by nursing homes and hospitals, sometimes as a means of collecting on overdue bills.
It often took several days for relatives to realize what had happened. When they tried to contest the guardianship or become guardians themselves, they were dismissed as unsuitable, and disparaged in court records as being neglectful, or as drug addicts, gamblers, and exploiters. (Belshe was described by Parks as a “reported addict” who “has no contact with the proposed ward,” an allegation that Belshe didn’t see until it was too late to challenge.) Family who lived out of state were disqualified from serving as guardians, because the law prohibited the appointment of anyone who didn’t live in Nevada.
Once the court approved the guardianship, the wards were often removed from their homes, which were eventually sold. Terry Williams, whose father’s estate was taken over by strangers even though he’d named her the executor of his will, has spent years combing through guardianship, probate, and real-estate records in Clark County. “I kept researching, because I was so fascinated that these people could literally take over the lives and assets of people under color of law, in less than ten minutes, and nobody was asking questions,” she told me. “These people spent their lives accumulating wealth and, in a blink of an eye, it was someone else’s.”
Williams has reviewed hundreds of cases involving Jared Shafer, who is considered the godfather of guardians in Nevada. In the records room of the courthouse, she was afraid to say Shafer’s name out loud. In the course of his thirty-five-year career, Shafer has assumed control of more than three thousand wards and estates and trained a generation of guardians. In 1979, he became the county’s public administrator, handling the estates of people who had no relatives in Nevada, as well as the public guardian, serving wards when no family members or private guardians were available. In 2003, he left government and founded his own private guardianship and fiduciary business; he transferred the number of his government-issued phone to himself.
Williams took records from Shafer’s and other guardians’ cases to the Las Vegas police department several times. She tried to explain, she said, that “this is a racketeering operation that is fee-based. There’s no brown paper bag handed off in an alley. The payoff is the right to bill the estate.” The department repeatedly told her that it was a civil issue, and refused to take a report. In 2006, she submitted a typed statement, listing twenty-three statutes that she thought had been violated, but an officer wrote in the top right corner, “not a police matter.” Adam Woodrum, an estate lawyer in Las Vegas, told me that he’s worked with several wards and their families who have brought their complaints to the police. “They can’t even get their foot in the door,” he said.
ADVERTISEMENT
Acting as her own attorney, Williams filed a racketeering suit in federal court against Shafer and the lawyers who represented him. At a hearing before the United States District Court of Central California in 2009, she told the judge, “They are trumping up ways and means to deem people incompetent and take their assets.” The case was dismissed. “The scheme is ingenious,” she told me. “How do you come up with a crime that literally none of the victims can articulate without sounding like they’re nuts? The same insane allegations keep surfacing from people who don’t know each other.”
In 2002, in a petition to the Clark County District Court, a fifty-seven-year-old man complained that his mother had lost her constitutional rights because her kitchen was understocked and a few bills hadn’t been paid. The house they shared was then placed on the market. The son wrote, “If the only showing necessary to sell the home right out from under someone is that their ‘estate’ would benefit, then no house in Clark County is safe, nor any homeowner.” Under the guise of benevolent paternalism, guardians seemed to be creating a kind of capitalist dystopia: people’s quality of life was being destroyed in order to maximize their capital.
When Concetta Mormon, a wealthy woman who owned a Montessori school, became Shafer’s ward because she had aphasia, Shafer sold the school midyear, even though students were enrolled. At a hearing after the sale, Mormon’s daughter, Victoria Cloutier, constantly spoke out of turn. The judge, Robert Lueck, ordered that she be handcuffed and placed in a holding cell while the hearing continued. Two hours later, when Cloutier was allowed to return for the conclusion, the judge told her that she had thirty days in which to vacate her mother’s house. If she didn’t leave, she would be evicted and her belongings would be taken to Goodwill.
The opinions of wards were also disregarded. In 2010, Guadalupe Olvera, a ninety-year-old veteran of the Second World War, repeatedly asked that his daughter and not Shafer be appointed his guardian. “The ward is not to go to court,” Shafer instructed his assistants. When Olvera was finally permitted to attend a hearing, nearly a year after becoming a ward, he expressed his desire to live with his daughter in California, rather than under Shafer’s care. “Why is everybody against that?” he asked Norheim. “I don’t need that man.” Although Nevada’s guardianship law requires that courts favor relatives over professionals, Norheim continued the guardianship, saying, “The priority ship sailed.”
When Olvera’s daughter eventually defied the court’s orders and took her father to live at her seaside home in Northern California, Norheim’s supervisor, Judge Charles Hoskin, issued an arrest warrant for her “immediate arrest and incarceration” without bail. The warrant was for contempt of court, but Norheim said at least five times from the bench that she had “kidnapped” Olvera. At a hearing, Norheim acknowledged that he wasn’t able to send an officer across state lines to arrest the daughter. Shafer said, “Maybe I can.”
Shafer held so much sway in the courtroom that, in 2013, when an attorney complained that the bank account of a ward named Kristina Berger had “no money left and no records to explain where it went,” Shafer told Norheim, “Close the courtroom.” Norheim immediately complied. A dozen people in attendance were forced to leave.
One of Shafer’s former bookkeepers, Lisa Clifton, who was hired in 2012, told me that Shafer used to brag about his political connections, saying, “I wrote the laws.” In 1995, he persuaded the Nevada Senate Committee on Government Affairs to write a bill that allowed the county to receive interest on money that the public guardian invested. “This is what I want you to put in the statute, and I will tell you that you will get a rousing hand from a couple of judges who practice our probate,” he said. At another hearing, he asked the committee to write an amendment permitting public guardians to take control of people’s property in five days, without a court order. “This bill is not ‘Big Brother’ if you trust the person who is doing the job,” he said. (After a senator expressed concern that the law allowed “intervention into somebody’s life without establishing some sort of reason why you are doing it,” the committee declined to recommend it.)
Clifton observed that Shafer almost always took a cynical view of family members: they were never motivated by love or duty, only by avarice. “ ‘They just want the money’—that was his answer to everything,” she told me. “And I’m thinking to myself, Well, when family members die they pass it down to their children. Isn’t that just the normal progression of things?”
After a few months on the job, Clifton was asked to work as a guardian, substituting for an absent employee, though she had never been trained. Her first assignment was to supervise a visit with a man named Alvin Passer, who was dying in the memory-care unit of a nursing home. His partner of eight years, Olive Manoli, was permitted a brief visit to say goodbye. Her visits had been restricted by Shafer—his lawyer told the court that Passer became “agitated and sexually aggressive” in her presence—and she hadn’t seen Passer in months. In a futile attempt to persuade the court to allow her to be with him, Manoli had submitted a collection of love letters, as well as notes from ten people describing her desire to care for Passer for the rest of his life. “I was absolutely appalled,” Clifton said. “She was this very sweet lady, and I said, ‘Go in there and spend as much time with him as you want.’ Tears were rolling down her cheeks.”
The family seemed to have suffered a form of court-sanctioned gaslighting. Passer’s daughter, Joyce, a psychiatric nurse who specialized in geriatrics, had been abruptly removed as her father’s co-guardian, because she appeared “unwilling or (more likely) unable to conduct herself rationally in the Ward’s best interests,” according to motions filed by one of Shafer’s attorneys.
She and Manoli had begged Norheim not to appoint Shafer as guardian. “Sir, he’s abusive,” their lawyer said in court.
“He’s as good as we got, and I trust him completely,” Norheim responded.
Joyce Passer was so confused by the situation that, she said, “I thought I was crazy.” Then she received a call from a blocked number. It was Terry Williams, who did not reveal her identity. She had put together a list of a half-dozen family members who she felt were “ready to receive some kind of verbal support.” She told Passer, “Look, you are not nuts. This is real. Everything you are thinking is true. This has been going on for years.”
During Rennie North’s first year at Lakeview Terrace, she gained sixty pounds. Parks had switched the Norths’ insurance, for reasons she never explained, and Rennie began seeing new doctors, who prescribed Valium, Prozac, the sedative Temazepam, Oxycodone, and Fentanyl. The doses steadily increased. Rudy, who had hip pain, was prescribed Oxycodone and Valium. When he sat down to read, the sentences floated past his eyes or appeared in duplicate. “Ward seemed very tired and his eyes were glassy,” Parks wrote in an invoice.
Belshe found it increasingly hard to communicate with her parents, who napped for much of the day. “They were being overmedicated to the point where they weren’t really there,” she said. The Norths’ grandsons, who used to see them every week, rarely visited. “It was degrading for them to see us so degraded,” Rudy said. Parks noticed that Rennie was acting helpless, and urged her to “try harder to be more motivated and not be so dependent on others.” Rudy and Rennie began going to Sunday church services at the facility, even though they were Jewish. Rudy was heartened by what he heard in the pastor’s message: “Don’t give up. God will help you get out of here.” He began telling people, “We are living the life of Job.”
At the end of 2014, Lakeview Terrace hired a new director, Julie Liebo, who resisted Parks’s orders that medical information about wards be kept from their families. Liebo told me, “The families were devastated that they couldn’t know if the residents were in surgery or hear anything about their health. They didn’t understand why they’d been taken out of the picture. They’d ask, ‘Can you just tell me if she’s alive?’ ” Liebo tried to comply with the rules, because she didn’t want to violate medical-privacy laws; as guardian, Parks was entitled to choose what was disclosed. Once, though, Liebo took pity on the sister of an eighty-year-old ward named Dorothy Smith, who was mourning a dog that Parks had given away, and told her that Smith was stable. Liebo said that Parks, who was by then the secretary of the Nevada Guardianship Association, called her immediately. “She threatened my license and said she could have me arrested,” Liebo told me.
After Liebo arrived, Parks began removing wards from Lakeview Terrace with less than a day’s notice. A woman named Linda Phillips, who had dementia, was told that she was going to the beauty salon. She never returned. Marlene Homer, the ward whose ailments were depression and “strange thoughts,” was taken away in a van, screaming. Liebo had asked the state ombudsman to come to the facility and stop the removals, but nothing could be done. “We stood there completely helpless,” Liebo said. “We had no idea where they were going.” Liebo said that other wards asked her if they would be next.
Liebo alerted the compliance officer for the Clark County Family Court that Parks was removing residents “without any concern for them and their choice to stay here.” She also reported her complaints to the police, the Department of Health Services, the Bureau of Health Care, and Nevada Adult Protective Services. She said each agency told her that it didn’t have the authority or the jurisdiction to intervene.
At the beginning of 2015, Parks told the Norths that they would be leaving Lakeview Terrace. “Finances are low and the move is out of our control,” Parks wrote. It was all arranged so quickly that, Rudy said, “we didn’t have time to say goodbye to people we’d been eating with for seventeen months.” Parks arranged for Caring Transitions to move them to the Wentworth, a less expensive assisted-living facility. Liebo said that, the night before the move, Rudy began “shouting about the Holocaust, that this was like being in Nazi Germany.” Liebo didn’t think the reference was entirely misguided. “He reverted to a point where he had no rights as a human being,” she said. “He was no longer the caregiver, the man, the husband—all of the things that gave his life meaning.” Liebo also didn’t understand why Belshe had been marginalized. “She seemed like she had a great relationship with her parents,” she said.
Belshe showed up at 9 a.m. to help her parents with the move, but when she arrived Parks’s assistant, Heidi Kramer, told her that her parents had already left. Belshe “emotionally crashed,” as Liebo put it. She yelled that her parents didn’t even wake up until nine or later—what was the rush? In an invoice, Kramer wrote that Belshe “began to yell and scream, her behavior was out of control, she was taking pictures and yelling, ‘April Parks is a thief.’ ” Kramer called the police. Liebo remembers that an officer “looked at Julie Belshe and told her she had no rights, and she didn’t.”
Belshe cried as she drove to the Wentworth, in Las Vegas. When she arrived, Parks was there, and refused to let her see her parents. Parks wrote, “I told her that she was too distraught to see her parents, and that she needed to leave.” Belshe wouldn’t, so Parks asked the receptionist to call the police. When the police arrived, Belshe told them, “I just want to hug my parents and make sure they’re O.K.” An officer handed her a citation for trespassing, saying that if she returned to the facility she would be arrested.
Parks wrote that the Norths were “very happy with the new room and thanked us several times,” but Rudy remembers feeling as if he had “ended up in the sewer.” Their room was smaller than the one at Lakeview Terrace, and the residents at the Wentworth seemed older and sicker. “There were people sitting in their chairs, half-asleep,” Rudy said. “Their tongues hung out.”
Rennie spent nearly all her time in her wheelchair or in bed, her eyes half-closed. Her face had become bloated. One night, she was so agitated that the nurses gave her Haldol, a drug commonly used to treat schizophrenia. When Rudy asked her questions, Rennie said “What?” in a soft, remote voice.
Shortly after her parents’ move, Belshe called an editor of the Vegas Voice, a newspaper distributed to all the mailboxes in senior communities in Las Vegas. In recent months, the paper had published three columns warning readers about Clark County guardians, writing that they “have been lining their pockets at the expense of unwitting seniors for a very long time.”
At Belshe’s urging, the paper’s political editor, Rana Goodman, visited the Norths, and published an article in the Voice, describing Rudy as “the most articulate, soft spoken person I have met in a very long time.” She called Clark County’s guardianship system a “(legal) elder abuse racket” and urged readers to sign a petition demanding that the Nevada legislature reform the laws. More than three thousand people signed.
Two months later, the Review-Journal ran an investigation, titled “Clark County’s Private Guardians May Protect—Or Just Steal and Abuse,” which described complaints against Shafer going back to the early eighties, when two of his employees were arrested for stealing from the estates of dead people.
ADVERTISEMENT
In May, 2015, a month after the article appeared, when the Norths went to court to discuss their finances local journalists were in the courtroom and Norheim seemed chastened. “I have grave concerns about this case,” he said. He noted that Parks had sold the Norths’ belongings without proper approval from his court. Parks had been doing this routinely for years, and, according to her, the court had always accepted her accounting and her fees. Her lawyer, Aileen Cohen, said, “Everything was done for the wards’ benefit, to support the wards.”
Norheim announced that he was suspending Parks as the Norths’ guardian—the first time she had been removed from a case for misconduct.
“This is important,” Rudy, who was wearing a double-breasted suit, said in court. “This is hope. I am coming here and I have hope.” He quoted the Bible, Thomas Jefferson, and Euripides, until Belshe finally touched his elbow and said, “Just sit down, Dad.”
When Rudy apologized for being “overzealous,” Norheim told him, “This is your life. This is your liberty. You have every right to be here. You have every right to be involved in this project.”
After the hearing, Parks texted her husband, “I am finished.”
Last March, Parks and her lawyer, along with her office manager and her husband, were indicted for perjury and theft, among other charges. The indictment was narrowly focussed on their double billings and their sloppy accounting, but, in a detailed summary of the investigation, Jaclyn O’Malley, who led the probe for the Nevada Attorney General’s Office, made passing references to the “collusion of hospital social workers and medical staff” who profited from their connection to Parks. At Parks’s grand-jury trial, her assistant testified that she and Parks went to hospitals and attorneys’ offices for the purpose of “building relationships to generate more client leads.” Parks secured a contract with six medical facilities whose staff agreed to refer patients to her—an arrangement that benefitted the facilities, since Parks controlled the decisions of a large pool of their potential consumers. Parks often gave doctors blank certificates and told them exactly what to write in order for their patients to become her wards.
Parks and other private guardians appeared to gravitate toward patients who had considerable assets. O’Malley described a 2010 case in which Parks, after receiving a tip from a social worker, began “cold-calling” rehabilitation centers, searching for a seventy-nine-year-old woman, Patricia Smoak, who had nearly seven hundred thousand dollars and no children. Parks finally found her, but Smoak’s physician wouldn’t sign a certificate of incapacity. “The doctor is not playing ball,” Parks wrote to her lawyer. She quickly found a different doctor to sign the certificate, and Norheim approved the guardianship. (Both Parks and Norheim declined to speak with me.)
Steve Miller, a former member of the Las Vegas City Council, said he assumed that Shafer would be the next indictment after Parks, who is scheduled to go to trial next spring. “All of the disreputable guardians were taking clues from the Shafer example,” he said. But, as the months passed, “I started to think that this has run its course locally. Only federal intervention is going to give us peace of mind.”
Richard Black, who, after his father-in-law was placed into guardianship, became the director of a grassroots national organization, Americans Against Abusive Probate Guardianship, said that he considered the Parks indictment “irrefutably shallow. It sent a strong message of: We’re not going to go after the real leaders of this, only the easy people, the ones who were arrogant and stupid enough to get caught.” He works with victims in dozens of what he calls “hot spots,” places where guardianship abuse is prevalent, often because they attract retirees: Palm Beach, Sarasota, Naples, Albuquerque, San Antonio. He said that the problems in Clark County are not unusual. “The only thing that is unique is that Clark County is one of the few jurisdictions that doesn’t seal its records, so we can see what is going on.”
Approximately ten per cent of people older than sixty-five are thought to be victims of “elder abuse”—a construct that has yet to enter public consciousness, as child abuse has—but such cases are seldom prosecuted. People who are frail or dying don’t make good witnesses—a fact that Shafer once emphasized at a 1990 U.S. congressional hearing on crimes against the elderly, in which he appeared as an expert at preventing exploitation. “Seniors do not like to testify,” he said, adding that they were either incapable or “mesmerized by the person ripping them off.” He said, “The exploitation of seniors is becoming a real cottage industry right now. This is a good business. Seniors are unable to fend for themselves.”
In the past two years, Nevada has worked to reform its guardianship system through a commission, appointed by the Nevada Supreme Court, to study failures in oversight. In 2018, the Nevada legislature will enact a new law that entitles all wards to be represented by lawyers in court. But the state seems reluctant to reckon with the roots of the problem, as well as with its legacy: a generation of ill and elderly people who were deprived of their autonomy, and also of their families, in the final years of their lives. Last spring, a man bought a storage unit in Henderson, Nevada, and discovered twenty-seven urns—the remains of Clark County wards who had never been buried.
In the wake of Parks’s indictment, no judges have lost their jobs. Norheim was transferred from guardianship court to dependency court, where he now oversees cases involving abused and neglected children. Shafer is still listed in the Clark County court system as a trustee and as an administrator in several open cases. He did not respond to multiple e-mails and messages left with his bookkeeper, who answered his office phone but would not say whether he was still in practice. He did appear at one of the public meetings for the commission appointed to analyze flaws in the guardianship system. “What started all of this was me,” he said. Then he criticized local media coverage of the issue and said that a television reporter, whom he’d talked to briefly, didn’t know the facts. “The system works,” Shafer went on. “It’s not the guardians you have to be aware of, it’s more family members.” He wore a blue polo shirt, untucked, and his head was shaved. He looked aged, his arms dotted with sun spots, but he spoke confidently and casually. “The only person you folks should be thinking about when you change things is the ward. It’s their money, it’s their life, it’s their time. The family members don’t count.”
Belshe is resigned to the fact that she will be supporting her parents for the rest of their lives. Parks spent all the Norths’ money on fees—the hourly wages for her, her assistants, her lawyers, and the various contractors she hired—as well as on their monthly bills, which doubled under her guardianship. Belshe guesses that Parks—or whichever doctor or social worker referred her to the Norths—had assumed that her parents were wealthier than they actually were. Rudy often talked vaguely about deals he had once made in China. “He exaggerates, so he won’t feel emasculated,” Belshe said. “He wasn’t such a big businessman, but he was a great dad.”
The Norths now live in what used to be Belshe’s home office; it has a window onto the living room which Belshe has covered with a tarp. Although the room is tiny, the Norths can fit most of their remaining belongings into it: a small lamp with teardrop crystals, a deflated love seat, and two paintings by their son. Belshe rescued the art work, in 2013, after Caring Transitions placed the Norths’ belongings in trash bags at the edge of their driveway. “My brother’s paintings were folded and smelled,” she said.
The Norths’ bed takes up most of the room, and operates as their little planet. They rarely stray far from it. They lie in bed playing cards or sit against the headboard, reading or watching TV. Rudy’s notebooks are increasingly focussed on mortality—“Death may be pleasurable”—and money. “Money monsters do well in this society,” he wrote. “All great fortunes began with a crime.” He creates lists of all the possessions he has lost, some of which he may be imagining: over time, Rennie’s wardrobe has become increasingly elaborate and refined, as have their sets of China. He alternates between feeling that his belongings are nothing—a distraction from the pursuit of meaning—and everything. “It’s an erasure,” he said. “They erase you from the face of the earth.” He told me a few times that he was a distant cousin of Leon Trotsky, “intellect of the revolution,” as he called him, and I wondered whether his newfound pride was connected to his conflicted feelings about the value of material objects.
A few months after the Norths were freed, Rudy talked on the phone with Adolfo Gonzalez, his neighbor from Lakeview Terrace, who, after a doctor found him competent, had also been discharged. He now lived in a house near the airport, and had been reunited with several of his pets. The two men congratulated each other. “We survived!” Rudy said. “We never thought we’d see each other on the other side.” Three other wards from Lakeview Terrace had died.
Rennie has lost nearly all the weight she gained at Lakeview Terrace, mostly because Belshe and her husband won’t let her lounge in her wheelchair or eat starchy foods. Now she uses a walker, which she makes self-deprecating jokes about. “This is fun—I can teach you!” she told me.
In July, Rennie slipped in the bathroom and spent a night in the hospital. Belshe didn’t want anyone to know about her mother’s fall, because, she said, “this is the kind of thing that gets you into guardianship.” She told me, “I feel like these people are just waiting in the bushes.”
Two days after the fall, Rennie was feeling better—she’d had thirteen stitches—but she was still agitated by a dream she had in the hospital. She wasn’t even sure if she’d been asleep; she remembers talking, and her eyes were open.
“You were loopedy-doopy,” Scott Belshe, Julie’s husband, told her. They were sitting on the couch in their living room.
“It was real,” Rennie said.
“You dreamed it,” Scott told her.
“Maybe I was hallucinating,” she said. “I don’t know—I was scared.” She said that strangers were making decisions about her fate. She felt as if she were frozen: she couldn’t influence what was happening. “I didn’t know what to do,” she told Scott. “I think I yelled for help. Help me.” The worst part, she said, was that she couldn’t find her family. “Honest to God, I thought you guys left me all alone.” ♦Published in the print edition of the October 9, 2017, issue, with the headline “The Takeover.”
It is very rare to get a victim willing to publish the string of horrific crimes against them in Illinois, but Judith is one brave woman. 83 years old, Kane County, Illinois guardianship victim
MaryGSykes.com 