One of the grounds was forced placement in nursing homes against the disabled person’s will or into group homes in sub human condition.  Sound familiar?

MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL DANA NESSEL AND GOVERNOR GRETCHEN WHITMER TIED TO INVESTIGATION OF MASSIVE ELDER ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION RING..

Posted: 28 Aug 2019 06:23 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES , CA, USA, August 26, 2019 /EINPresswire.com/

NESSEL FIRES THREE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS EXPOSED IN THE STORY. 

An August 23 investigation detailing a massive alleged elder abuse and exploitation ring operating out of a Michigan probate court was published on the same day that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel fired three public administrators, exposed in the story as allegedly exploiting thousands of vulnerable Americans under their guardianship.

High-profile cases such as the ongoing dispute concerning the estate of famed musician Aretha Franklin have been affected.

Franklin’s eldest son Clarence is under the guardianship of Michigan attorney Jon Munger who is one of the targets of the probe which uncovered an unsettling number of alleged crimes including abuse, neglect, robbery, and exploitation, often in cases that arguably didn’t merit guardianship in the first place.

In as little as a year, so called “incapacitated wards” are stripped of the entirety of their savings and possessions and rendered completely reliant upon social services and benefits such as Medicaid. 

Hammond states that she and her team revealed their findings to Nessel’s staff at a March 12, 2019 meeting implicating three of the four public administrators Nessel eventually fired.

On March 25, 2019 Nessel announced the creation of a multi-agency Elder Abuse Task Force. The Task Force presented nine reforms to the guardianship system. Nessel claims the firings were due, in part, to Task Force discoveries.

Hammond says she does not buy it.

“Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and her staff knew this story was coming ever since our March meeting,” she says.”Her firing of the public administrators we discussed has been a long time coming but doesn’t have any effect without criminal investigations. They can still take guardianship cases.”

In a forensic review of the Oakland County Probate Court, available to the public for the first time in Michigan history, Mulholland also concludes that criminal investigations into the guardians are warranted.

Hammond’s investigation found campaign donations from Nessel to Oakland County Probate County Chief Judge Kathleen Ryan. It also revealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to Whitmer by a public relations company owned by Ryan’s brother James.

Background:
Every US state still uses form of guardianship Rooted in Medieval English law, at its best, it is designed to protect citizens who are no longer able to protect themselves by declaring them wards of the state. However, increasing reports of abuse cropping up nationwide, has prompted Congressional calls for reform.

But the level of controversy over how guardianship cases are handled in the Detroit-area Oakland County Probate Court has reached such heights, the story reads more like Orwellian fiction than it does a model of the American experience.

Discoveries include the forced separation of families and isolation of the vulnerable; fraudulent petitions for guardianship by Adult Protective Services investigators; massive over-billing; the forced removal of individuals from their homes and the placement of them in nursing facilities or unlicensed group homes with subhuman living conditions; real estate fraud; and missing assets that number in the millions of dollars. 

The investigation met with constant challenges, including threats and harassment by Oakland County Sheriff’s officers. A surreal March 12, 2019 four-hour meeting between Hammond’s team and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s staff led to a new line of inquiry and discoveries of campaign ties between Nessel, Whitmer and Oakland County Probate Court Chief Judge Kathleen Ryan and her family.
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ROGER NEAL
NEAL PR
+1 323-366-2796

Click the links below to read the five part series:

The Fortress Part One of Five: Unacknowledged and Unprotected

The Fortress Part Two of Five: Protected in Hell
The Fortress Part Three of Five: Profiting from Protection
The Fortress Part Five of Five: Protected by Secrecy and Ageism

The Fortress Part Four of Five: Th

Just when you thought it could not get any worse:

Local family says guardianship cost elderly woman $123K for 3 months of care

Posted: 5:45 PM, Aug 13, 2019

Updated: 9:02 PM, Aug 13, 2019

By: Heather Catallo

(WXYZ) — More than $123,000. That’s what a local family says a guardianship cost their elderly mother for three months of care. It was a huge chunk of her life savings.

It’s the same guardianship company that 7 Investigator Heather Catallo exposed back in May when they were accused of cutting off family contact with an elderly couple.

The family in this case originally didn’t want to talk to us on camera, but when they saw the fees that Caring Hearts Michigan is asking a judge to approve – they agreed to speak out.

Piera Franklin is 90 years young and still loves working in her yard.

• ‘I just want my parents back.’ Woman says company imprisoned her parents in their own home

After she had some health issues in February, Macomb County Probate Judge Kathryn George appointed Caring Hearts Michigan Inc. as Piera’s temporary guardian and conservator. That means Caring Hearts had total legal control of Piera. As her conservator, they also had total control of her money.

Caring Hearts Michigan Inc. is owned by Cathy Kirk. Court records show, Kirk used her husband’s law firm to bill the estate. Kirk also used one of her companies, Executive Care, to provide 24/7 in-home care for Piera.

Please note: Caring Hearts Homecare of Southfield is not affiliated in any way with Cathy Kirk’s Caring Hearts Michigan Inc.

Piera said that she didn’t need that. She cooks, cleans, washes her clothes and didn’t want that kind of 24/7 help.

In May, the 7 Investigators were in the courtroom when the judge took Caring Hearts off the case and granted guardianship and conservatorship of Piera to her son , John. But the Franklin family was stunned when they recently got the final accounting from Caring Hearts.

For only 91 days of care, Caring Hearts wants the court to approve:

• $10,5224.37 for guardianship services
• $19,369.90 in legal fees for Cathy Kirk’s husband’s law firm
• $86,304 for home care charged by Executive Car

• Caring Hearts Michigan backs out of disputed guardianship case in wake of 7 Action News report
• Michigan AG opens investigation into Macomb Co. probate case following 7 Action News report

“Is more than $86,000 for 91 days of care reasonable,” asked 7 Investigator Heather Catallo.

“Not in my opinion,” said John Perrin, an attorney hired by Piera’s son, John Franklin. “Based on the invoices themselves, there’s clearly overcharges here.”

“Do you feel like they earned that money?” Catallo asked Piera.

“No! No way no way! Because they didn’t do anything. No help for me, no bath, nothing, nothing,” Piera responded. “I make my own bed. I clean up the house. I did everything! Was nothing done. They sit there with their book and watching TV. That’s it!”

• Why did a Macomb Co. judge put strangers in charge of an elderly couple instead of family?
• Family awarded guardianship of Macomb Co. couple after 7 Action News Investigation

Heather Catallo WXYZ@HeatherCatallo

This is 90-year-old Piera Franklin talking about the caregivers from Caring Hearts MI Inc. On ⁦@wxyzdetroit⁩ at 6, I’ll show you why her family is objecting to $123k in legal, guardianship, & care fees for 91 days. ⁦⁦@MIAttyGen⁩ ⁦@MISupremeCourt⁩ #probate

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3:36 PM – Aug 13, 2019

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Piera said she did like some of the home aides, but she says one caregiver had a fight with her boyfriend in the driveway of Piera’s home. She said it made her feel scared, like she did during the war in her childhood in Italy.

“I was raised in the war time, and I remember when the bombs coming, I would get stomach problem, and I felt the same anxiety in my stomach,” said Piera.

In court filings, Perrin argues Caring Hearts Michigan Inc. “engaged in serious conflicts of interest that resulted in waste and dissipation of Ms. Franklin’s savings.”

“There’s one particular occasion where I see 48 hours billed for one caregiver in a single day,” Perrin said. “The cumulative time in that single day wound up being almost $2,500.”

Other fees include:

• Hours of overtime for what Perrin says are non-skilled caregivers charging above-market rates of $45 per hour;
• $1,760.50 to change the locks on Piera’s home (family members say they don’t know why the locks needed to be changed);
• $1,129.81 for correspondence with banks and closing Piera’s accounts so they could be moved to First State Bank where Cathy Kirk’s husband, Robert, is a board member.

Now, Piera has less expensive caregivers for fewer hours in the day. She says now she is worried about how much money she was charged by caring hearts.

“I worked hard to save, 10 hours a day,” said the mother of five.

The 7 Investigators spoke with the Michigan Attorney General’s Office and they say their financial crimes unit is aware of this case, but they can’t confirm or deny if they are investigating.

The Attorney General is investigating a different probate case first exposed by the 7 Investigators that also involves Caring Hearts Michigan Inc.

Lawyers for Caring Hearts Michigan Inc. deny any wrongdoing, and they have told the court they will review some of the billings. They say the relationship between Kirk’s companies while serving Piera did not violate any law or court rule.

Kemp Klein Attorney Ed Nahhat sent the 7 Investigators this statement late Tuesday:

“Caring Hearts disclosed in writing to Court Administrator John Brennan on April 4, 2018, its common ownership of Executive Care. This was many months before the Court’s “related persons” policy was issued. The policy assures disclosure upon the annual account.

In these cases, all interested persons, and the court, had disclosure; they knew that the companies had common ownership as intended by the policy.

Neither Caring Hearts nor Executive Care did anything wrong when doing what the court ordered them to do: care for someone according to their needs and preferences. Mrs. Franklin was very grateful to Caring Hearts, as she wanted her care to be at home, extensive and high quality, and she wanted only certain persons to take care of her. In fact our Executive Care’s service was so valued that her son rehired them at one point, and his mother specifically asked for their employees to continue serving her, even after Caring Hearts was replaced. Simply put, she liked her care at home, and that is always more expensive.

Caring Hearts and Executive Care are ready and willing to be examined for all that they did and the fees they charged. That’s what trials are for.

It’s about money.

While family are entitled to challenge fees, we fear Mrs. Franklin is now being scripted to create an inaccurate public image of Caring Hearts. It’s sad to see a good company get publicly attacked when the family already has a court of law available to them, where both parties have a fair chance to present their case.”

If you have a story for Heather Catallo please email her at hcatallo@wxyz.com or call 248-827-4473.

As evidenced by the numerous attorney employment acts, efiling Illinois is only allowing attorneys to access full court documents filed online.

The public still has to go to the courthouse, search for and pull up documents and then pay 50 cents to $2 per pay for access, despite the fact the taxpayers own the documents, and not attorneys, not judges or court personnel.

Dorothy Brown is still the clerk of court.  She should be fighting for access by taxpayers and not just attorneys or judges.

Read on below.

How to Access Case Documents Online With re:SearchIL

• Aug 1, 2019
• Illinois
• by Marcus Niro

A recent post from the Chicago Bar Association discusses the new re:SearchIL platform, a much-needed solution for attorneys eFiling throughout Illinois. CourtFiling.net happily sponsors this article by Tisha Delgado.

Since the Illinois Supreme Court announced the mandatory switch from traditional paper filing to eFiling, the legal industry has hoped for an efficient way to access those eFiled documents online.

re:SearchIL allows attorneys to search for all filings and activity in their cases, study opposing counsel, and know the other parties in their case. They do this simply by logging into re:SearchIL using their CourtFiling.net credentials. There is an easy to navigate dashboard that contains a “My Cases” section where the attorney can easily see a list of all their pending cases in any of Illinois’ 102 counties, in which their ADRC number appears.

With any new system, re:SearchIL has a few issues to work through. Only attorneys of record and parties to the case are able to access these court records. The system leaves out other legal support staff who are often involved in the eFilings including paralegals, legal secretaries, and law clerks. This lack of access for legal support staff is only temporary, as some rules and policies are still being discussed.

Another hiccup is that two of the biggest counties, Cook and DuPage use Firm/Attorney numbers instead of ADRC numbers so cases in those courts are not yet available via re:SearchIL. However, Tyler Technologies has contacted Cook and DuPage courts to implement a change to include the attorney’s ADRC number in these cases so they are accessible via re:SearchIL.

CourtFiling.net will keep you updated on any changes that occur within the re:SearchIL platform.

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