Elderly suicide kit maker pleads guilty to tax offense

Elderly suicide kit maker pleads guilty to tax offense


Marty Graham
Reuters
7:30 PM CST, December 2, 2011

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - A great-grandmother selling do-it-yourself asphyxiation kits from her home in California pleaded guilty on Friday to a misdemeanor tax-related offense stemming from an investigation of her mail-order business.

Sharlotte Hydorn, 93, a retired public school science teacher, pleaded guilty to one count of failing to file a federal income tax return for the years 2007 through 2010, a year in which investigators said at least five customers used her kits to take their own lives.

Hydorn, whose San Diego-area house was raided in May by federal agents seizing documents, computers and sewing machines, has said her so-called "exit kits" were intended to help terminally ill people end their lives with dignity in their own homes.

The product, sold for $60 each including instructions and shipping, consists of a plastic hood that closes around the neck and tubing that connects the hood to a tank of helium or other inert gas that users must supply themselves.

She has acknowledged selling the kits for the past 20 years under the brand name GLADD, which stands for Glorious Life and Dignified Death, without performing background checks or screening of individuals who order the apparatus. But she has insisted she makes little money from the enterprise.

Still, Leslie DeMarco, a special agent in charge of the Internal Revenue Service field office in Los Angeles, said Hydorn "was operating a for-profit business without regard to the identity of her clients, their current medical condition or the federal tax laws."

Hydorn made headlines after one of her mail-order customers in Oregon, Nicholas Klonoski, 29, described by his family as suffering from depression but otherwise healthy, used one of her kits to kill himself in December of 2010.

Outrage over that case led Oregon state lawmakers to pass legislation in June to ban sales of such devices, even though Oregon is one of two U.S. states with laws on the books legalizing physician-assisted suicide for people with incurable, fatal illnesses.

Federal investigators said they have documented that four other individuals in California who purchased her kits used them to commit suicide last year, out of about 50 total customers from that state, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego.

But the prosecutor's statement announcing the plea said none of the four, who ranged in age from late 40s to the mid-80s, was terminally ill.

The misdemeanor to which Hydorn pleaded carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $100,000 fine. But prosecutors said in court documents they would recommend five years of supervised probation, a fine at the "low end" of federal guidelines, plus back taxes she owes.
A sentencing hearing was set for February 16.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Please read complete article at link below:


http://www.wgntv.com/sns-rt-us-suicide-kits-californiatre7b2014-20111202,0,7520462.story

Editor's note: This shark wonders how many of these "exit kits" were used for murders of grandpa and grandma. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com