Our mission is to expose and remedy corruption in the Probate Court of Cook County, Illinois. We assist, educate and enlighten families of the dead, the dying, the disabled and the aged to better understand their rights in order to protect themselves from the excesses of the Probate Court of Cook County. ProbateSharks.com is dedicated to networking the human element of people to people. We join together in reforming the corrupt Cook County Probate Court system.
Editor's note: This Shark sees well meaning "appropriate limits", but nothing will be done to enforce them. As long as the Kowamotos, Solos, Martins and their clones run the probate courts, Rick may as well take his cardboard nameplate home. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
SEC Investor Advocate to Congress: 'Appropriate Limits' Needed in Elder Fraud Rules
In FY 2015 report to Congress, Fleming says SEC used funding boost to add 91 exam staff
SEC's Fleming will be following potential FINRA, NASAA rules to protect elderly clients from financial exploitation.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advocate, Rick Fleming, told lawmakers that he will spend part of his time this year watching the progress of proposed rules issued by the North American Securities Administrators Association and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to allow a broker-dealer or investment advisor to delay disbursement of funds if elder financial fraud is suspected.
Fleming told lawmakers in his FY 2015 report to Congress that while he believes financial firms “should have the ability to pause disbursements of funds, contrary to the explicit instructions of a customer, if there is a reasonable belief that financial exploitation is occurring,” if the suspicion is “strong enough to warrant a pause on a disbursement, it also should trigger an obligation to report the suspicious activity” to adult protective services (APS).
More On Legal & Compliance
from The Advisor's Professional Library
Pay-to-Play Rule Violating the pay-to-play rule can result in serious consequences, and RIAs should adopt robust policies and procedures to prevent and detect contributions made to influence the selection of the firm by a government entity.
Agency and Principal Transactions In passing Section 206(3) of the Investment Advisers Act, Congress recognized that principal and agency transactions can be harmful to clients. Such transactions create the opportunity for RIAs to engage in self-dealing.
His office, Fleming said, will comment “as appropriate” on the NASAA and FINRA plans, and will also examine other measures that need to be considered at the federal level to protect seniors and other vulnerable adults from financial exploitation.
Fleming told attendees at the MarketCounsel Summit in early December that his office is “actively” assessing what type of rule the agency should promulgate for RIAs to protect elderly or handicapped customers’ accounts if there is a reasonable belief of elder fraud.
In his report to Congress, Fleming said that any elder fraud rule or law “must balance two potentially conflicting goals: to respect every individual’s right to self-determination, and also to prevent his or her unwitting financial self-destruction. We should remove undue restraints that keep financial professionals from acting to protect their clients. Yet if we confer new authority on broker-dealers and investment advisors to intervene in clients’ accounts when they suspect elder exploitation, we must place appropriate limits on that authority.”
The challenge, he said, “is to strike the right balance.”
For this type of reporting mechanism to be effective, Fleming said in his report, “it is necessary for APS to have adequate resources to do the job. Sadly, those resources appear to be lacking.”
Congress authorized $125 million to fight elder financial abuse when it passed the Elder Justice Act in 2010, but “the first actual appropriation came in 2015 and amounted to $4 million,” Fleming said. “Additional funding would go a long way toward helping APS address the financial exploitation of seniors, a problem that likely will grow in the coming years.”
As to increasing the number of investment advisor exams, he noted the Commission’s FY 2015 budget request made it a “top priority” to increase these exams, adding that the request called for an increase of 316 new positions to the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations.
Congress appropriated $1.5 billion for the SEC in FY 2015, which was less than the SEC’s request of $1.7 billion but 11% more than the previous year’s overall budget.
With the increased funding, the Commission has used a portion to increase its examination staff by 91 full-time staff, Fleming said. The SEC budget request for FY 2016 calls for funding to hire an additional 225 OCIE examiners, primarily to conduct advisor exams.
As to SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White’s call to SEC staff to develop a rule to require third-party compliance reviews for advisors, Fleming told MarketCounsel attendees that such third-party exams are “quite a ways down” on his list of how to boost advisor exams.
If the agency does adopt such a third-party exam proposal, he said such a rule should very specifically list the auditor’s duties as “objectively as possible so that we can assess their job,” and also require “asset verification” whether the advisor has custody or not. “After Madoff, SEC has ramped up asset verification, which is good,” Fleming said.
Third-party examiners should also have “some sort of regulatory or review structure over top of them,” Fleming added, “because there is a conflict between the firm being audited and the auditor.” --- Read "Calls to FINRA Senior Helpline Uncover Emerging Scams" on ThinkAdvisor.
“This arrangement will terminate upon your death which will most likely occur right about the time your estate has been bled dry of every penny. If an autopsy was performed at this point with the necessary tox screens, there would no doubt be an unexplainable overload of neuroleptic drugs in what was left of your system. Drugs that your estate, medicare and medicaid will be billed for long after you take your last breath. Only a tox will never be done, in any event.”
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Over 60? Got assets? You could be the next victim of a predatory guardian and a cadre of attorney’s, APS agents, social services agents, all looking to fill their quarterly quota’s or their personal bank accounts. Your crime? Aging with assets! And they want them!
While there is a concerted effort to convince the public that family or friends are abusing and exploiting an elderly person, the fact is that 3-5 billion is estimated to be stolen from seniors via professional fiduciary’s and those they work with, every year. These people are strangers to the family and the victim and their only real interest is availing themselves of as much of the estate as possible in as short amount of time as possible.
Every effort is made to make sure the public believes that in these instances of involuntary guardianship, no family member was willing to accept the care of the elder victim. This might be true in some cases, but for most it is the refusal of the probate judge to allow a family member to assume this position. After all, if a family member is guardian, the professional predator is not able to access the assets.
Abduct, Isolate, Medicate, Terminate
Drugging the elderly held hostage in a participating nursing home (warehouse) is standard procedure. It serves several purposes.
1.) It stops the victim from complaining about abuse,
2.) It reduces the amount of time the staff will spend caring for the victim,
3.) It prevents the victim reporting the abuses and lack of care to outside sources.
4.) It allows nursing home owners to short the staff in the facility to increase profits.
5.) it makes the targeted victim appear to actually be in a state of dysfunction and unable to discern even the most trivial of things.
6.) It allows for the use of massive amounts of neuroleptic medications to be administered without interference. Under the influence of massive doses of brain damaging drugs, the victim appears to be dysfunctional, delusional, and totally without any will of their own. This is just exactly how the predators want them. Chemical restraints and other abuses
Chemical restraint is the use of neuroleptic, (anti-psychotic, psychotropic) drugs to obtain total submission and control of the victim. These drugs render the elderly victim unable to function normally. But the effects of these drugs on elderly patients have a far more devastating effect.
From MindFreedom.orgAntipsychotic brain damage in those with dementia (especially Lewy Body) People diagnosed with dementia are especially sensitive to neuroleptics (also known as antipsychotics). In a way, these folks are the ‘canary in the coal mine,’ because an antipsychotic can cause rapid and significant brain changes, including neuroleptic malignant syndrome (which can be fatal). Especially hypersensitive are those with a variety of dementia where the brain has something called “Lewy Bodies” (which are visible under microscopic examination of the brain. More than one millions Americans have Dementia with Lewy Bodies, or DLB. Here’s a UK General Practice Notebook plainly explaining the dangers of neuroleptics and dementia. These dangers can apply to everyone, but they are especially pronounced with people who have DLB. “
The documented research on the effects of neuroleptics on all people, including those exhibiting dementia is staggering. That medical and psychiatric professionals to continue to prescribe these brain damaging drugs without regard for the long or even short-term effects on the elderly, is clearly a crime.
The Lewy Bodies testing that should be done prior to any administration of any neuroleptic drug, is never done. In fact, no testing of any kind is ever done to determine pre-existing diseases, and most assuredly no testing is done to establish the changes in the human brain indicating the presence of dementia at any stage.
From: GP notebook“antipsychotic drugs should be avoided in patients suspected of having dementia with Lewy bodies – in these patients, antipsychotics may precipitate irreversible parkinsonism, further disturb consciousness levels and induce an autonomic disturbance similar to neuroleptic malignant syndrome, and increase mortality rates 2-3 fold (5) “
In addition, the recognized brain damage from neuroleptic drugs does not deter their use, especially on the elderly. These drugs are prescribed with the full knowledge of the irreversible damage they cause. In addition, the use of neuroleptic drugs can cause the onset of parkinson’s disease by causing the same proteins that signal the onset of parkinson’s, to bind together in the brain. Author Kelly O’Meara/CCHR
Furthermore, the use of antipsychotic drugs long has been referred to as a “chemical lobotomy” because they actually can disable normal brain function. Along with brain shrinkage, antipsychotics also can cause obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.”
A diagnosis of [disease] would be accompanied by medical and scientific evidence. Instead, opinions are rendered using the term [disorder], for which there is no evidence medical or scientific, to substantiate. None is needed, however, due to the fact that a [disorder] is simply the observational opinion for which no evidence exists other than the person making the observation says so. This appears not to be a problem as we have found not one probate court anywhere in the country that has ever asked for, much less received any evidence, other than a talking points type of memo, of the claimed mental deficiencies that would require massive, elephant sized doses of neuroleptic drugs administered routinely to elderly patients.
Too many times we have seen medical doctors and psychiatrists making a diagnosis based on statements of a third-party, never having actually seen the victim in person. Instead of testing the victim for any possible actual diseases such as dementia or Alhzeimer’s, or the possible markers indicating the onset of parkinsonism, the fictional label of [bipolar disorder] is liberally applied to any elder individual caught in the probate court trap. It is a catch all diagnosis of a disorder for which there is no evidence whatsoever that it exists.
You have a complaint? We got a pill for that!
Imperative to the pharmaceutical hurricane that is about to be unleashed on an elder victim, is the participating psychiatrist or medical doctor, either of whom will dispense massive doses of multiple drugs. In fact, it is not uncommon for an elderly victim to be prescribed as few as two and as many as twelve or thirteen drugs simultaneously. While not all doctors or psychiatrists participate in this form of medicide, those that do are very familiar not only to the predatory guardians, but also to the courts. In fact, the same individuals from various interested agencies, firms and practices show up time and again in tandem as elder victims are targeted.
The drugging of the elderly victim begins immediately, in most cases. Once this is set into motion, there is virtually no chance the elderly individual can be rescued from the grips of these predators whose only real interest is in being handed a golden fleece plenary guardianship. This court order of guardianship is the actual title of ownership of another human being. It also entitles the new owner (the guardian) to access any and all assets of any kind formerly owned by the victim. And this is the actual interest of the predator.
While the battle rages on to stop the predators working through probate courts, the use of neuroleptics (psychotropic) drugs is being accelerated. So-called guardians, working in tandem with probate courts, lawyers, Adult Protective Services (APS) and other social services agencies, are ramping up their efforts to access the estates of elderly individuals who have assets; assets coveted by the collection of predators now pursuing the victim. You have become a virtual human ATM for the predators.
But first, the state must convince you that you are in fact, dead.
This is done by rendering you as a “ward of the state” effectively ending your existence described as a living breathing individual within the law. You are now owned by a professional predator referred to as a “guardian”. You have suffered a civil death in which all of your natural rights and protections have been taken from you and now reside in the possession of a court appointed predator. Gone, along with your right to determine your own affairs, is your right to your own money, assets, personal possessions and whatever else you may have accumulated; all of it now under the control of a total stranger to you whose only interest is profiting from your life’s work.
This arrangement will terminate upon your death which will most likely occur right about the time your estate has been bled dry of every penny. If an autopsy was performed at this point with the necessary tox screens, there would no doubt be an unexplainable overload of neuroleptic drugs in what was left of your system. Drugs that your estate, medicare and medicaid will be billed for long after you take your last breath. Only a tox will never be done, in any event. Neuroleptic drugs are the new form of medicide.
Death is the objective and without the cover of the courts, the protection of the BAR Association and its hand in writing statutes to profit themselves and those they work with, we would be calling this pre-meditated murder. Apparently, if youdrug someone to death it is murder. When they do it, it’s just business as usual.
______________________________________________________________________________________________ Note: In most states, thanks to the BAR Association rules and regulations, the [guardian] is not required to ever see the victim in person. Many states only require one visit every two to three years, yet the guardian continuously bills the estate for services rendered to the victim, as do the attorney’s.
__________________________________________________ Psychiatric Drug Induced Brain Impairment http://breggin.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=27&Itemid=37 Antipsychotic/neuroleptic brain damagehttp://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/psychiatric-drugs/antipsychotics/neuroleptic-brain-damage Study finds “Unnecessary” drugs in nursing homes http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20061260-10391695.html Antipsychotic drugs should be avoidedhttp://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/simplepage.cfm?ID=x20090523101438630520Evidence of Neuroleptic Drug-Induced Brain Damage in Patients:http://www.ahrp.org/risks/biblio0100.php Study Confirms Antipsychotics Decrease Brain Tissue http://www.cchrint.org/2013/09/12/honey-they-shrunk-my-brain-study-confirms-antipsychotics-decrease-brain-tissue/
WATERFORD, Mich. — Frank Calcaterra was in his 80s in 2008 when his family hired a home care company to help the former Detroit-area funeral home owner look after his ailing wife Jonnie, who had dementia.
The company — Kentucky-based ResCare — sent Tangie Coleman, who, at the time, had a warrant out for her arrest, records show.
Jonnie's jewelry soon began to disappear, as did Frank Calcaterra's sizable fortune — estimates from court filings put the loss at anywhere from more than $500,000 to more than $1.5 million. When Jonnie Calcaterra died in a nursing home in January 2012, Coleman and her mother were living in Frank Calcaterra's lakefront home in Waterford, Mich., and he was sleeping in the basement.
A few months later, Coleman married Calcaterra in Ohio, without his family's knowledge.
In April, when Frank Calcaterra's daughters removed him from his home, he was 10 pounds lighter and so broke he no longer had a positive bank balance or a valid credit card. Coleman was driving him to a check cashing place with his monthly Social Security check, his daughters say.
The case highlights what experts say is a significant and growing problem in the U.S. — financial exploitation of elderly people by caregivers. Many cases go unreported and accurate estimates are hard to pin down, but studies suggest there are at least tens of thousands of such cases each year.
In Michigan, more than 10% of the 33,710 adult abuse complaints the state received in 2013 — up from about 21,000 in 2011 — related to alleged financial exploitation. The state substantiated financial exploitation in more than 1,000 cases.
"We're seeing more and more of these cases where people pose as legitimate caregivers, befriend the elderly, become a part of their lives, and then start taking advantage of them," said Jim McGuire, director of research for the Area Agency on Aging 1-B in Southfield, Mich., which serves about 30% of the state's senior population in six counties.
The elderly population continues to grow, many elderly people have significant resources, and because they can live longer in their own homes they are often more vulnerable, he said. Who's accountable?
Residential home care companies don't require state licensing, and criminal background checks for their workers are only mandatory if public funds are used to pay them.
Though Michigan has recently toughened laws and penalties related to financial exploitation of seniors, making background checks mandatory for all home care workers could have helped Calcaterra, said McGuire, as could a bill stalled in the state Legislature making it mandatory for financial institutions to report suspicious banking activity affecting seniors' accounts.
On Oct. 25, 2012, when Coleman, who was 35, and Frank Calcaterra, who was 86, were married in Ohio, at least two complaints alleging financial exploitation had been filed with the Michigan Department of Human Services' division of Adult Protective Services.
In May of this year, an Oakland County, Mich., judge appointed a conservator for Calcaterra, citing fraud and financial exploitation, which Coleman denies.
Oakland County Public Administrator Jon Munger, Calcaterra's court-appointed conservator, is seeking to annul the marriage, alleging it was a fraud Coleman perpetrated "solely for her financial gain."
Calcaterra's daughters are looking for answers and accountability, too. They're unhappy the state failed to act and that it has been difficult to get police agencies to launch criminal investigations, with some officials saying the 2012 marriage makes the case a civil matter.
"Our concern is that no other family ever go through this," said Calcaterra's daughter Charlotte Knutson, who lives in Minnesota.
Michigan — which was criticized in a recent auditor general's report for failing to properly investigate such allegations — determined the complaints were unfounded and never notified law enforcement.
Coleman, who declined to discuss her history with Calcaterra during a brief encounter with a Detroit Free Press reporter, denied wrongdoing in an answer she filed to the annulment/divorce petition.
She said Calcaterra gave her permission to sign his name to checks and his daughters are biased against her because she is black.
"Frank always gave me stacks of money ... and always promised to take care of me," said Coleman, whose Facebook page featured photos of her fanning a stack of $100 bills.
"They kidnapped my husband," Coleman said in a court filing. "I want him back." Fraud or marriage?
Records show Coleman was married when she was hired to help Calcaterra, but got divorced on Oct. 11, 2012 — two weeks before her marriage to Calcaterra. Of the many checks drawn on Calcaterra's bank account in 2011, more than 20 totaling more than $10,000 were payable to Coleman's husband at the time, for services such as painting, lawn care and moving.
Calcaterra said Coleman told him she needed to marry him in order to receive a significant legal settlement resulting from a lawsuit she brought against an Oakland County police department for an alleged police assault against her. Calcaterra had earlier given her money to hire a lawyer.
"They went to court and got a settlement," Calcaterra said. But Coleman told him officials told her she is a spendthrift, and in order to be paid the settlement she first had to get married so she would have someone to watch over how she handled the money.
"That's why we got married," Calcaterra said. "I don't think there ever was a police report of this ever happening."
There also is no record of any such lawsuit.
Text messages and handwritten notes exchanged between Calcaterra and Coleman show he was smitten with her. And Calcaterra pushed back hard when his daughters tried to convince him he was being used.
"He stated he is aware of the allegations and confirmed that he gave Ms. Coleman his debit card, allowed her to make purchases, and paid her rent last month," a state adult protective services investigator wrote in a report after interviewing Calcaterra at his home in April 2012 — six months before he and Coleman got married.
"He denied that he is being financially exploited and reported he does not need assistance from the police."
Calcaterra, who hired Coleman privately after she left ResCare in 2008, said Coleman changed for the worse after the wedding: She became "domineering," and didn't want him cooking eggs on the stove because she said he might cause a fire; or opening the refrigerator because he would cough and get germs inside it, he said.
But Calcaterra also sent investigators away after the wedding, telling one as recently as February that Coleman "is not taking advantage of him and he wish (sic) these allegations would stop," according to state records obtained under Michigan's Freedom of Information Act.
Calcaterra explained the loss of his 2.75-karat diamond ring, set with sapphires, which had been on his finger since 1950. His family said it was valued at more than $100,000.
"This is beautiful — I'd really like to show it to my friends," Calcaterra said Coleman told him. "I said, 'OK, but ... you take care of it, don't forget I want it back.' " As time went by and Calcaterra kept asking about it, Coleman's response became: "You dropped it in the basement," he said. No background check?
Scott Lewis, a private investigator hired by Calcaterra's family, found that Coleman had a warrant out for her arrest from 2002 through July 2010 for failing to appear in court after she was cited for unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle. That charge was ultimately dropped after a witness did not come forward. But Coleman was convicted in July 2010 of writing bad checks, records show.
Coleman has not had a valid driver's license since her July 2010 conviction for impaired driving, and has been cited four times since 2010 for driving with a suspended or revoked license, records show.
Karen Woodside, an attorney and former Wayne County prosecutor representing Calcaterra's daughters, said the state's adult protection unit — which records show received at least four referrals about Calcaterra between April 2012 and February 2014 — should have run a background check on Coleman and then referred the case to the police.
Bob Wheaton, a spokesman for the Department of Human Services, said the department doesn't comment on specific cases, but if a client is "lucid, aware of his or her finances, and says that he or she is not being taken advantage of, we're probably not going to determine that the person is vulnerable, and we're probably not going to file a petition for financial exploitation."
Calcaterra and his family are also suing Coleman and ResCare, alleging a ResCare official said all home care workers received regular background checks, but instead "placed a thief into the plaintiff's home."
Coleman has not yet been served with the lawsuit and has not filed a response. ResCare denied most of the allegations and any liability in its answer to the suit.
Medicare-certified home health agencies are required by state law to perform background checks on workers with direct access to patients, Wheaton said.
ResCare spokeswoman Nel Taylor said ResCare is not Medicare-certified in Michigan, but performs background checks on its workers whether they are required by law or not. The check turned up no criminal issues on Coleman, she said.
A July 2012 study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found that of 180 agencies surveyed, nearly half did not conduct a federal background check of caregivers.
Calcaterra's 1998 marriage to Jonnie was the second marriage for both, and each had children from their first marriage, all living out of state. Woodside and daughters of both parents said Coleman was able to exploit the geographical separation and conflicts between and among the two sets of children to enhance her influence over Calcaterra.
"This was a textbook case of elder abuse," said Woodside. "The children live out of state, they think they've got someone in the house to help, and it turns out she is a predator."
Take precautions
Children of parents should take precautions when hiring residential caregivers, including:
• Lock private papers and valuables in a filing cabinet, safe deposit box or safe.
• Have someone trusted (other than the caregiver) pick up the mail, or get it sent to a post office box.
• Regularly review all bank and credit card statements (at least once a month) and periodically request a credit report from a major credit bureau.
• Consider having Social Security or pension checks deposited directly into the bank.
• Check phone bills for unauthorized calls.
• Protect checkbooks and credit cards.
• Always get receipts when the caregiver shops for the older adult. Source: Michigan Office of Services to the Aging
The guardian of a Battle Ground woman has sued the state for nearly $500,000, claiming that an Adult Protective Services caseworker enabled an ex-convict to financially exploit the woman.
Max Horn, a caseworker with Adult Protective Services, initiated an investigation in May 2011 into a report that then-81-year-old Jacqueline Grey could no longer take care of herself. Horn found that Grey was unable to care for herself and met the legal definition of a vulnerable adult.
The following month, Horn assisted Grey in completing a Medicaid application and arranged to have Grey moved from her home in Battle Ground to an assisted living community in the same town. Horn also arranged for M. Charlene White, the girlfriend of Grey's son, to take control of Grey's finances under a durable power of attorney, the lawsuit claims.
Horn allegedly knew that White recently had been released from prison but failed to investigate details of White's background, which would have revealed that White had been convicted in 2007 of six counts of securities fraud in King County. White was sentenced to 43 months in prison and ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution, according to court records.
Over the course of several months, White allegedly stole more than $117,000 from Grey, the lawsuit states.
"When the family discovered Ms. White had used that power of attorney to financially exploit Jackie, they then petitioned to have Beagle, Burke & Associates (of Washington) appointed as her guardian," said attorney Larry Wagner, whose firm is handling the lawsuit. "BBA did an extensive investigation and determined the extent of the financial exploitation."
The lawsuit seeks compensation for the stolen money, attorney's fees of $72,859 related to Grey's guardianship case and non-economic damages of at least $300,000. It was filed Friday in Clark County Superior Court by Baumgartner, Nelson & Wagner of Vancouver. A spokesperson with the state Department of Social and Health Services was not immediately available Wednesday for comment on the lawsuit.
White, 58, has been charged with first-degree theft, second-degree theft, first-degree attempted theft, attempted money laundering and attempted false statement or fraud regarding medical assistance in connection with the alleged thefts. Her trial is scheduled for Jan. 12.
Prosecutors accuse White of stealing more than $125,000 from Grey. That amount is greater than what was identified in the lawsuit.
Forensic accountant Brad McLean of Beagle, Burke & Associates of Washington found that White had written four cashier's checks, totaling $107,000, to her aunt in California in July and August 2011, according to a court affidavit. White allegedly made payments totaling $18,910 to family members and friends for various "services," which were not for the benefit of Grey. She transferred 40 percent interest in Grey's house to herself and gave Grey's vehicle to a friend in exchange for work at Grey's home, but there was no record of any work done at the home, according to court documents.
When she applied for Medicaid benefits for Grey, White didn't list the house as one of Grey's assets, as required by law, court documents say. As a result, Grey was approved for Medicaid benefits, even though she didn't qualify. White removed all of Grey's belongings from the house and allowed White's daughter and others to live in the house without paying rent, court documents say.
Grey's house in Battle Ground sold for $270,000 last month, according to Clark County property records.
Charlie Fink, an 85-year-old man who made a call for help recently to FOX 4 after the state took emergency custody of him, had a date in court on Friday.
Fink fought for his freedom, but it was not to be.
The state, through its expert witness, testified Fink could not take care of himself and in fact would be in danger if he returned home.
That witness testified Fink did poorly on a battery of tests, and Dr. C. Alan Hopewell said that while Fink could handle minor physical and mental tasks, he was not able to function independently and that he had substantial cognitive impairment.
That finding was in contrast to that of another state psychologist and the findings of Dr. William Tedford, the former chair of psychology at SMU who also evaluated Fink.
It was Tedford's opinion that nothing is wrong with Fink that would prevent him from living in his own home. At the end of the day, Judge John B. Peyton allowed the emergency protective custody order of Adult Protective Services to stay in place.
"We're extremely disappointed with the findings by the judge," said Fink's attorney, Lysette Rios. "We didn't believe there was enough credible evidence by any doctor that indicated Mr. Fink lacked capacity. The records speak for themselves; you've got two reports out of three indicating he has none to mild impairment, and then one report by a doctor who didn't include half of his objective findings in his report."
Officials with Adult Protective Services disagreed with Rios, though.
"We do feel that Mr. Fink lacks capacity," said Shari Pulliam with Adult Protective Services. "We're concerned for his health and safety in his own home living alone. We are also now concerned with financial exploitation, which is huge in elderly populations. We want to prevent that before it happens, and that's what we are doing here today -- trying to make sure that Mr. Fink is going to be safe financially."
Fink says the state's witness was untruthful in his testimony on Friday and that what he testified to in court was not the same thing he told Fink after performing a psychological test on him at the Arlington nursing home he has been in and returns to Friday.
"Yes, I'm disappointed," said Fink. "If it's against me, if he tells the truth and the judge rules against me, I can take it, but don't rule against me on account of lies. Don't do that on account of boldfaced lies."
Fink is in custody for another 30 days. The state says it will move forward now seeking guardianship of Fink.
An 85-year-old North Texas man said he couldn't get out of a local hospital on Wednesday. Instead of going home, he ended up in a nursing home.
Charlie Fink called FOX 4 for help Wednesday after he went into Richardson Methodist Hospital on Friday for hernia surgery and wasn't released.
Thursday, Fink was in an Arlington nursing home.
"I tried to get out of Methodist and they locked the door," said Fink. "They wouldn't even let me out."
While Fink was in the hospital, he was placed in the psychiatric unit, and the state was in court asking a Dallas County probate judge to find Fink unable to take care of himself.
In an email, the state wrote, "APS was in court yesterday concerning the well-being of Mr. Fink. APS presented the information obtained by field staff to the court. Mr. Fink did have representation present at the hearing. An Emergency Order of Protection was presented in court. A judge did make a ruling on information presented. Due to confidentiality and to protect our client, that is all the information I can release."
Fink's attorney said the state presented an anonymous referral, a doctor's affidavit to his health, concerns about his protecting himself and said that Fink had threatened case workers.
Fink's wife, Edith, was removed from their home by APS earlier this month.
Now the two, married 57 years, are together again – though, not in the place Fink wants to be because state law allows for the elderly to be removed from their home to protect them from themselves and others.
"I just don't think they should have a law like that," said Fink. "I don't know who initiated this law. I don't know how old it is, but it should not be allowed to be."
SEC's Fleming will be following potential FINRA, NASAA rules to protect elderly clients from financial exploitation.
