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.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Joni Mitchell alert and expected to recover, says

Joni Mitchell alert and expected to recover, says singer's website

The 71-year-old 'is nowhere near giving up the fight,' says a statement on JoniMitchell.com

8:25 AM ETThe Canadian Press

1/9view photogallery
Joni Mitchell, Canadian folk legend, hospitalized in Los AngelesPHOTOS

The health of Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell was the subject of conflicting information with her website stating she is alert and expected to make a full recovery, while a longtime friend stated in a court filing that she was unconscious and unable to care for herself.

The Grammy winner has been hospitalized since March 31 for undisclosed reasons. Her friend Leslie Morris filed a petition to become Mitchell's guardian on Tuesday, stating that the singer-songwriter was unable to care for herself.

Full recovery 'expected'

Within hours, Mitchell's official website stated that "She comprehends, she's alert and she has her full senses. A full recovery is expected."
Morris' court filing was accompanied by a doctor's declaration stating that Mitchell would be unable to attend a court hearing for four to six months, but it included no additional details on her condition or prognosis. Dr. Paul Vespa checked a box signed on Saturday indicating that Mitchell was unable to participate in her medical care.
"At this time (Mitchell) remains unconscious and unable to make any responses, and is therefore unable to provide for any of her personal needs," states Morris' filing, which was signed by her on Sunday and by her attorney on Monday.
Morris sought a court order because Mitchell does not have any family who can serve as her conservator and assist with her care and medical decisions. Her filing does not seek any control over Mitchell's finances.

Mitchell's website states Morris' filing seeks to get authority to make decisions for the singer once she leaves the hospital and is isn't under the 24 hour care of a doctor.
"As we all know, Joni is a strong-willed woman and is nowhere near giving up the fight," reads the statement, that is said to have been approved by Morris.
A court hearing on the filing is scheduled for July 8.
Phone messages for Morris and her attorney, Alan Watenmaker, were not returned.

Started on the streets

The Saskatchewan-raised Mitchell has received eight Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 2002. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

18th September 1968: Canadian folk singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell, strumming her guitar outside The Revolution club in London. (Central Press/Getty)

She started her career as a street musician in Canada before moving to Southern California, where she became part of the flourishing folk scene in the late 1960s. Her second album, Clouds, was a breakthrough with such songs as Both Sides Now and Chelsea Morning, winning Mitchell the Grammy for best folk performance.
Her 1970 album, Ladies of the Canyon, featured the hit single Big Yellow Taxi and the era-defining Woodstock. The following year, she released Blue, which ranks 30th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time."
Her musical style integrates folk and jazz elements, and she counts jazz giants Charles Mingus and Pat Metheny among her past collaborators.
With files from CBC News

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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Guardianship Bills Racing The Clock

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By Margie Menzel of the News Service of Florida

As lawmakers enter the final days of the regular legislative session, they have not resolved proposals aimed at shielding older Floridians from predatory private guardians who take control of the seniors' assets.

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Nonetheless, Sen. Nancy Detert, a Venice Republican and sponsor of one of the guardianship bills (SB 1226), calls it her top priority of the session. Her bill would charge the state Department of Elder Affairs with certifying, overseeing and disciplining professional guardians who abuse their trust. It would also create a registry of professional guardians in each judicial circuit.

The bill was sparked, Detert said, by a series in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, which concluded that "monitoring elders and tapping their assets is a growth business: In 2003, there were 23 registered professional guardians in Florida, according to the (Department of Elder Affairs). Today there are more than 440 - an increase greater than 1,800 percent in 11 years."
Currently, Detert said, the Department of Elder Affairs oversees the state's 51 public guardians, who are assigned to indigent seniors, but there is little to stop unprincipled professional guardians from charging steep rates for services and running through wards' assets.
"This is a totally unregulated industry," Detert said on the Senate floor Monday afternoon, as her bill was readied for a final vote as soon as Tuesday.
The senator said she's heard from constituents about private guardians who drain "mostly wealthy elderly folks" of their life savings --- even in cases where the seniors had children who looked after them before the guardians entered the picture.
For instance, Detert said, one woman ferried her mother on errands and helped with bills until a dispute between the siblings ended with a private guardian in charge of the mother's affairs.
"All the things the daughter did for her mom --- took care of the mail, paid the bills --- now the guardian's doing it, and they charge $100 an hour to open your mail, make your doctor's appointment," Detert said. "And even when the relatives visit, they have to pay $100 an hour for the guardian to sit there while they visit the mom."
Senate committee hearings on the bill were full of similar tales. But the House version (HB 1225), sponsored by Rep. Larry Ahern, R-Seminole, has been stuck in the Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee for more than a month after getting unanimous approval from the Children, Families and Seniors Subcommittee.
Rep. Matt Hudson, a Naples Republican and chairman of the Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee, said that's because the cost of the bill was expected to be more than three times as much as it is now.
"It was not a matter of policy," Hudson said. "It was simply a matter of fiscal resources. …. Frankly, I just didn't have the money to be able to do it."
In mid-March, Detert said, the Department of Elder Affairs had estimated the cost of her bill at $3 million for 40 full-time employees. But last week, she succeeded in amending the measure to provide six full-time positions and $821,670 in recurring general revenue funds for Fiscal Year 2015-2016.
Hudson praised Detert and Ahern for working with the Department of Elder Affairs to bring the cost down.
"(But) here we are, a handful of days before the end of session, and while I appreciate that they've worked hard to get a bill in good position that way, the reality is, we stopped meeting as a committee weeks ago," Hudson said.
But Ahern said he hasn't given up.
"The senator did her job…the governor's on board, so I'm looking for away to --- maybe through the (House) appropriations chair, Richard Corcoran, if he can find a million dollars somewhere, then we could possibly attach it to a bill of similar type,'' Ahern said.
That could be a bill (HB 5), which passed the House last week and could come up for a Senate vote Tuesday.
The bill would require advance notice before hearings on the appointment of emergency temporary guardians. It would also allow the mediation of guardianship disputes among family members and require the reporting of incidents of abuse, neglect and exploitation of wards by guardians.
But the Senate added an amendment that was not in the version that passed the House. Sen. Tom Lee, a Brandon Republican who proposed the amendment, said in an email that it "preserves the good work of an organization in my district," the Sun City Center. "It is crafted to allow certain not-for-profits to provide power of attorney services free of charge to those residing in senior communities. As safeguards, criminal history background checks and credit history checks will be required of all volunteers who interact with clients. The service is strictly voluntary and seeks to help seniors stay independent longer."
House sponsor Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, said she and Lee had collaborated on the amendment and that she was satisfied with the safeguard it provides.
"Those are our vulnerable citizens," Passidomo said. "They're being abused, financially and in many other ways, unfortunately, by some bad actors. And we need to clamp down on them --- particularly making criminal penalties on those that will exploit our elderly."

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Florida Legislature 2015

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Editorial: Inheritance, death taxes are draining the state

March 29, 2015 at 3:00 AM

(THINKSTOCK)

Last week, we wrote about the Bankrate ranking of the best states in which to retire, and to no one's surprise, New Jersey ranks near the bottom. It's not hard to imagine why — after all, once your hair starts to turn silver, Trenton starts making plans to get its hands on your gold.
If you own a business, especially if you're part of the baby boom generation that's planning to hand everything over to the next generation within the next few years — where you take your wealth after you sell is a serious consideration for you, but also for the state, which loses out on all kinds of property and sales tax revenue when those moving trucks cross the Delaware.
A big reason so many retirees head for the exit? Only two states levy both a death tax and an inheritance tax: Maryland and New Jersey. But Maryland has taken steps to reduce the size of the fangs in its estate tax, whereas the Garden State never met a tax it didn't like. And while New Jersey only taxes estates worth more than $675,000, business owners who've worked all their lives to build a company and provide for their families shouldn't be forced to leave the state where they created their livelihoods just to protect their wealth. And many are unaware they may be leaving their heirs a costly burden until they sit down and hear the news from a wealth planner.
New Jersey has thrown a lot of money at incentives, and a lot of hot air at property taxes and income taxes, but it hasn't done much to address potential death tax reform, though it does come up every so often. It's time lawmakers commit to some serious work here, to help bolster the state's reputation as a good place to retire.
Are death and inheritance taxes the top reason that retirees leave the state? Certainly not, as a comparison of the weather this past winter here and in Tampa will prove. But New Jersey's taxes effectively chip away the many advantages this state does offer to retirees, like the beach and proximity to New York — and family, of course. It would be much easier to remind them of that without their financial planners also reminding them how much money they'll lose when the inevitable happens. We hope lawmakers work to make it so.

The Employee Benefit Research Institute

The Employee Benefit Research Institute just released new study entitled “A Look at the End-of-Life Financial Situation in America”. It has generated quite a buzz by painting a very bleak picture. Here’s the summary:

 Significant findings include that among all those who died at ages 85 or above, 20.6 percent had no nonhousing

assets and 12.2 percent had no assets left. Among singles who died at or above age 85, 24.6 percent

had no non-housing assets left and 16.7 percent had no assets left.

 Data show those who died at earlier ages were generally worse off financially: 29.8 percent of households

that lost a member between ages 50 and 64 had no assets left. Households with at least one member who

died earlier also had significantly lower income than households with all surviving members.

 The report shows that among singles who died at ages 85 or above, 9.1 percent had outstanding debt (other

than mortgage debt) and the average debt amount for them was $6,368.

 The report also shows that the importance of Social Security to older households cannot be overstated. For

recently deceased singles, it provided at least two-thirds of their household income. Couple households above

75 with deceased members received more than 60 percent of their household income from Social Security.

Here’s the link:

http://www.ebri.org/pdf/notespdf/EBRI_Notes_04_Apr15_EoL-PolFor.pdf

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Daughter sues elder abuse investigator over father's will

STEVEN DUBOIS, Associated Press 10:36 a.m. PDT March 27, 2015

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A former Medford police detective who specialized in investigating elder abuse has been accused of using her expertise to exploit the dementia of a Portland lawyer before his death last year.
The daughter of Victor Calzaretta says in a $4 million lawsuit filed in Portland that she was in line to inherit his estate until Calzaretta married Sue Campbell after a brief courtship. Calzaretta changed his will in 2011 to make his wife the executor and sole beneficiary.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of Diane Miller in Multnomah County alleges the detective was familiar with the signs of dementia and married Calzaretta to get access to his estate.
Sue Campbell Calzaretta declined comment Thursday. Her lawyer, Jim Callahan, said his client adamantly denies the allegations.

Got Free Speech? Not if you are an attorney…

Column: Society

Region: USA in the World

The Illinois Registration and Disciplinary Commission has just issued a recommendation for a three year suspension of the license to practice law of yet another activist attorney.

The prosecution of attorney JoAnne Denison by the IARDC goes to the heart of the amalgamation of the legal system in the US into one streamlined cruise missile. The weaponization of the legal system has been part and parcel of the general attack on the Bill of Rights and Constitutional protections which have resulted in such actions as President Obama placing kill orders on American citizens and the removal ofcitizenship from independent journalists.

Joanne Denison’s case is one which deserves enormous media attention (which it has not yet received) as well as howls of indignation (a bit muted, those). For the recommendation to suspend Denison’s license did not occur due to any act she committed as an attorney. She was not tried for misrepresenting a client, misappropriating funds or even courtroom misbehavior.

Rather, Denison was on trial for running a blog about corruption in probate court. The blog, marygsykes.com, focuses on a particular adult guardianship case in Cook County Court in Illinois and is critical of a number of highly placed individuals in the Cook County legal system. According to the opening statements by IARDC attorney Melissa Smart, attorneys don’t have the same First Amendment rights that the rest of us do. Stated attorney Smart:

“This case is not about the Constitution or the First Amendment. You will see, precedent is abundantly clear, as an officer of the court, Ms. Denison cannot just say whatever she wants about judges and judicial officers because attorneys are held to a higher standard. We are held to a different standard.”

Last time I checked, the First Amendment to the US constitution stated that free speech in the United States was a God-given right. I didn’t see anything about attorneys, doctors, journalists or any other profession having restrictions on those rights to free speech.

The attempt by attorney Smart to imply that these restrictions exist reveals a rather disturbing mindset, somewhat military in essence, wherein calling out a commanding officer can get you thrown in the brig.

In her opening statement, attorney Melissa Smart likened Denison’s blog to “yelling fire in a crowded theatre.” This was an inaccurate reference to a qualification placed on free speech by Schenck vs. The United States, in which falsely shouting fire in a crowded theatre was barred.

But to yell fire when there is indeed a conflagration has never been an issue. This is, in fact, how lives may be saved and people alerted to a danger.

And if there is corruption in the courts, who better than an attorney to blow the whistle?

The question then arises, is Denison telling the truth or is she “falsely” shouting fire?

The panel sitting in judgment on JoAnne Denison did not allow her to answer this question. As the statements made in Denison’s blog pertained to the guardianship of Mary G. Sykes, Denison attempted repeatedly during the course of her hearing to bring up instances where the actions of the attorneys and the judges assigned to the Sykes case were taken in absence of due process and without jurisdiction. The IARDC panel Chairman Sang-Yul Lee consistently refused to allow Denison to present this evidence, instead telling her that she was attempting to “re-litigate” the Sykes case.

Denison’s star witness, Gloria Jean Sykes, the daughter of Mary Sykes, was also kept from testifying. After a brief appearance on the witness stand, the panel decided that Gloria could only testify if she turned over thousands of emails between her and Denison, emails which were considered to be privileged in terms of attorney client confidentiality, and which did not, in fact, add anything to the panel’s determination, as the case against Denison pertained to what was up on the blog, in plain view.

Of interest is that the very IARDC attorneys pursuing Denison appear to have violated one of their pivotal obligations as members of a state commission. The Illinois Governmental Ethics Act mandates that those working for government in Illinois must file yearly financial disclosure forms. This is done to ensure that members of government are not receiving inappropriate monies that may influence their actions.

Neither the head of the IARDC, Jerome Larkin, nor any of the attorneys prosecuting Denison, have filed financial disclosures. The IARDC press officer and deputy administrator, attorney Jim Grogan, has refused to comment on this. As it turns out, Grogan has not filed financial disclosures, either.

The problems going on in adult guardianship proceedings in the probate courts are rarely discussed in the mainstream press. A number of grassroots groups have sprung up attempting to address stated abuses to the elderly and disabled, who are those most impacted by adult guardianships. The list of abuses range from theft of assets to failure to adhere to jurisdiction to outright murder.

The National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse lists the rights one loses when one goes under an adult guardianship. These include:

the right to contract, including the right to choose a lawyer;
the right to control their assets and make financial decisions;
the right to remain in their own home and protect it from sale;
the right to protect and enjoy their personal property;
the right to choose where to live;
the right to accept or refuse medical treatment, including psychotropic drugs;
the right to decide their social environments and contacts;
the right to assure prompt payment of taxes and liabilities;
the right to vote;
the right to drive;
the right to marry; and
the right to complain.

Denison has partnered up with activist attorney Ken Ditkowsky, whose recent suspension from the Illinois State Bar for asking for a DOJ investigation into the abuses going on in adult guardianships have made him something of a folk hero in the guardianship reform community. Ditkowsky is a regular contributor to Denison’s blog.

The recommendation for Denison’s suspension must be affirmed by the Illinois Supreme Court. Denison has stated that she will not stop blogging. She says she intends “…To do the same thing, monitor probate court, blog about it, help victims and direct them to free/low cost probate attorneys, write articles and books for pro se’ers in probate.

“The reality is, says Denison, “they can’t stop my blog or writing articles. They can only say that I am suspended from practicing state law so I can’t go to court and I cannot give personal legal opinions for probate victims.”

Another Illinois attorney, ‘Lanre Amu, was suspended by the ARDC for filing complaints about several judges. In Amu’s Certiorari, requesting judicial review by the Supreme Court and filed just this past week, he writes: “The Hearing Board also found as aggravation Respondent’s claim that the IARDC was biased. How is that aggravation? When telling the truth becomes “aggravation” to be punished, are we not really punishing the “free speech” right to speak the truth?”

The ARDC could not be reached for comment.

Janet C. Phelan, investigative journalist and human rights defender that has traveled pretty extensively over the Asian region, an author of a tell-all book EXILE, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook
First appeared:http://journal-neo.org/2014/12/14/got-free-speech-not-if-you-are-an-attorney/

Monday, April 27, 2015

Pro Se Filing Of The Day: ‘Notice To F*ck This Court And Everything That It Stands For’

Editor's note: The readers of this blog will note that this Shark is very polite and does not use bad language. Your ProbateShark after experiencing the corrupt ethics and lack of legal capabilities of the judges within the Probate Court of Cook County understands Mr. Clark's frustration, but does not condone it. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

Pro Se Filing Of The Day: ‘Notice To F*ck This Court And Everything That It Stands For’

By Staci Zaretsky

120 Comments /
/ Apr 23, 2015 at 12:22 PM

Every now and then, a federal motion is filed that’s so beautifully written that we simply wouldn’t be able to do it justice by describing it in words. Instead, we’re just going to show it to you.
Prepare to feast your eyes upon pure eloquence and class. From the plaintiff calling the judge an “old, IMPOTENT geezer” and a “f*cking b*tch” to alleging that it only “took [her] about 1 month to study the history of the world and to learn the history and inner workings of American jurisprudence, literally,” this motion — entitled “Notice To F*ck This Court And Everything That It Stands For” — is simply amazing.
This is just a sample of the incredible legal rhetoric you’ll find in this legal pleading:

[J]ust in case you haven’t noticed—I couldn’t give two f*cks about you or what you have to say. F*ck you, old man. You’re a joke. Your court’s a joke. You take it up the a*s; and you suck nuts. Lol.

Behold, a legal masterpiece.

(Gavel bang: Sarah Jeong.)
Notice To F*ck This Court And Everything That It Stands For [Scribd]

Topics

Federal Judges, Judge Willis B. Hunt Jr., Lunacy, Northern District of Georgia, Pro Se Filing of the Day, Pro Se Litigants, Tamah Jada Clark

Judge Guy Herman Insulting Battered Families of Judicial Abuse

Editor's note: This Shark believes that one does not have to travel to Texas to be insulted by a judge...we have our own boorish judges in the Probate Court of Cook County. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

Harris County Texas Judge Guy Herman's Testimony at the Senate Committee on State Affairs on SB1876

Source:
Judge Guy Herman Insulting Battered Families of Judicial Abuse

Miami will finally try to fix its crooked guardianship programs

Miami will finally try to fix its crooked guardianship programs (FL)

April 27, 2015

Last spring, New Times published the results of a five-month investigation into Miami-Dade’s guardianship system — the program set up by the courts to protect the assets of vulnerable people. Except in South Florida, it had become a politically-connected, un-regulated cesspool of abuse.
One year later, as Tallahassee works to overhaul the guardianship system statewide, Miami-Dade’s courts are finally taking small steps toward reform. But the most obvious change — a dedicated county watchdog to sniff out corruption — is still nowhere to be found.
For decades, Miami’s judges have been given essentially free reign to appoint anyone they chose to be a guardian — a position of tremendous power over a vulnerable resident, with wide leeway to control their assets, bank accounts and medical care. New Times investigation found that power was regularly abused, including:

• There were regular failures to file basic information. Guardians were often years late in filing financial forms, and until this month, Miami-Dade lacked any electronic system to track the programs.
• Guardians have given thousands in donations to the election campaigns of the same judges who appoint them to cases and award them their fees.

This week, Miami’s probate courts instituted a new system to at least start addressing that final point. Now, professional guardians must register and cases are assigned on a rotating basis from that pool .
That move comes as multiple bills are working their way through Tallahassee, including efforts to make it more difficult to declare someone incapacitated and to limit how much guardians can be paid for their work.
But there’s still one easy fix in Dade that hasn’t been funded: A dedicated watchdog. Despite the fact that Miami, as of last spring, had 7,000 guardianship cases — the most in the state — there was no independent oversight of those cases. Palm Beach started a similar program in 2011, and has uncovered more than $3 million in abuse since then; Broward, too, has uncovered millions in guardianship abuse since starting its watchdog program.
Legislators last year gave county clerks new power to investigate abuses, but didn’t fund that push; as a result, counties like Dade initiated almost zero new audits.
There’s little doubt that Dade’s most vulnerable residents are still at risk from unscrupulous guardians; this week’s changes will help, but when will a transparent watchdog program come to Miami?
Attribution:
Miami Will Finally Try to Fix Its Crooked Guardianship Programs
Tim Elfrink
March 27, 2015
Miami New Times
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-will-finally-try-to-fix-its-crooked-guardianship-programs-7554038

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Here's How The Great $41 Trillion Generational Wealth Transfer Is Intercepted By Probate Pirates

Juliette Fairley
Follow
Apr 23, 2015 10:13 AM EDT

NEW YORK (MainStreet) — It used to be that Theresa Lyons bartered with the elderly relatives in her family.

“My aging mother and her sister were helping me pay the rent, gas and electricity bills and I would take them out to eat and drive them around to where they needed to go,” said the single mother of three children.

That was until 2011 when Blanca Tozzo, Lyons’s aunt, passed away and her mother, Carmen Hernandez Tozzo, was placed in a retirement home in Florida once the Department of Children and Families (DCF) stepped in.

“I have no access to my mom's finances,” Lyons told MainStreet. “The only way I can get any money is through a subpoena and blessings from the probate judge.”

Once Tozzo became a ward of the state under a professional guardian, Lyons said most of her mother's $100,000 in retirement savings was drained.

“The guardian isolated and drugged my mom, placed her in a lock down area with mentally ill and psychotic patients where she suffered dozens of falls, cuts, bruises and was almost killed by one of the male residents,” said Lyons, who is in her 50s. “When I complained, my visitation was taken away.”

Lyons’s mother is among the senior citizens losing some $36.48 billion each year to elder financial abuse, according to a True Link study called Friendly Grandparent Syndrome.

“These numbers indicate how the guardianship industry destroys the legitimate inter-generational transfer of wealth and in the process irreparably damages entire generations of innocent families,” said Dr. Sam Sugar, founder of the Americans Against Abusive Probate Guardianship (AAAPG) in Miami.

That’s 12 times more than the previously reported $2.9 billion, because elders are ashamed and humiliated and in some cases drugged while residing in a retirement home.

“They often refuse to report this crime,” said Jack Halpern, CEO of My Elder Advocate, a franchise that works with families to solve elder care-related crises. “Elder financial abuse is probably the most unreported crime in the country.”

Some $16.9 billion of these losses a year comes from deceptive but technically legal tactics designed specifically to take advantage of older Americans, according to the 2015 True Link Report on Financial Elder Abuse. “This crime is shielded from public view because the criminal is most often a lawyer in probate court,” said Kristi Hood, author of the book Probate Pirates (JKH Publishing, 2015). “The probate pirate attorney either directly or indirectly finds a way to pick the pockets of the elderly ward of the state, taking money that should be used to care for the person or charging their adult children exorbitant legal fees for help.”

Uncannily similar to organized crime defined in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 (RICO), probate piracy can involve the involuntary redistribution of assets, which is also known as property poaching, with the elderly person becoming the enterprise that is defrauded.
"Unscrupulous charities, probate courts, home repair scammers, retirement homes, neighbors and even distant family members know that a friendly senior with cognitive issues is a potential gold mine,” said Kai Stinchcombe, CEO and founder of True Link.

Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers are reportedly expected to be the recipients of some $41 trillion from their World War 2 generation parents as they pass away.

"The transfer of wealth is going to last for the next 30 to 40 years," said Dan McElwee, certified financial planner and executive vice president with Ventura Wealth Management.
But an elderly adult who is extremely friendly is four times more likely to fall victim to high amounts of senior financial fraud.

“Those of us working in the field have long known that the United States is in the throes of an elder financial abuse epidemic,” said Shawna Reeves, director of elder abuse prevention at the Institute of Aging.

Adult Millennial and Gen X children who find their elderly Boomer and World War II-generation parents have been targeted with legal tactics designed to rob them can report the fraud to their local district attorney’s office, consumer protection agency, the state attorney general and even the local FBI office.

“We are all affected by these scams,” Halpern told MainStreet. “When an elder loses their assets to scam and they need care, they will have to look to welfare and Medicaid.”

—Written by Juliette Fairley for MainStreet

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Thursday, April 30, 2015