America’s secret wealth exchanges: “The Economic Rape of America” is underway

Editor's note:  The Kawamotos, Solos, Martins of the world and their clones are still out there.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

America’s secret wealth exchanges: “The Economic Rape of America” is underway

January 26, 2015

To depict what can fairly be characterized as “The Economic Rape of America,” Har Justice has released a documentary entitled America’s Secret Wealth Exchanges that provides an important look at the greed, corruption and unseemly transfers of America’s wealth occurring through probate courts and frivolous civil litigation.

First it should be understood that probate courts oversee and/or administer actions related to wills, trusts, guardianships and even powers of attorney.
The Har Justice project is described as follows:

This documentary is the story of a woman who lost her husband then was plunged into the ugly world of greed, corruption, and legal abuse via unnecessary and predatory litigation. The widow was intentionally kept from mitigating damages to the Estate due to the insider activities between lawyers, and an asset management company. The widow was denied economic and civil rights and half of the assets of the estate were drained from her husband’s estate. This is known as a public, private, partnership scheme. The short film exposes the billions of dollars that are wasted each year and reveals what has been referred to as “The Dead Man’s Scam” and “The Tomb Raider’s Club” and involves attorneys, banks, and YOUR property! Legal fees for probate, divorce, and frivolous litigation add up to $315.5 billion per year.
There are cameos by Professor and Rabbi, Kris McDaniel-Miccio, Athena Roe, Shaun T. Lally, Rosemary Lytle, President of the NAACP, Maureen Grier, Carolyn Cathey, and video clips courtesy of Rod Fisher and Haimo Law. Many people falsely believe that having a Will protects your home and assets. Anyone can die suddenly and this is not an age related topic. While people do not want to think about death, everyone will die. The probate system is predatory and survives largely because we as a society have silly beliefs about death and estate planning. Amy Weinhouse, Howard Hughes, Sonny Bono are well-known figures who died without Wills.
Today, America’s legal system is commonly used as an abusive bludgeon that forces millions of families to ask for government assistance. This timely documentary unravels the little known facts and statistics to viewers and will shock most. The short documentary reveals the often ignored topic of Estate administration and explains why America must wake up and start “watch dogging” the legal system before there is even more dire consequences to America’s families and future.

This documentary is an exciting project offering important insight regarding the atrocities being perpetrated by the legal industry via probate courts. Assets are being hijacked, civil liberties are being trampled. This issue is impacting people at all economic levels and from all walks of life.
Anyone who thinks it couldn’t happen to them falls into one single category – that of being a fool. Harsh as that sounds, it’s the truth. Economic and emotional devastation is the best way to describe the trail of targets these acts create.
Athena Roe and the Har Justice team have created an important work that aptly communicates the dangers facing a largely unsuspecting public.
Two dangerous mindsets cause people to become more vulnerable. First, people think they don’t have enough money to be a target. Second, they think that “proper estate planning” will protect them.
Wealth is relative – there’s always someone with more, someone with less and any estate can be targeted. An Involuntary Redistribution of Assets can happen to anyone. Estates of modest values have significant appeal – as much as higher dollar estates – as assets can be enough to go after, but not so much that legitimate heirs or beneficiaries can cost effectively defend their inheritance rights in court.
Legal consumers should understand that “proper estate planning” does not provide the security espoused in legal industry product sales pitches, but it is necessary.  It should be done, however, with the knowledge that wills, trusts, guardianships and even powers of attorney are not fail safe mechanisms for protecting assets. In fact, today’s legal environment is a breeding ground for often using these instruments in ways contrary to their intended purposes.
While property rights of the dead, the disabled and/or the incapacitated are frequent targets, guardianships also pose special threats to civil liberties.
Though all these abuses are often equated with the elderly and incapacitated, make no mistake that people of all ages as well as wealth levels are also at risk.
With no magic pill, silver bullet or cure to avoid, even mitigate becoming a target, the public should at least be aware of the disturbing realities we that exist.
Lou Ann Anderson is an information activist. As a contributor at Watchdog Wire Arena, Raging Elephants Radio and Examiner Austin, she writes and speaks on a variety of public policy topics. Lou Ann is the creator and online producer at Estate of Denial®, a website that addresses probate abuse via wills, trusts, guardianships and powers of attorney as well as other taxpayer advocacy issues.

Abusive guardianships and their liberty-looting, property-poaching nature (TX)

Abusive guardianships and their liberty-looting, property-poaching nature (TX)

April 3, 2014

Civil asset forfeiture, action by which the government confiscates a person’s property without charging that person with a crime, is one current threat to property rights. Another property hijacking avenue occurs through guardianships – also called conservatorships in some states. Guardianships are probate instruments that limit, if not suspend, many adult basic rights. While not inherently bad or evil, their growing abuse poses a threat of which many Texans (and others across the country) are unaware.
Guardianships are designed to be a pre-emptive, protective measure to ensure the well-being of a person and/or their property. While in the past this status was more largely associated with minor children, longer life spans are bringing more elderly and developmentally disabled people into this mix while other adult Americans find themselves targeted – sometimes under quite questionable circumstances – based on real or alleged determinations of incapacity attributed to psychological or emotional issues, physical injuries, substance abuse, etc.
Though often perpetrated by a combination of disgruntled family members, wannabe heirs and members of the legal industry (lawyers, judges and other court-related personnel), financial professionals from CPAs to banks sometimes play a role. Stories consistently surface in which Adult Protective Services (APS) employees, professional guardians, social workers as well as medical personnel responsible for evaluations (physical and psychological) and even proprietors of facilities that house incapacitated or disabled individuals are involving themselves in questionably motivated guardianship cases. Call it asset looting, property poaching or estate hijacking – any of these parties can (and too often do) derive direct or indirect benefit from abusive probate actions.
Several recent Texas cases illustrate just how these actions occur and the dramatic impact they bring.
In late February, FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth began reporting on Charlie Fink, an 85-year-old man reportedly being held against his will at Methodist Richardson Medical Center. Kenny McIntosh, a neighbor who along with his wife watch out for Fink, contacted the media after an unexplained delay in his hospital release.

Kenny contacted FOX 4 about Fink, and Wednesday, Fink called us. He said he thought he was going home Monday.
“Now here it is, Wednesday, and I’m still here,” said Fink. “No, I stand corrected. They put me in a mental institution Monday night.”
Kenny says a frustrated Fink called him Monday.
“He called me and said, ‘I haven’t left yet; Adult Protective Services lady came in here and told me I wasn’t never coming home,’” said Kenny.
Fink’s 82-year-old wife was taken by Adult Protective Services earlier this month after someone called the group, concerned Fink could no longer care for her.
Fink’s attorney says he doesn’t know why Fink is still in the hospital and believes Fink is there involuntarily.
The attorney also says someone must have said something to cause the hospital to want to keep Fink.

In predictably citing privacy concerns, the hospital and APS offered no explanation for the situation.
At a March 21 hearing, Judge John B. Peyton, the Dallas County Probate Court associate judge and probable cause master for mental illness, allowed an APS emergency protective custody order to remain in place while Fink is held in custody for another 30 days as the state moves forward with a guardianship.
At the hearing, an “expert” state witness testified that Fink’s poor performance on a battery of tests indicated his inability to care for himself and that he would be in danger if allowed to return home.
Per Fox 4, testimony by Dr. C. Alan Hopewell offered “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 reportedly in contrast to another state psychologist and the findings of Dr. William Tedford, the former chair of psychology at Southern Methodist University who also evaluated Fink, and found Fink as having no issues that would prevent him from independent living in his home.
“We’re extremely disappointed with the findings by the judge,” Fink’s attorney, Lysette Rios, told Fox 4. “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.”
Per Fink, the state’s witness was untruthful in that his court testimony did not match comments allegedly made after conducting the psychological test at the Arlington nursing home in which Fink is confined.
“We do feel that Mr. Fink lacks capacity,” Shari Pulliam with Adult Protective Services told the station. “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.”
Pulliam is correct about financial exploitation. It happens, but with both the old and the young, estates of great proportions and those of more modest means.
The power seated in a guardianship is massive yet one need not have massive wealth to be an appealing target for an abusive guardianship. The pursuit of assets is an obvious motivation, but wards without assets can have “headcount” value when used by government or its allies to derive direct and/or indirect benefit that comes with using wards to fill the rolls of taxpayer-funded programs.
The value of Fink’s estate is unknown, but his situation certainly offers opportunity on either front.
An elderly Richardson couple, Michael and Eugenia Kidd, were similarly detained in 2009 by Collin County Probate Judge Weldon Copeland. The couple was ultimately released after their case received significant media attention.
And the case of Dorothy Luck certainly reminds of the wealth motivation. In March, Tarrant County Probate Judge Steven King, a former presiding judge for Texas’ statutory probate courts, released Luck from a guardianship that has diverted an estimated $1 million or more from her estate.
Tarrant County’s two probate judges, King and Pat Ferchill, have presided over a series of questionable guardianship cases which have involved an identifiable group of court-associated employees, social workers, attorneys and bankers.
Fort Worth Weekly reporter Jeff Prince has covered some of these cases. In a September 2013 article entitled Grabbing the Purse he described Luck as a “neat and still-elegant woman has always kept a close watch on her finances, and she believed she’d have plenty of money to last until the end of her life.”
Prince wrote:

Dorothy Luck was enjoying the fruits of a lifetime of hard work: a well-cared-for house, a good-running Cadillac Deville, a million dollars in a bank account, another million in annuities, and a monthly income from investments and Social Security. A widow with no children or close relatives, she remains active and relatively healthy at 85.

A 2008 dispute over assets co-owned by her late husband, Leskie, and his brother that were in trusts managed by Luck with the brother’s children as beneficiaries brought Luck to the probate court’s attention.
These relatives initiated legal action against Luck. Their goal had nothing to do with her competency, it was simply to demand an accounting of the trusts.
King, the judge presiding over the lawsuit, initiated the guardianship against Luck. She was unwilling to settle the lawsuit because she believed her management of the trusts was appropriate. Described as being ill and combative at a deposition, she verbally sparred with David Bakutis, an attorney representing the trust beneficiaries. At a point in the proceeding, Bakutis threatened her with a guardianship.
Soon thereafter, Fort Worth attorney Monika Cooper filled out a guardianship referral form in which she listed herself as Luck’s friend, though per Luck, their contact was limited to a one-time visit from Cooper during which the attorney told the older woman to attend the deposition.
Cooper was employed by ShannonGracey, a prominent Fort Worth law firm with strong local ties. Another of the firm’s attorneys, Lisa Jamieson, was later appointed by King to represent Luck in the guardianship case. In his article, Prince notes that Cooper’s referral form is not listed in the official court documents, but was provided to Luck as part of other case-related paperwork.
As the guardianship was pursued, Luck was found competent by not only her own doctors, but by other doctors in court-ordered examinations. Per Prince, only after Ross P. Griffith, a King-appointed attorney tasked with investigating Luck’s potential incapacitation, asked doctors for clarification was the diagnosis changed to “partial incapacity.”
A final accounting of Luck’s assets will illustrate the financial incentives a government-sponsored guardianship can offer. Luck has regained access to her assets though King did require they be put in a trust with an outside trustee named.
“Some kid can steal an apple and get 10 years in jail, and yet this court can come and do this to me?” Luck told Prince. “Where’s the legal system going? It’s pitiful.”
While these cases involve elderly adults, it’s always important to understand risks also exist for younger adults.
Additionally, articles extolling the dangers of financial exploitation (often of the elderly) abound with family members, caregivers and bottom-feeder scammers often named the culprits. Granted – some guardianship situations are created by disgruntled family members or wannabe heirs, but legal industry intervention can and routinely is also a catalyst. With attorneys, particularly estate planning attorneys, regularly writing these articles, that aspect is rarely discussed.
Today’s world offers instances of this legal mechanism increasingly being abused yet with the legal industry’s powerful position within government and public policy circles, political will to substantively address this hijacking of American civil and property rights is tepid at best.
A 2013 bill introduced by state Rep. Stephanie Klick, R-Fort Worth, sought to strengthen probable cause considerations with regard to guardianship pursuits, but was denounced as unneeded by legal industry practitioners including several prominent probate judges.
Of his alleged incapacitation and testimony he believes was falsified, Fink said, “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.”
And Dorothy Luck noted, “For a judge not to give me a voice and then try to strip me of everything I’ve worked for since I was 15 years old is the most preposterous thing.”
After his release, Kidd repeatedly warned how this can happen to anyone. Nearly five years later, Fink and Luck know that reality yet many people remain unsuspecting.
Lou Ann Anderson is an information activist and the editor of Watchdog Wire – Texas. As also a contributor at Raging Elephants Radio and News Radio 1400 KTEM, she writes and speaks on a variety of public policy topics. Lou Ann is the creator and online producer at Estate of Denial^®, a website that addresses probate abuse via wills, trusts, guardianships and powers of attorney as well as other taxpayer advocacy issues.

Rebel or Patriot? Where would you land in a Revolution?

Rebel or Patriot? Where would you land in a Revolution?

March 11, 2014

Where would any of us land in a Revolution? It’s a thought that comes to mind every week when watching the NBC show with the same name. When push comes to shove, rubber meets the road, real choices and substantive acts must be performed – would the turbulent freedom-loving Rebels or the seemingly security-offering, liberty-limiting Patriots be your better fit?
Revolution is about the struggle to restore societal order in an environment where little to none exists. Its particular scenario – 15 or so years after the onset of a worldwide blackout – reminds that practicalities sometimes make for odd, even fluid, alliances as dire conditions and unforeseen challenges occur in a world whose only predictability lies in its reliably unpredictable state.
It often comes down to good versus bad, brave versus cowardly, bold versus timid.
The Rebels are an assortment of individuals resistant to an emerging world order in which strong but often heavy-handed, oppressive and exploitative enclaves thrive at the expense of those willing to submit. The formidable Monroe Republic that first dominated the villain theme has more recently been usurped by the “Patriots,” a group claiming to be former members of the U.S. government. That claim increasingly becomes more believable based on their aggressive marshaling of resources, ruthless approach to controlling people and places along with unapologetically punitive – barbaric even – treatment of those who cross their paths and fail to adopt their agenda.
Of course most of us would always say we fall on the side of good, brave and bold, but isn’t bad, cowardly and timid more often the order of the day? After all, bad manifests as corruption with complacency toward corruption a secondary yet common version. Cowardness shows itself through an unwillingness to taking contrarian or principled stands. And timid involves avoiding risk or potentially adverse consequences. These are characteristics sadly applicable to many in today’s world.
A friend recently remarked on how tiring it is to so often be on the losing end of issues. I countered first that those issues are ones most people would not even dare take on. Anyone can do easy, not everyone is willing to even attempt hard. Secondly, however, and most important — it’s not a matter of being on the “losing” side as in the factually wrong or morally deficient side – it’s about being on the unpopular side, the side NOT often offering the path of least resistance. The side less emblemized by a flock of sheep. There is a difference.
The attraction to fantasy shows like Revolution comes not in the absence of reality in the scenario depicted. The attraction is in the absence of behavioral reality. It’s allowing people to enjoy a sense (false for most) that in life-as-we-know-it-ending, catastrophic circumstances, they’d truly behave differently than they now do in daily life – that they’d be willing to take the unpopular stand, walk the path that requires resistance.
In theory people want to be on the side of good, honesty and integrity. But, it’s easier said than done. In reality they are fearful and easily intimidable thus allowing society’s darker forces to flourish.
Many flatter themselves to think they’d be with Revolution’s Rebels, The Hunger Games’ Katniss Everdeen or Star Wars’ Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, but when it comes down to it – fear and intimidation not irregularly bring trepidation and complacency that enables the opportunistic and exploitative to prevail.
People today often fall into one of five basic categories: defrauders, deniers/groupies, desperates, dissenters and don’t knows/don’t cares.
Defrauders perpetrate corruption and dishonesty. Their self-interest has no limits. They feel entitled to whatever objects or ends on which they set their sights. In positions of trust, be it public or private, betrayals are routine.
Deniers and groupies often ignore realities of defrauders’ actions to maintain, even justify, proximity that may allow a sharing of spoils or ensuring their ever-important “seat at the table.” A different vein may feel invested, but also trapped in a system and therefore unwilling to explore change.
Desperates are those who want to be part of the “popular crowd,” the “in group” – no matter what. Deep thought isn’t required here. It’s about status, not substance.
Dissenters. These are the Rebels mentioned above. They are not necessarily about being radicals or malcontents. Motivations can as much be about not being submissive, having a willingness to at least attempt thwarting the bad acts of exploiters or predators. Or, about self-reliance and individual freedom opposed to dependency and group thought.
And then there are the don’t knows/don’t cares. Ignorance indeed can be bliss. With don’t knows, sometimes it’s naturally occurring, other times by design. And don’t cares. What can you say? Whether defeatists, disenfranchised or disconnected, their checking out enhances the influence defrauders, deniers and groupies as well as desperates inflict.
Of these five groups, in how many would you want be? Maybe none, certainly not all, or even many. But this is real life, not fantasy. And, it gives good cause for thought bringing us back to where we started.
In a Revolution, is where you’d like to land the same as where you’d likely land?
Lou Ann Anderson is an information activist and the editor of Watchdog Wire – Texas. As also a contributor at Raging Elephants Radio and a policy analyst with Americans for Prosperity – Texas, she writes and speaks on a variety of public policy topics. Lou Ann is the creator and online producer at Estate of Denial^®, a website that addresses probate abuse via wills, trusts, guardianships and powers of attorney as well as other taxpayer advocacy issues.

Warning: ‘retirement crisis’ ahead; Texas, other retiree hot spot states beware

Warning: ‘retirement crisis’ ahead; Texas, other retiree hot spot states beware

Study shows little retirement prep occurring

March 21, 2013

by Lou Ann Anderson

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The Wall Street Journal reports U.S. workers and employers are bracing for a “retirement crisis” because “powerful financial and demographic forces are combining to squeeze individuals and companies that are trying to save for the future and make their money last.” This pending crisis bodes especially dangerous for Texas and other states commonly ranked in the top tier of state retirement hot spots.
The Journal quotes an Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) study that found of U.S. workers surveyed, 57 percent reported less than $25,000 in total household savings and investments excluding their homes compared with 49% at that level in 2008. The study additionally noted 28% of Americans expressing no confidence in having enough money to retire comfortably—the highest level in the study’s 23-year history.
The EBRI survey found workers saving for retirement at 66 percent, down from 75 percent in 2009. When asked if they could secure $2,000 to address an unexpected need in the next month, only about 50 percent of the 1,003 workers and 251 retirees surveyed answered affirmatively.
Rising life expectancies adding perhaps up to 5 percent or $97 billion to corporate pension liabilities will create problems on two fronts as this longevity strains both retirement savings and pension plans.
The Journal article offers newly-released data on mortality rates from the Society of Actuaries, an organization which generates mortality projection assumptions used by U.S. retirement plans to project pensioners’ life spans.
In its first update since 2000, the society projects that men reaching age 65 in 2013 are expected to live an additional 20.5 years, up from 19.5 in the earlier projections. Women turning 65 this year are now expected to live an additional 22.7 years, up from 21.3.
In 2012, the MoneyRates.com 10 Best States to Retire comprised 1. Hawaii; 2. Idaho; 3. Utah; 4. Arizona; 5. Virginia; 6. Colorado; 7. (tie) Florida and New Mexico; 9. South Dakota; 10. (tie) California and Texas.
A November 2012 Forbes article asked Do You Live In A Death Spiral State? describing such locales as “a state where private sector workers are outnumbered by folks dependent on government.” Eleven states made the list: Alabama, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and South Carolina.
It stands to reason that the most active fronts of this pending retirement crisis will be states which attract large retirement populations. Of that group, states already on a financial edge with more takers – those drawing money from the government as either an employee, pensioner or welfare recipient – than makers – those with gainful private sector employment – are most at risk.
California, New Mexico and Hawaii currently fall in both categories. Texas, thankfully, does not.
In Greatest generation, most entitled generation, Jonah Goldberg observes:

I have neither the space nor the inclination to pronounce on what was good or bad about all this. But as Washington grapples with the legacy costs of the “greatest generation” — including the unsustainable burden of paying the retirement bills for the GIs’ supremely entitled children, the baby boomers, perhaps it is at least worth recognizing that the government and the culture designed to benefit one generation has come at the cost of those that come after it.

He’s right. The die is cast. Every state in this country will face increasing economic pressures as this retirement crisis arrives. States like Texas with larger retirement populations should prepare to be hit hardest.
Don’t be fooled that this retirement crisis will be limited to the elderly. It’s impact will be massive, it’s effect will be challenging. Akin to Goldberg’s sentiment about having neither the space nor inclination to go into all that’s involved, suffice to say things can’t help but change – dramatically and across-the-board.
And with that, the question then becomes if we want to crash and burn or experience a controlled free-fall?
Never-ending claims of victim status and expectations of living in a state of perpetual entitlement must end. It’s not going to be fair, it’s not going to be pretty, it’s not going to be fun. There will likely be more losers than winners, but the sooner we get to work recognizing and addressing the realities at hand, the better off we’ll all be.

Lou Ann Anderson

Lou Ann Anderson is an information activist and the editor of Watchdog Wire - Texas. As a Policy Analyst with Americans for Prosperity – Texas, she writes and speaks about a variety of public policy topics. Lou Ann is the Creator and Online Producer at EstateofDenial.com, a web site that addresses the growing issue of probate abuse in which wills, trusts, guardianships and powers of attorney are used to loot assets from intended beneficiaries or heirs. Contact Lou Ann at Texas@WatchdogWire.com with story ideas and for ways to get involved with citizen journalism in Texas.

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Categories: Budget and Finance, Opinion, Policy, Politics
Tags: fiscal issues, taxpayer, Texas

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