Woman in Derzon fight sprung from jail

Cary Spivak , Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 10:57 p.m. CDT October 13, 2016

Lori Laatsch.(Photo: Michael Sears, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Lori Laatsch is a free woman again.
Laatsch, whose unsuccessful  bid to get control of the lucrative Derzon Coins business sparked eight years of litigation, was jailed Oct. 6 for contempt of court when she failed to produce financial records and assets despite a court order demanding that she do so.
Milwaukee County Judge David Borowski freed Laatsch Thursday, even though she still has not turned over all the financial records. Borowski's action came after attorneys told him they were negotiating a settlement between the Derzon estate and Laatsch.
In May, Borowski ordered Laatsch to pay the estate $1.2 million  to cover the legal and related expenses incurred by the estate as the result of her actions. The Derzon estate is seeking the records so it could collect on the judgment, and Laatsch is still required to turn over her financial records.
Laatsch has lost  every major decision in the case. In 2012, Milwaukee County Judge Jane Carroll threw out a will that gave Laatsch control of Derzon Coins, a West Allis business worth more than $1 million. The total estate was worth about $3 million when David Derzon, the founder of the company, died in 2007 at age 83.
His second wife, Rebecca Derzon, died the following year at age 59 after ingesting a fatal combination of pills and alcohol.  Though Laatsch and Rebecca Derzon were half-sisters, the women had gone decades without seeing each other. That changed shortly before David Derzon died when Laatsch reconnected with Rebecca Derzon.
Before Rebecca Derzon's death, Laatsch persuaded her to rewrite her will, cutting out David Derzon's two adult sons from a previous marriage and giving majority ownership of the family business to Laatsch. Rebecca Derzon, who was battling depression and substance abuse, signed that will even though it had the word draft stamped on it.

The Unforgettable Death of My Forgotten Patient

The Unforgettable Death of My Forgotten Patient

Ms. M had no family, no way to communicate, no hope of survival—and had left no directive about treatment.

By 

BRITTANY A. BETTENDORF

Aug. 21, 2015 6:46 p.m. ET

 

Ms. M was not the patient I thought I would reminisce about for months after she had passed away, but her difficult death clung to me. She was miserable, mean, fetid and foulmouthed. She clawed at my hands as I tried to place my stethoscope on her chest and spat in my face as I bowed my head to listen to her heart. In between vivid hallucinations and violent outbursts, she cursed and told me I knew nothing.

Tormented by pain, Ms. M died alone, except for the doctors and nurses who had found their way into her life by chance after others had long ago pulled away and left her forgotten. Shortly after arriving at the hospital from her state-run nursing home, she was deemed “non-decisional,” meaning two physicians agreed that she lacked the capacity to understand and communicate information needed to make medical treatment decisions.

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Ms. M had a large intra-abdominal mass; so large it was easily palpated despite an exam severely limited by her violent attempts to assault the examiner. While the mass was probably far too advanced for a meaningful intervention, it was impossible to determine further options without a biopsy and more imaging. The problem was, Ms. M was incapable of consenting to any invasive procedures. I called her nursing home; she had no known family or friends. It was time to initiate the long, cumbersome process of obtaining legal guardianship.

“It could take months,” the social worker told us, clearly unhappy with the patient’s new label of non-decisional. Depending on how fast the mass was growing, it was unlikely Ms. M would survive the wait time to obtain a guardian. But without a guardian’s consent, we couldn’t perform a biopsy. She was admitted two more times that month for complications likely related to the mass.

When I entered her room on the morning of her third admission, she did something unexpected. She didn’t curse or spit at me as I approached her. Instead, she lay still. Her chest rose and fell calmly but shallowly, her face ashen, no longer reddened with rage. She was dying.

Overnight, she worsened and was transferred to intensive care. With the hope that the pneumonia that weakened her lungs could be reversed, we inserted a breathing tube and started her on more antibiotics. But after days of no improvement, it was clear she wouldn’t recover. Ultimately, the breathing tube was withdrawn on the basis of medical futility. Ms. M died quietly, an affront to her tumultuous nature.

As physicians, we invoke medical futility when it becomes clear that despite our most advanced science, our finest technology, and our best intentions, death is inevitable. Often this is invoked when a patient or family desires medical interventions that we know will have no effect, or a negative effect, on the outcome. But in the case of a patient who is non-decisional, with no family to speak for him or her, it is invoked when further interventions will only lead to further suffering.

Would Ms. M’s outcome have been different if she was decisional and a biopsy could have been done months earlier? If she had a voice to describe her pain? If she had a loving family member to advocate for her and insist upon immediate biopsy and removal of the mass or to enroll her in hospice to prevent her from undergoing multiple fruitless invasive procedures? If she had a legal guardian who had no attachment to her whatsoever other than the duty to advocate for her best interest? Or might this chorus of voices still fail to articulate her wishes?

Ms. M’s sad story illustrates how entirely preoccupied we become with circumventing death. Often, as physicians, we stop interventions only when the patient or family firmly and conclusively says “it is time.” And it is then that we step back to discover this for ourselves.

For those patients who are non-decisional, who have no voice of their own—and, like Ms. M, no one to speak for them—it is the most difficult. We are directionless, without a compass, often continuing to treat the patient even if it means more pain and more suffering because we “don’t know what the patient would have wanted.” Additionally, we flatter ourselves: “Maybe, just maybe, I can save this patient.”

For the voiceless, even guardianship is often not the answer. Family members given the responsibility of health-care power of attorney often feel guilty about “letting Mom die” or “giving up on Dad.” The best deaths I have seen—and yes, it is possible to die better, more comfortably and with more dignity—were of patients who had a voice at the end of their lives because they could instruct us when it was time to let them die.

Physicians need to listen to and empower the voices who speak for our voiceless patients; we need to educate guardians and families about pain and suffering or how invasive a particular procedure is and realistically discuss the chances of success. Patients need to understand the challenges of dying in our health-care system, so they will be motivated to voice their wishes to friends and family, or to commit them to paper while there is still time.

Hospitals need to promote documentation of a health-care power of attorney for every patient, and perhaps even generate automated reminders in the electronic medical records of those patients who carry diagnoses, such as early dementia, that could later render them voiceless.

And finally, as a society, we need to change the culture of dying, so that death is something we anticipate and plan for, much like a birth. We need not fear the inevitable. If we can do this, over time and with compassion, we will ensure that no one will die, as did my Ms. M, voiceless in America.

Dr. Bettendorf is an internal medicine and pediatrics physician in Milwaukee.

 

Grandmother accused of wiping out girl's $50,000 inheritance

Editor's note: This Shark finds it strange that the Probate Court of Cook County allowed similar criminal activity to proceed in the Estate of Alice R. Gore. In Alice's case, nothing was done to punish the perps.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

Grandmother accused of wiping out girl's $50,000 inheritance

By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel

April 22, 2015

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Betty Coleman, 56, is charged with squandering $50,000 entrusted to her on behalf of her granddaughter./Photo Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office

Wisconsin Department of Corrections

Roosevelt Coleman

Probate courts generate plenty of stories about bad guardians, people appointed by a court to look after a ward's well-being or finances when they are too young or otherwise unable to take care of themselves.
Then there's Betty J. Coleman.
Prosecutors say she lied about her criminal past to be named guardian of her granddaughter's suddenly flush estate. The girl, under 14 at the time, had been left $50,000 when Coleman's ex-husband died.
Within five months, according to civil and criminal charges, Coleman had spent all the money, and not for the girl's best interests. It went for alcohol, cigarettes, wigs, back rent and dozens of cash withdrawals.
Coleman, 56, even spent some of the money on her current husband — who is serving a prison sentence for sexually assaulting the same girl years earlier.
Meanwhile, the girl was living in an unfurnished room with another relative, and sleeping on an uninflated air mattress.
Coleman's misdeeds were first uncovered in probate court in 2013, and her granddaughter won a default judgment for $150,000 against Coleman in 2014 on claims of theft, conversion, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and other claims.
Last month, prosecutors charged Coleman with embezzlement and contempt of court. She pleaded not guilty and is free on $500 bail and working on a plea deal, according to court records.
According to the complaint and civil court records:
After Coleman's ex-husband died in 2012, it was learned that a life insurance policy paid $50,000 to Coleman's granddaughter. Coleman and the man (who is not being named to protect the identity of the girl) divorced in 2007.
In 2013, Coleman applied to Milwaukee County Probate Court to be appointed guardian of the girl's new estate. Under oath she disclosed that she was convicted in 1998 of using her parents' credit card without their consent.
But she did not reveal four other convictions — for theft, forgery and identity theft — she had under another name.
She was appointed guardian in April and got two checks in May totaling $50,000. But despite specific orders that $20,000 be deposited and not touched until the girl turned 18, and that the other money be managed for the girl's interests, Coleman immediately began spending the money on herself and forging bank records to buy time with the probate court.
She didn't need long. Within two days, Coleman spent $2,600 at Best Buy and within the next week $2,500 at Walmart and $1,190 at USA Wicker. She steadily spent amounts ranging from $7 to more than $100 at liquor and tobacco stores, more than $350 at two wig shops, and over $1,000 at Jewelry TV from July to October.
Much of the money disappeared via cash withdrawals, though Coleman did deposit about $2,300 into a joint account with her granddaughter that showed some debit card expenditures that might have been the girl's, such as for iTunes, McDonald's and Six Flags amusement park.
The same summer of 2013, Coleman paid $140 into the prison canteen account of Roosevelt Coleman, 60, at Jackson Correctional Institute in Black River Falls, and another $37 toward prison phone service.
He was charged in 2010 with sexually assaulting the girl when she was staying with her grandmother, and later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years in prison plus three years of supervised release.
None of the court records mention anything about the girl's parents, and lawyers involved declined to discuss much about the case, citing the fact a minor is involved. Coleman's attorney, Laurence Moon, did not return a message.
Sara Eberhardy was appointed to take over as guardian of the girl's estate when Coleman wouldn't provide records or come to court. Eberhardy said she tried to recover any assets that might be left, but found only $25 and change in one account.
She said the civil judgment "is probably worth the paper its printed on," because Coleman appears to be indigent now.
The original judge on the guardianship did not require Coleman to post a bond, a typical practice to ensure coverage of any losses that might result from a guardian's malfeasance.

© 2015, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved.

About Bruce Vielmetti

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Church’s Errant Shepherds

By FRANK BRUNI

Published: July 6, 2013 36 Comments

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BOSTON, Philadelphia, Los Angeles. The archdioceses change but the overarching story line doesn’t, and last week Milwaukee had a turn in the spotlight, with the release of roughly 6,000 pages of records detailing decades of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests there, a sweeping, searing encyclopedia of crime and insufficient punishment.

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But the words I keep marveling at aren’t from that wretched trove. They’re from an open letter that Jerome Listecki, the archbishop of Milwaukee, wrote to Catholics just before the documents came out.

“Prepare to be shocked,” he said.

What a quaint warning, and what a clueless one.

Quaint because at this grim point in 2013, a quarter-century since child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church first captured serious public attention, few if any Catholics are still surprised by a priest’s predations.

Clueless because Listecki was referring to the rapes and molestations themselves, not to what has ultimately eroded many Catholics’ faith and what continues to be even more galling than the evil that a man — any man, including one in a cassock or collar — can do. I mean the evil that an entire institution can do, though it supposedly dedicates itself to good.

I mean the way that a religious organization can behave almost precisely as a corporation does, with fudged words, twisted logic and a transcendent instinct for self-protection that frequently trump the principled handling of a specific grievance or a particular victim.

The Milwaukee documents underscore this, especially in the person of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, previously the archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009 and thus one of the characters in the story that the documents tell. Last week’s headlines rightly focused on his part, because he typifies the slippery ways of too many Catholic leaders.

The documents show that in 2007, as the Milwaukee archdiocese grappled with sex-abuse lawsuits and seemingly pondered bankruptcy, Dolan sought and got permission from the Vatican to transfer $57 million into a trust for Catholic cemetery maintenance, where it might be better protected, as he wrote, “from any legal claim and liability.”

Several church officials have said that the money had been previously flagged for cemetery care, and that Dolan was merely formalizing that.

But even if that’s so, his letter contradicts his strenuous insistence before its emergence that he never sought to shield church funds. He did precisely that, no matter the nuances of the motivation.

He’s expert at drafting and dwelling in gray areas. Back in Milwaukee he selectively released the names of sexually abusive priests in the archdiocese, declining to identify those affiliated with, and answerable to, particular religious orders — Jesuits, say, or Franciscans. He said that he was bound by canon law to take that exact approach.

But bishops elsewhere took a different one, identifying priests from orders, and in a 2010 article on Dolan in The Times, Serge F. Kovaleski wrote that a half-dozen experts on canon law said that it did not specifically address the situation that Dolan claimed it did.

Dolan has quibbled disingenuously over whether the $20,000 given to each abusive priest in Milwaukee who agreed to be defrocked can be characterized as a payoff, and he has blasted the main national group representing victims of priests as having “no credibility whatsoever.” Some of the group’s members have surely engaged in crude, provocative tactics, but let’s have a reality check: the group exists because of widespread crimes and a persistent cover-up in the church, because child after child was raped and priest after priest evaded accountability. I’m not sure there’s any ceiling on the patience that Dolan and other church leaders should be expected to muster, especially because they hold themselves up as models and messengers of love, charity and integrity.

That’s the thing. That’s what church leaders and church defenders who routinely question the amount of attention lavished on the church’s child sexual abuse crisis still don’t fully get.

Yes, as they point out, there are molesters in all walks of life. Yes, we can’t say with certainty that the priesthood harbors a disproportionate number of them.

But over the last few decades we’ve watched an organization that claims a special moral authority in the world pursue many of the same legal and public-relations strategies — shuttling around money, looking for loopholes, tarring accusers, massaging the truth — that are employed by organizations devoted to nothing more than the bottom line.

In San Diego, diocesan leaders who filed for bankruptcy were rebuked by a judge for misrepresenting the local church’s financial situation to parishioners being asked to help pay for sex-abuse settlements.

In St. Louis church leaders claimed not to be liable for an abusive priest because while he had gotten to know a victim on church property, the abuse itself happened elsewhere.

In Kansas City, Mo., Rebecca Randles, a lawyer who has represented abuse victims, says that the church floods the courtroom with attorneys who in turn drown her in paperwork. In one case, she recently told me, “the motion-to-dismiss pile is higher than my head — I’m 5-foot-4.”

Also in Kansas City, Bishop Robert Finn still inhabits his post as the head of the diocese despite his conviction last September for failing to report a priest suspected of child sexual abuse to the police. This is how the church is in fact unlike a corporation. It coddles its own at the expense of its image.

As for Dolan, he is by many accounts and appearances one of the good guys, or at least one of the better ones. He has often demonstrated a necessary vigor in ridding the priesthood of abusers. He has given many victims a voice.

But look at the language in this 2005 letter he wrote to the Vatican, which was among thedocuments released last week. Arguing for the speedier dismissal of an abusive priest, he noted, in cool legalese, “The liability for the archdiocese is great as is the potential for scandal if it appears that no definitive action has been taken.”

His attention to appearances, his focus on liability: he could be steering an oil company through a spill, a pharmaceutical giant through a drug recall.

As for “the potential for scandal,” that’s as poignantly optimistic a line as Listecki’s assumption that the newly released Milwaukee documents would shock Catholics. By 2005 the scandal that Dolan mentions wasn’t looming but already full blown, and by last week the only shocker left was that some Catholic leaders don’t grasp its greatest component: their evasions and machinations.

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A version of this op-ed appeared in print on July 7, 2013, on page SR3 of the New York edition with the headline: The Church’s Errant Shepherds.

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