UPDATE: Private guardian April Parks behind bars in Las Vegas

Contact 13

Darcy Spears

5:50 PM, Mar 8, 2017

12:18 AM, Apr 6, 2017

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New details released in guardianship scandal

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April Parks was arrested in Pennsylvania on March 8, extradited to Las Vegas and booked into Clark County Detention Center Tuesday.

KTNV

Court records show April Parks disregarded her duty as a guardian, treating the vulnerable as "cash cows."

KTNV

April Parks, her husband Gary Taylor, her attorney Noel Palmer Simpson and her office manager Mark Simmons are together facing 270 felony counts of perjury, racketeering, filing false records, theft and exploitation.

KTNV

April Parks was booked into Clark County Detention Center Tuesday. She face over 200 felony charges for exploiting the elderly.

Copyright 2017 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Gary Taylor, April Parks's husband, faces 7 felony charges including Racketeering, Theft and Exploitation of the elderly.

Laz Chavez

Copyright 2017 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Elder law attorney Noel Palmer Simpson faces 2 felony charges for, one count of Theft and one count for filing false documents. According to court documents Simpson was also featured in many other incidents where April Parks, Mark Simmons and Gary Taylor exploited clients appointed by Clark County Family Court. 

Copyright 2017 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Simmons faces 134 felony charges including Racketeering, Theft, Exploitation of the elderly and Perjury.

Copyright 2017 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright 2017 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

April Parks was arrested in Pennsylvania on March 8, extradited to Las Vegas and booked into Clark County Detention Center Tuesday.

KTNV

UPDATE APRIL 5: April Lynn Parks was a private, professional guardian appointed by Clark County Family Court to protect hundreds of vulnerable people.
Parks admitted to Contact 13's Darcy Spears on camera in 2015 that she made major mistakes with her client's money, including in one case, charging an elderly woman $108 for a pair of stretch pants.
Parks was the ringleader of a small group employed by her. They've all been indicted for draining the accounts of those they were supposed to care for while isolating them from their families.
Parks faces more than 200 felony criminal charges for racketeering, theft, exploitation and perjury. She was arrested in Pennsylvania on March 8, extradited to Las Vegas and booked into Clark County Detention Center Tuesday.
Contact 13's investigation helped lead the way for reform in the guardianship system and the criminal case against Parks.
That came just in time as we uncovered in court documents that Parks was about to expand her business and hire more staff. She'd gotten a contract with Valley Health System's six Las Vegas hospitals, which would make her the first choice to refer patients for guardianship services.  
There's no telling how many of those potential referrals could have fallen victim to the alleged crimes Parks and her associates are charged with. Valley Health Systems declined to comment.
Contact 13 requested an on-camera interview with April Parks at the jail but haven't heard back. And we tried to reach her attorney but his voicemail was full.
UPDATE MARCH 27: Mark Simmons is now behind bars in Las Vegas. Simmons faces 134 felony criminal charges including racketeering, exploitation of the elderly and theft.
He was extradited from Indiana and booked into Clark County Detention Center this weekend. He is scheduled to appear before a judge on Wednesday. 
UPDATE MARCH 14: Private for profit guardian April Parks is now behind bars. She and three others were indicted last week for running a criminal enterprise involving theft and exploitation.

Court records show Parks disregarded her duty as a guardian, treating the vulnerable as "cash cows."

In one example, Parks and her business partner Mark Simmons profited from a scam where they bought Christmas gifts for their wards, such as popcorn, socks and other small items. When the wards received the gifts, they were charged at a hourly rate of $100 per hour.

Clients were also billed when Parks' husband Gary Taylor drove to the courthouse and waited in line to file papers that could have been submitted online.
UPDATE MARCH 09: April Parks was arrested by local police in East Goshen Township, PA.
The Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police Department charged Parks with being a fugitive from justice and she was arraigned.  Her bail was set at $500,000 dollars.  Parks was remanded to Chester County Prison pending extradition to Clark County, Nevada.
ORIGINAL STORY
LAS VEGAS (KTNV) -- What started with a Contact 13 investigation has led to hundreds of felony charges against four suspects for the way authorities say they treated people in their care.
This is the latest move in cases involving more than 150 victims and nearly $560,000 in stolen money.

It's the most significant guardianship exploitation indictment in Nevada's history -- so says Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt in what authorities hope will wipe out a long-standing crime wave in our state.

Cheers and fist pumps erupted in the Regional Justice Center lobby from a crowd of people who haven't had much to celebrate over the last few years.
On Wednesday, they went from victim to victor as April Parks, the woman who they say stole everything from their loved ones, was indicted.
"Today, law enforcement sends a clear message to those who take advantage of our most vulnerable citizens," said Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson.
Contact 13 first exposed April Lynn Parks in early 2015 when she told Darcy Spears, "I do it because I love it," in reference to her work as a private, professional guardian.
Guardians are appointed by the court to protect and serve their wards. They're entrusted with every aspect of a person's life, including their health care and their money.
"I can't imagine a class of people more susceptible to criminals than wards of a court," said Wolfson.
Parks, her husband Gary Taylor, her attorney Noel Palmer Simpson and her office manager Mark Simmons are together facing 270 felony counts of perjury, racketeering, filing false records, theft and exploitation.
The charges involve more than 150 victims who've lost more than half a million dollars.
Authorities say Parks and her co-defendants used a position of trust and authority to prey on disabled, vulnerable people ranging in age from 40 to 90, and systematically bilk them out of their life savings.
"I've never been so happy in my life! All the thousands of hours and dollars I put into this was not in vain," said Elizabeth Indig, whose mother was one of Parks' wards.
So were Julie Belshe's parents -- Rudy and Rennie North. Contact 13 broke their story in February 2015.
"When I reached out to you I was very traumatized," said Belshe. "I didn't know what to do!"
As for Wednesday's indictments, Belshe says, "It restored my faith in the people, in the justice system -- that there are good people in our system that are working and they're on our side -- the citizens' side. Because you start to think, who's going to believe me? Because you tell these stories and they're unbelievable!"

"I really think this is going to send a very strong message to the other guardians and the attorneys and the judges who aided and abetted her in this," said Indig. "And I think maybe Nevada will be clean of this crime and people can move here and retire without fear of losing everything."

Contact 13 will have more on the Family Court system's role in all this as the report continues on Thursday.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, all four defendants had been arrested in law enforcement actions across the country.
April Parks was arrested by local police in East Goshen Township, PA.
The Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police Department charged Parks with being a fugitive from justice and she was arraigned.  Her bail was set at $500,000.00 dollars.  Parks was remanded to Chester County Prison pending extradition to Clark County, Nevada.

Are Judges and Lawyers Around the Country Finally Realizing Its Game Over?

Are Judges and Lawyers Around the Country Finally Realizing Its Game Over?

				Are Judges and Lawyers Around the Country Finally Reali... While most mainstream media outlets are still on the judicial bandwagon, it appears that rather than get caught in the crossfire, some are starting CYA campaigns.  ...

Some clients of Pa. guardianship agency are being repaid

By Halle Stockton 
PublicSource 
Newsroom@Observer-Reporter.Com 
published nov 14, 2014 at 8:25 pm (updated nov 14, 2014 at 8:25 pm)

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PublicSource photo illustration by Alexandra Kanik

When Joe Stigers of Johnstown took over as legal guardian for his wife in 2013, he realized that more than $7,200 in Social Security disability payments was missing from her account.

A reimbursement check for $4,446 came in the mail in early October, he said.

“I really didn’t think it would happen, that we would see any of that money,” said Stigers, an Air Force retiree. “But I’m still disgusted by how quiet this has been kept. People need to know.”

PublicSource first reported in February the Social Security Administration is investigating alleged embezzlement from Distinctive Human Services, a Cambria County guardianship agency that serves as legal guardian for the elderly, disabled or ill who have been deemed incapacitated in court.

About $100,000 of the $311,000 allegedly embezzled from the nonprofit DHS and the accounts of vulnerable people under its care has been repaid.

The money people like Stigers received was paid by the insurance company for DHS, said Cambria County Judge Patrick T. Kiniry.

“A large chunk of the money has been put back and people have been made whole, but it’s not done yet,” said Kiniry, who’s been supervising the case.

Allegations against the co-founder of DHS, Peggy Walsh, surfaced in a police report and among those involved in the case, but have not been substantiated.

DHS has been guardian for up to 150 wards, primarily in the counties of Cambria, Blair and Somerset, its executive director, Ellen Hamilton, said in a July 2013 interview.

Court-appointed guardians often manage every aspect of their wards’ lives, both personal and financial. Guardians decide where they live, what they wear, who they see. They handle estates; accept payments from Social Security, pensions or stocks; and maintain or sell properties.

DHS did just that for Stigers’ wife, Deborah, 59, for about a year and a half after she was declared incapacitated in court because of her mental health.

Not everyone has seen a check, though.

Mark Good, a journalist in Maine, said his uncle, who had schizophrenia, was under the guardianship of DHS for about two years until his death in late 2013.

Good and his sister are the only remaining heirs to his uncle’s estate, but Good says they were never contacted by the agency. When they learned of their uncle’s death, they didn’t expect anything but a few family artifacts.

Not only have those photos and heirlooms gone missing, but Good says they are also out more than $50,000.

Good said his attorney has told him to expect a partial payment through the agency’s insurance, but he doesn’t know how much or when.

“It’s been very difficult to deal with DHS,” he said. “They’re not very forthcoming. We’ve been getting the runaround and it’s been a year.”

The investigation

A court document from the Cambria County Court of Common Pleas asserted that the funds were embezzled by a former employee.

A Johnstown Police Department report, dated May 2013, shows that Hamilton accused Peggy Walsh, who co-founded DHS in 2003 and had been its director of administration and finance.

Hamilton told police that her business partner had been embezzling money since early 2012. She reported that nearly $252,700 was bilked from wards’ accounts and about $58,300 was taken from the agency’s operations budget.

The report states Walsh was fired in March 2013. Hamilton told police that during the termination, Walsh said, “Sometimes you need to pamper yourself.”

Walsh did not return a voicemail message left at her home. She has declined to comment for previous stories.

Kiniry said the Social Security Administration “asked the local police to back off until they do their part of the investigation.”

The administration’s Office of the Inspector General could not comment for privacy and law enforcement reasons, Tracy B. Lynge, the acting assistant inspector general for external relations, wrote in an email.

“Generally speaking, though, representative payee investigations can take six months to a year or more, then once the investigation is complete or mostly complete, and a prosecutor accepts a case, the judicial process can be quite long and drawn out as well,” Lynge wrote.

Nothing had been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania at press time.

‘Wrapping up’

DHS continues to be assigned as guardian of the person, making it responsible for choosing living arrangements, medical care and other daily needs.

Kiniry said he has not been appointing the agency to new cases as representative payee or guardian of the estate, charged with managing the finances and property of a ward.

A plenary guardian handles both personal and financial decisions.

“Given the fact that this is somewhat wrapping up – people allegedly involved are no longer there, and they made significant changes to their board and procedures on money handling – I’ll probably be appointing them to other cases (as representative payee or plenary guardian),” he said.

Calls went unreturned from Hamilton and Eric Hochfeld, the Johnstown attorney representing DHS.

In the past, Hamilton has said she could not comment because it would violate confidentiality required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

PublicSource is an investigative news organization that collaborates with newspapers and radio throughout Pennsylvania. Learn more at publicsource.org. Reach Halle Stockton at 412-315-0263 orhstockton@publicsource.org. Follow her on Twitter @HalleStockton.