The Probate Papers excerpts with research from Volunteer Advocate Groups, the National Consortium of Investigative Data Journalists. Independent and Corporate Affiliated News Reporters.

Ageism, Sexism & Disablism Document Schemes Run Rampant In Probate Courts; Disabled Elderly Women Most at Risk.

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

Imagine the attorney you pay high fees to retain is actually working for the benefit of others whom may be acting in your worst interest by creating manipulative Living Trusts with shifting provisions and amendments that interplay with your Will. Concealing information and orchestrating circumstances to steal your estate.  An estate planning attorney when working with family, other acquaintances and probate professionals such as G/C’s (Guardians/Conservators) can lay the foundation to take control of your own property, your civil liberties and this can lead to circumstances that can unjustly deplete your estate and hasten your demise. It’s happening all across the USA and it’s happening far too often. This is what polyvictimization and elder abuse really is.

Diagram 1: Unjustly Profiting from Organized Elder Exploitation & Affinity Crimes: Conflict-of-Interest Status Que Conceals Abuse, Negligence, and Exploitation by Professionals Acting in Collusion. (click the zoom feature to read box descriptions, hold mouse or finger to scroll diagram and click crossed arrow to view full size PDF). Diagram courtesy of DEFALCATION.org

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FIDUCIARIES & PROFESSIONALS TARGET THE ELDERLY, DISABLED AND THOSE WITH EARLY, MID or ADVANCING STAGES OF DEMENTIA

Elder abuse and estate related exploitation happens because the naive and trusting elderly and most people for that matter, are not knowledgeable on matters concerning unethical estate planning, the professional connections in probate circles, and tactics of undue Influence thought reform. Mid to high net value clients, particularly memory compromised senior women are at risk for document manipulation schemes that essentially steal their life accumulated wealth, even when the senior is still alive.

Most persons are not knowledgeable in matters relevant to undue influence as it pertains to illicit asset transfers. An unduly influenced person is likely operating in an environment of control designed by their home-care provider. Vulnerable persons in these situations are typically isolated from formerly trusted persons, alert to; but fearful to articulate their trepidation and psychologically aware of their instinctive anxiety where they feel they are being pressured to acquiesce, but not aware that they have been unduly influenced over time. Practitioners of undue influence are insidious, they measure intermittent rewards with unexpected abuse, near continual gas-lighting to create a Stockholm syndrome where the captor becomes inexplicably loyal to their abuser(s) and beyond the help of Adult Protective Services.

Too often seniors are overpowered by nefarious family or friends after a health crises or fading memory. Unfortunately this is when they seniors begin releasing their self-autonomy to untrustworthy others whom end up making all their decisions for them and expect everything they own in return. The elder person becomes dependent and is often in no position to argue if they know what’s good for them. Home caregivers or more accurately care-takers, provide the seniors, food, water, whom they speak with, and what professionals they can use to manage their health and legal affairs. This is particularly dangerous when the care-provider lives with the senior, is their landlord or a fiduciary such as a power of attorney or trustee. Predatory types often arrange circumstances where they can gain control of a vulnerable persons affairs and this is an environment ripe for undue influence and document schemes; particularity when there is a willing and State-bar licensed unethical estate planning attorney willing to assist them. As Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D; research in Undue Influence and Written Documents: Psychological Aspects describes in these circumstances:

Experts investigating a purported undue influence situation need to study the mental and physical condition of the influencee, general social influence techniques, tactics of thought reform, and responses and behavior found in other high-control, intense influence situations ranging from the Stockholm syndrome to abused women and the methods of corrupt caretakers. The case of the “evil nurse” is discussed to illustrate these factors. In addition the following conditions of influence are discussed in their relationship to undue influence: isolation, creating a siege mentality, dependency, sense of powerlessness, sense of fear and vulnerability, and being kept unaware.

The law gives special attention to the issue of the fairness of the balance of power between the signer and the person(s) who obtained the signature on the document (Dawson, 1947). When the issue of undue influence in securing the signatures on documents is raised, the court is asking: What was the process which constituted the undue influence? What is the history of how this document and signature came about? What were the circumstances—psychological, social, physical, medical, and so forth—which have bearing on how free, informed, and capable the signer was at the point of signing the designated documents to freely express his or her own desires? What undue influence (improper, exploitative persuasion) was exerted on the signer?

When a senior’s primary home-care provider, PoA, Fiduciaries, Estate planners, and Guardians or Conservators engage in organized elder exploitation they are not only a danger to the Alleged Incapacitated Persons (AIP) or Ward they are also a risk to the AIPS family and the community. When a county or cross-county region has a network of professionals whom actively troll for high net value clients in elder rehabilitation facilities or hospitals in a probate court system that either turns a blind eye or abets this behavior, the community is undoubtedly at risk.  

This is particularly true when these criminal enterprises are facilitated in the County Probate Courts.  Some of these organized networks actively seek high net worth vulnerable person in hospital and elder care facilities, some of these facilities unwittingly empty elder predators whom have additional businesses or are affiliated with professionals seeking to drain seniors of their assets. The increasing number of elder rights advocates justice in aging groups  remain scratching their heads why the courts facilitate these highly organized and clearly criminal enterprises.

There is a silent epidemic in this country claiming the lives and property of untold numbers of innocent elderly and disabled Americans. It has nothing to do with exotic viruses. In fact, it’s a homegrown phenomenon involving corrupt elected officials, judges and lawyers. The deadly disease running rampant in our court system is probate and guardianship abuse. – MICHELLE MALKIN; Blowing the lid off probate predators

Organized Elder Exploitation as a Criminal Enterprise.

When do these organized practiced become criminal enterprises? premeditated crimes that unjustly profit from the exploitation of the aged and vulnerable. Environmental conditions that lead to the formation of these enterprises occur when:

1) regional professionals establish cross-referring services and multiple roles of representation for an exploited vulnerable person,

2) all those in the network provide various services or ligation positions are “In-network” the original perpetrators of abuse, negligence and exploitation can cover their tracks,

3) probate judges campaigns are typically funded by attorneys, more over Judges work with the same probate attorneys consistently and they favor those whom are efficient problem solvers even when the clients they represent are exploiting the elderly person and,

4) those in the legal profession fail to police themselves as described by Model Rule 8.3; Reporting Misconduct particularly on matters that involve Model Rule relevant to conflicts-of-interest and clients with diminished capacity.

The “snitches get stitches” mentality is very prevalent in in the legal field so ethical attorneys who do report or question the conduct of another lawyer’s illicit conduct are often ostracized from the legal community because they are questioning the integrity of the system, they end up suspended, disbarred or shunned by their peers to the point of being pushed out of the profession. The same applies to family or fiduciaries whom report or try to stop the senior from repeated abuse and exploitation. Those in power positions over the vulnerable person have an arsenal of threats that they often double on such as more exploitation, threats, menacing behavior, defamation, extortion and forcing the senior to sign more documents to disinherit those whom truly have the elder persons best interest at heart. This why many lay person and ethical professionals behind closed doors refer to Probate as the unhappiest place on earth, a racket and the epicenter of vulnerable person abuse and exploitation.

Estate scriveners are not typical lawyers their practices are more focused on the methodical processes of estate planning than litigation. Which they typically believe will come after their client passes or no longer a viable witness or complainant. Litigators would never be as bold and cavalier with the law as some estate planners are. Since there is essentially no policing by law enforcement or prosecutors its left of to the probate judge. Probate Judges rely on third party elevations such as Guardian Ad Litems, Social workers assigned as court visitors, neurocognitive psychiatrists and geriatric or primary care physicians. Listed below are some of many examples of real life circumstances when state and State Bar licensed professionals engaged in criminal enterprises.

The Criminal Matters Concerning Estate Planning and Guardianship Attorney Noel P. Simpson and Associated Elder Exploitation Network.

The STATE OF NEVADA Plaintiff, -Vs_- APRIL PARKS #1571645, MARK SIMMONS, GARY NEAL TAYLOR, NOEL PALMER SIMPSON

Defendants APRIL PARKS, MARK SIMMONS, and GARY NEAL TAYLOR, did on or between December 21, 2011 and July 6, 2016, then and there, within Clark County, Nevada, knowingly, willfully and feloniously, while employed by or associated with an enterprise, conduct or participate either directly or indirectly, in racketeering activity through the affairs of said enterprise, and/or in the affairs of the enterprise through racketeering activity, did engage in said acts, to wit: by Defendants working for A Private Professional Guardian, LLC using their position to steal funds belonging to elderly and disabled persons over whom they had guardianship authority, through the use of a series of fraudulent billing practices, said activity constituting Racketeering contrary to NRS 207.400 (1)(c)(2).“

KTNV 13 Las Vegas: The guardian is guilty: April Parks, others plead guilty in guardianship abuse case

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/content/rico-act.html

Ohio RICO: Attorneys Used Guardianship as a Racket

A $22 million civil RICO case from Cleveland, Ohio has survived another procedural hurdle and appears headed to trial in Cuyahoga county court. RICO stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization. It is a section of laws that was passed by congress and signed into law in 1970. Originally designed to combat organized crime, the laws’ application has expanded to include any group profiting from an illegal activity.

ATTORNEYS TARGETED ASSETS OF DEMENTIA PATIENT

The 54-page suit claims that the attorneys and the other defendants defrauded the court into ordering an illegal guardianship. Then, using the guardianship that was intended to protect Mrs. Saghafi, the defendants instead turned it into an enterprise used to enrich themselves. The suit asks for $22 million in damages which makes the case one of largest probate and estate-fraud cases in recent U.S. history.

“The 6th Circuit ruling confirmed my client’s right to challenge a court order, which may have been obtained through abuses of judicial processes,” said Dr. Saghafi’s attorney Chuck Longo in a telephone interview. “The decision will have far reaching negative implications for guardians and lawyers who improperly use guardianships as criminal enterprises to defraud the elderly and incompetent, which is a violation of the RICO statute.”

Predatory Elder Law/Estate Planning Attorneys & Guardians/Conservator’s Trolling Hospitals & Elder Care Facilities for Vulnerable Clients.

Orlando Sentinel: Florida guardianship laws weakened by elder law attorneys’ lobbying. For some courts, exceptions have become the rule | Special report

It’s known as “trolling.”

That’s the practice in which a professional guardian identifies a vulnerable elderly person by visiting a nursing home, sponsoring an “informational” breakfast or getting a call from a hospital. Then the guardian, or their attorney, gets a court to appoint them that person’s guardian, by talking the elderly person into asking for it themselves or persuading a judge to intervene.

Trust Scams, Trust Mills, Trust Consultants… Watch Out…

This is exactly the type of conduct that is being targeted by a class action lawsuit recently filed in California by California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) and the Institute on Aging (IOA). What they have found are companies that are using scare tactics against seniors and offering free consultations or free living trust seminars to gain information about the senior’s finances in order to sell them inappropriate financial, annuity or life insurance products. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/11318

K.E.  Davis Law: Free Dinner!!!??

Have you received the mailings or seen the notices in your local newspaper or periodical?  Free Lunch Seminar on the Critical Elements of Estate Planning.  Free Dinner (at a fancy restaurant) on what you need to know to maximize your government benefits.  These and similar offers usually focus on the great dinner you will get or the intriguing topics, but only in the smallest of print at the bottom of the page give you any hint as to who might be giving you this information.

That should concern you.  Groups like this want to get you one-on-one to pressure you into spending much more money than you need to spend for something you will likely be left not understanding, but feel like you got all your needs covered.  Or they are primarily interested in getting you to move your investments to their company so they can charge you ongoing fees.

Predatory Probate Networks Plans to Intercept The $84 Trillion Wealth Transfer

Fraud & Undue Influence Tactics Are the Essential Skill Sets Unethical Fiduciaries, Estate Planners, Trust Consultants and Professional Networks Use to Steal Elders Assets.

Estate Planning seems like a harmless term for a practical process, Don’t be fooled. Far too often great harm is caused. A senior needs to be forewarned that as they age they become vulnerable targets and are at risk for estate planning that can be a volatile time bomb of tactical theft and life destruction.  Estate planning is particularly dangerous when it is commingled with Powers of Attorneys or Conservatorships that morph authoritative power into one of the most corrupt organized rackets in the country. Victims are the naive elderly and some of their family or friends that spend fortunes trying to protect the elder when they become entrenched in corrupted wealth transferring estate schemes.

Estate planners and for-profit conservators go into the field because that’s where the money is; an $84 Trillion-dollar wealth transfer goldmine, all for the taking with a simple stroke of an intentionally misinformed or unduly influenced signatory paying the price—often losing their rights to the state or their lives through a hastened demise. If Willie “why do you rob banks” Sutton was alive today, he would be an estate planner for the elderly or a Conservator.  Elder estate planning and Conservatorship is like being a bank robber without any of the risk or consequence if estate practitioner’s firm is internally and externally rigged with like-minded professionals working in collusion. Memory compromised victims make poor witnesses and dead clients tell no tales or press charges. The perfect crime.

Investment News: With $84 trillion wealth transfer coming, advisers should be licking their chops

According to the latest analysis from Cerulli Associates, a whopping $84.4 trillion worth of assets will be transferred through estates over the next two dozen years. About $12 trillion of that will be donated to charity, but more than $53 trillion will be transferred from households in the Baby Boomer generation, representing 63% of all transfers.

Some estate planners and conservators are a credit to their field and the profession of law because they actually care about the client and their family first and foremost, while others have substantially degraded the practice by exploiting the elderly to a level that would make a seasoned mobsters queasy with disgust. The more power obsessed professionals appear to manifest a psychopathic zeal when drafting and executing their omnipotent documents that places innocent people in absolute hell for the crime of wanting what is best for the senior that would be properly served by following fiduciary standards. Estate Planning Attorneys are essentially process attorneys and not litigators.

Litigators would dare not venture into the contempt tainted grey and black areas of the law that some estate attorneys draft for their memory compromised and confused clients to sign.  These types of estate scriveners and professional Conservators are often brazenly caviler because have the support of their “in-network” probate professionals and a myriad of tried and true capitulation tricks for those who question them or their documents authority. These pros have processes to both draft estate plans and enforce them with third party evaluators during multiple stages of litigation when concerned parties try to stop the compounding statutory violations of exploiters in the abetting probate system.

Greedy Power of Attorneys, Fiduciary’s whom could care less about fiduciary law, family home-care providers, and the foulest of heirs in partnership with an elder’s estate planner can easily change a a benefactors estate plan, by pressuring them to sign documents when they don’t understand the long and short term consequences thereof. They can disinherit rivals and when partnered with a Conservator or Guardian they steal, an elder’s entire estate through high fees, gifting, theft and illicit transfers while the client is still alive. The Courts assist through overwhelmed, under informed, rubber stamping, document initializing Judges whom erroneously assume all estate planners, guardian ad litems and Conservators are ethical. There is theft with no due process, no chance for recover, no jury and the Courts have legalized elder exploitation provided its done with an estate planning attorney or conservator The crimes becoming so commonplace its outraging larger cross-generational segments of the nation, persons of all faiths, cultural groups and political affiliations. Probate has become the most fetid rot of a progressively corrupted legal system long-removed from a legal professional that once stood for duty and followed the legislated statutes and model rules.

Investment Advisors and Estate Planners have geared their professional connections. With Estate Planning this requires placing allied professionals in key strategic roles across the probate process if they know their drafting has occurred in suspicions circumstances, while the senior was memory compromised , isolated, not properly informed estate drafting didn’t follow best practices because it was serving the intentions of other instead of their client, failed Circular 230 and model rule standards while the elder was being  unduly influenced or signing documents during a health crises,  Now a days wealth disposition shifts begins when the memory-challenged and exploited senior is alive. And with greedy children or friends of the dependent senior illegal act and fiduciary breaches are practically guaranteed to breed conflict.  High gee conflict the type estate planner’s conservatives and those in their strategic third party network relish. All these professional work as a team and are weaponized via smear tactics, defamation, lies, harassment if they try to defend the vulnerable elder or seek an accounting of illicitly transferred assets.

Undue influence (UI) is a psychological process by which a person’s free will is supplanted by that of another.

Undue Influence is a legal term and the strict definition varies by jurisdiction. Generally speaking, it is a means by which a person gains control over their victim’s decision making through tactics and unfair pressure, typically for financial gain.

Adult Protective Services Library – https://apslibrary.oucpm.org/undue-influence/

“Undue influence” refers to the form of manipulation and control of another’s behavior. Being a legal term, it has no unique medical definition, however the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and sociology have all studied in the phenomenon, and have developed several approaches to understanding it. These approaches define the situations or conditions necessary to inappropriately manipulate a victim’s thoughts and behavior. Historically, three of the best know models are those of Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D. (6 “conditions”), Robert Lifton, M.D. (8 “themes”), and Edgar Schein, Ph.D. (3 “stages”). The newest model was created by Bennett Blum, M.D. (4 “conditions”). Each has advantages and weaknesses. The four models are listed below.

None of the models (or approaches) allows an expert to determine whether undue influence occurred. An expert can only testify whether the necessary conditions existed, and how the victim was affected.

Some state laws enable an attorney to effectively argue that undue influence existed even if there is insufficient information for use by a mental health expert.

Four Models of Thought Reform/Coercive Persuasion/Undue Influence

Blum

1. Dependency upon the perpetrator
2. Isolation from pertinent information
3. Emotional manipulation
4. Access and/or control of the victim’s assets/belongings

Schein

1. Unfreezing.
2. Changing.
3. Refreezing.

Lifton

1. Milieu control.
2. Loading the language.
3. Demand for purity.
4. Confession.
5. Mystical manipulation.
6. Doctrine over person.
7. Sacred science.
8. Dispensing of existence.

Singer

1. Keep the person unaware of what is going on and the changes taking place.
2. Control the person’s time and, if possible, physical environment.
3. Create a sense of powerlessness, covert fear, and dependency.
4. Suppress much of the person’s old behavior and attitudes.
5. Instill new behavior and attitudes.
6. Put forth a closed system of logic; allow no real input or criticism.

Click Here To Learn More on Undue Influence & How it is Commonly Defined.

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Review of Diagram 1 Information on Predatory Estate Planning & Probate Professional Networks.

Unjustly Profiting from Organized Elder Abuse and Affinity Crimes: Conflict-of-Interests are a Standardized Status Que that Defines Abuse, Negligence, Exploitation and Financial Concealment by Professional Teams Acting in Collusion.

1. Estate Planning & Power of Attorney (PoA)        

When a senior becomes suddenly ill or loses memory over time they become dependent & vulnerable. This is the danger age, when predators sense opportunities and strike by superseding established springing PoAs with Durable POAs, Living Trusts, retaining new estate planning lawyers, Primary Care Physicians & Neurocognitive examinations in short time an elder’s will/Will becomes another’s.

2. Estate Planning Attorneys & PoA’s/Homecare provider’s Legal Counsel      

Vulnerable person with diminished capacity assumes their attorney will act ethically to create an estate plan, that attorney also drafts a PoA or fiduciary role for the elder’s primary care-giver, may even draft a limited financial PoA for themselves. PoA(s)/fiduciaries coordinating with home care providers & attorney. The isolated dependent elderly person dares not tell APS or question the arrangement. They are unduly influenced and their estate is stolen.

3. Estate Planning Attorneys & PoAs Accomplices Group Pressure    

Coercive situations can consist of mental and physical condition of environments influence such as group pressure, general social influence techniques, tactics of thought reform, and responses and behavior found in other high-control, intense influence situations ranging from the Stockholm syndrome to abused women and the other methods of corrupt caretakers. – Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D; research in Undue Influence and Written Documents: Psychological Aspects

4. Estate Planning Attorneys & Primary Care Physicians   If an estate planning attorney’s new or existing elderly client becomes ill, memory impaired, at greater risk for inappropriate influence and dependent on a home-care provider/Fiduciary who changes the seniors long-established primary care physician this is a substantial red flag.  Often the seniors best first line defense against abuse, negligence and undue influence is the seniors primary doctor.  Some professionals in geriatric services have their preferred cross-referring doctors and elder law services providers. If a PCP conceals material facts in Physician reports to the court this is against Medical Board and civil procedures.

5. Estate Planning Attorneys & Neuro-cognitive Psychologists     

When senior has memory impairments, is subjected to isolation & undue influenced by a PoA/home care provider or other abusers an estate planning attorney will likely arrange a psychological test just before signing a new will. This protects the illicit Will from attacks in Probate. A Psychological examiner is typically known to the estate or elder law attorney whom arranges who appointment with a specific outcome in-mind, although it is a conflict sometimes the estate planner will remain present in the interview and/or coordinate procedures so the psych evaluator purposely doesn’t have access to medical records or information that would alert psychologist to brain damage or undue influence.

6. Estate Planning Attorneys & Court Visitor  

Typically licensed social workers (LSW) are Court Visitor’s operating on behalf of the court’s civil procedures. Court visit with and interview an alleged incapacitated person (AIP) after a G-C petition is filed, either by family, an interested party or a State agency. In some cases, court visitors may be contracted by a Court Visitor/LSW specialist business. If the LSW is visibly biased in their court reports by concealing relevant material facts to conceal abuse, exploitation or negligence then this is likely a violation of Civil Procedure. This is a problem in regions with limited Court Visitors or areas with aligned probate professional networks.

7. Estate Planning Attorneys & Guardian Ad Litems                  

Some Estate Planners use cross-referring Guardian Ad Litem professionals in their G-C probate cases. These professionals are typically elder law attorneys or licensed social workers. If the GALs are instructed by the AIPs attorney and/or respondents parties attorney to favor the seniors abusive or exploitative home-care provider, then the GAL will conceal relevant facts in their reports to the court and blame the conflicts on the litigating a parties despite facts illuminating that the AIP is at risk physically and/or financially. Court will lily default judgment to professional Guardian or conservator.

8. Estate Planning Attorneys & Conservator/Guardian            

Established estate attorneys prefer to work with the family PoA as default conservator or their choice of for-profit conservator as because it provides them a safeguard to conceal fiduciary breeches, illicit estate transfers/theft and remain on as a regularly paid professional. Because of the immense power State Statues and probate courts grants to the Conservator, they have the power to execute illicit estate plans and gifts away the senior’s estate while the elder is still alive. Some Conservators even keep the unethical estate planner and abusive home-care provider on the Wards payroll.

9. Estate Planning Attorneys, State Bars & Elected DAs                                       

There has been instances of professional networks were for-profit conservator companies have also chaired State Bar Probate Councils. Other examples include District Prosecutors sitting as Trustees on Estates where elder seniors have been exploited. District Attorneys/DAs and Police don’t investigate or prosecute elder exploitation crimes when probate attorneys are involved. They call these matters Civil. The predators know they are untouchable., beyond and above the reach of law enforcement.

10. Estate Planning Attorneys & Elected Probate Judges                                                                                               

In majority of counties probate Judges are elected in some cases the largest detonators to their campaigns are lawyers. Probate courts is the venue for regular hearings by the same estate planning attorneys & courts default or attorney directed/biased (Concealed materiel facts) third-party evaluations. All being paid from the exploited seniors estate.

Review Additional Elder Abuse and Estate Exploitation Diagrams Here,

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