After being confined to Spring Arbor Nursing Home for more than a year, Patricia Gipe was eager to regain her independence, her family said.
Gipe hired Tonya Antionette Lloyd, a housekeeper from the nursing home, to help around her house and run a few errands.
Everything seemed fine until a phone call from her bank in November about a suspicious check alerted the 85-year-old woman to the theft of nearly $150,000 from her bank account.
Rocky Mount police arrested Lloyd, 35, on Thursday and charged her with felony obtaining property under false pretenses and three felony counts each of financial card fraud and identity theft. She was jailed in Nash County under a $300,000 secured bond.
“Tonya had Patsy’s trust and she just took advantage of it,” said David Bock, who is married to Gipe’s niece. “This woman is the lowest of the lowest type of criminal to take advantage of an 85-year-old widow.”
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Our Chicago nursing home neglect lawyers have seen many cases of absolutely heart wrenching abuse and neglect of the elderly. We have seen this mistreatment occur in a wide range of locations, at private nursing homes, non-profit homes, halfway houses, and the senior’s own home. While some locations are more prone to mistreatment, the risk of facing extreme elder neglect exists virtually everywhere. In general, one would expect that the risk would be lowest when an elderly community member is cared for by their own relatives. However, as a horrific case discussed in the Las Cruces Sun News this week reveals, even relatives are capable of neglect. Considering that a large percentage of seniors are cared for by their relatives, there is actually much more elder abuse at the hands of supposed loved ones than most might expect.
According to the story, a daughter-in-law and a granddaughter have been charged with criminal neglect of an 86-year old woman who died of pneumonia last December. According to documents filed with the court, it seems that the senior was essentially left to rot while her step-daughter and granddaughter used money that was supposed to be spent on her care. The senior neglect was brought to the attention of authorities more than a week before the woman’s death. Law enforcement officers went to check on the woman and were amazed and horrified by what they found. The senior was bound into a medical bed that was placed in a living room trailer. The condition of the trailer was apparently filthy with urine and garbage throughout the area.
The senior, who was unable to move, was stuck in the bed in a diaper. There were holes in the trailer, which meant that animals were able to enter and leave the home at will. The family lived near a chicken farm and so rats and stray cats were often found in the location. When authorities investigated the neglect complaint they found that the senior’s toes had been eaten off entirely by those stray animals. By the time authorities got there, all of the victim’s blood had already left her lower extremities. All of this occurred while she was still alive and stuck in the trailer.
Our Chicago elder abuse attorneys remain disgusted that this sort of care can be provided by relatives. When interviewed about the situation afterwards the victim’s daughter-in-law explained that her mother-in-law did not have much feeling in her lower extremities and so she wasn’t sure if she felt the bites. Officials are not so sure and they admit that it is unclear exactly what the woman went through as she was attacked by animals without anyone there to help her.
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Police are looking for two suspects they say are targeting elderly homeowners by posing as electrical workers and then stealing cash and jewelry.
Joe Rushford said he was working Tuesday when the two suspects targeted his elderly mother Gloria, who was home alone.
“I’d like to wring their neck. I’d like to invite them out in the street here, me and them. Have some fun. You know you pick on a 90-year-old lady,” he told CBS 2′s Kristin Thorne.
“They watch the house and they prey on elderly people and it’s not going to happen again,” he added.
Police said surveillance video shows a man in a uniform walking up to her Borough Park, Brooklyn home, followed by a woman a few minutes later.
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Some of the most vulnerable members of our community are our senior citizens. The Senate Special Committee on Aging estimates that close to five million senior citizens suffer from elder abuse each year.
In addition, for every case of elder abuse reported to authorities, experts estimate that there may be as many as five cases that go unreported. Those who are physically or mentally disabled are particularly at risk for adult or elder abuse.
This kind of abuse comes in many forms; physical abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and financial abuse are all types of abuse that may be perpetrated on a senior citizen or any other adult that requires and is dependent on someone else for their basic needs.
You should know that many of these abuses are crimes. Legislatures in all 50 states have passed some form of elder abuse prevention laws. Who are the abusers? They can be a family member, care provider or any other close “friend’ or associate of the victim.
Grandchildren or an adult child of the victim may have a substance abuse problem that causes them to financially or physically abuse their family member. Stress or financial problems can also cause some caregivers to abuse those in their charge.
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Q: Dear Erica,
My stepsister has been “caring” for our elderly parents for the last few years since she’s the only one of us who lives in the same town. Recently, my brother visited them and noticed an opened credit card bill on their kitchen table. The charges were outrageous. When he confronted our step-sister, she admitted using our parents’ credit cards for her personal expenses, even though she was only supposed to use them for medications and food. She promised to pay our parents back when she had the money, but we don’t trust her. Is there anything we can do? We haven’t told our parents yet. My dad’s got dementia and is in a home and my step-mom babies her daughter and lets her get away with everything.
A: Dear Colleen,
What we have here is a clear case of fraud. Your stepsister committed a serious crime when she used your parents’ credit cards to buy things for herself without their knowledge and permission.
Sadly, as despicable as this may sound, what she did is really quite common. According to a 2011 MetLife Study of Elder Financial Abuse, elder abuse victims lose an estimated $2.9 billion dollars annually. While strangers commit just over half of these crimes, 34 percent of them are committed by family members, friends and neighbors. Nice, huh?
There are many reasons why these crimes are so prevalent, from addiction issues to straight-up greed. A typical scenario, however, is when someone is brought into the home of an elderly or disabled person who needs round-the-clock care. The temptation to take a little here and there can be too great.
I’m not excusing the thief (it’s reprehensible!), but many such criminals feel justified because it can be such a hard and underpaid job. More, if the victims are not seriously financially impacted by the extra charges, skimming off the top can seem, well, not so bad. If you toss your moral compass over a bridge, that is.
So what should you do now? You have a number of options:
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Officials ask people to be aware of elder abuse, protection from cons and scams
The National Center on Elder Abuse estimates that between one and two million elderly adults have suffered some form of elder abuse, Crow Wing County reported.
The main types of elder abuse are physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and psychological abuse, neglect and self-neglect, abandonment and financial exploitation.
Tips for protection, include:
• Maintain social contacts and keep in touch with friends who are concerned about your well being.
Openly talk to a caregiver or supportive friend about how you are feeling or if you feel you have been mistreated. Staying in touch with friends and family and making new friends is an important part of a good social network, the center reported. Studies have shown that caregiver abuse and neglect of the elderly by their caregivers is a major concern. If you are a caregiver “don’t try to do it all alone.” It’s important to take breaks and enlist friends and family to provide some assistance. Crow Wing County offers services to help caregivers and the cost is often based on ability to pay or covered by the care receiver’s insurance. Examples of such services: Adult Day centers, home health aides, home delivered meals, respite care, and skilled nursing.
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A study of elder financial abuse and exploitation found family, friends and neighbors were the perpetrators in 45 percent of the cases, a U.S. researcher says.
Karen A. Roberto, director of the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Tech, found of the 1,128 news articles on elder abuse published from November 2010 through January 2011, 31 percent dealt with abuse of a financial nature — the largest amounts involving family and friends.
“Our findings support what service providers have long suspected, older adults are particularly vulnerable to financial abuse during the holidays,” Roberto said in a statement. “This might be due to the increase in the frequency of visitors in- and-out of their homes, money flowing more freely, and distractions that take them out of their normal routines.”
The study determined older Americans are losing $2.9 billion annually to elder financial abuse, a 12 percent increase from the $2.6 billion estimated in 2008.
“A trend, that perhaps is a reflection of the state of the economy,” Roberto said.
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In New York State, over 260,000 seniors were victimized in 2008-2009. As Baby Boomers age, the problem is likely to get worse.
Every year in the United States, thousands of elderly people are targets of fraud—in the worst cases leaving them homeless and impoverished after losing a lifetime’s worth of savings.
Professionals have a name for it: elder abuse.
And as the massive “boomer generation” approaches their 60s and 70s, the problem is likely to increase geometrically as millions of elderly Americans face challenges ranging from financial exploitation to outright physical abuse and neglect.
Advocates say that the country is ill-prepared for this “Age Wave.”
“[Its] coming at a time when the programs that exist to address elder abuse have either been cut or have remained stagnant for 30-plus years,” says Art Mason, program director of Elder Abuse Prevention, for LifeSpan of Greater Rochester, Inc., in New York.
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As a home care provider for the past three years, I have recently seen an alarming increase in the number of cases of elder financial abuse. Phone calls from family and friends of older adults urge me to help protect their loved ones after they have discovered their loved ones were victims of financial abuse.
It is important to set up safety nets so that such abuse does not happen again.
The majority of these crimes against older adults are committed by family members, friends and caregivers. The Institute of Aging describes elder financial abuse as “taking, secreting or appropriating money or property of an elder or dependent adult by a person who has the care or custody of, or who stands in a position of trust to, that elder or dependent adult.”
The National Council on Aging estimates the yearly financial toll of elder abuse to be nearly $3 billion, including misappropriation of funds, forgery of records, overcharging for nursing home/residential care facility services and falsely reporting therapeutic services for which payment could be rendered.
Older people should be wary of friends, relatives or caregivers who express unusual interest in their financial affairs. However, it is sometimes helpful to choose a trusted family member or friend to disclose financial matters and thwart possible abuse.
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Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE) is investigating the 1,760 cases of elder abuse, with 477 of these reported in 2011. As there is no dedicated elder abuse officer in the southern region of Ireland the authority believe this figure is likely to be higher.
In the Executive’s annual elder abuse report, to be published next week, they will reveal that there were 2,046 referrals in 2010, which was up from 1,870 in 2009. It will show that neglect and financial abuse claims have risen by 14 percent and nine percent respectively.
This week in Ireland a high profile case, with relation to the takeover of the Rostreavor nursing home, in South Dublin, has grabbed media attention. The home’s owners have failed to overturn the court’s decision that the HSE should take control.
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“I handled it,” the woman said. “Nobody’s ripping nobody off.”
A gentleman friend had given Venus Mary Sirchie $23,500 to pay her property taxes and fix up her house in Worth within weeks of meeting her in a south suburban Wal-Mart.
“Not like there was a love affair or anything like that,” Sirchie said. “Told him I needed my loan or I was going to lose my house.”
A loan is what Sirchie calls the money, to be paid back in full by September. A shame is what the elder advocates who tried to intervene on the 80-year-old man’s behalf call it. His family can’t believe it’s not a crime. For the friend himself, a widower of almost a decade, it’s a headache. To investigating police, it’s an unfortunate trend.
For Sirchie, it might be a living.
“Sweetheart, we’re Romanian gypsies,” she said over the telephone.
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Each year in Maryland, officials receive over 8,000 reports of elder abuse. The actual number of abuse victims may be much higher. It is estimated that only 1 in 14 cases of elder and vulnerable adult abuse is reported because of fear and isolation. As elders become frail, they are less able to defend themselves both physically and mentally. They may not see or hear as well or think as clearly as they used to, leaving openings for unscrupulous people to take advantage of them. Mental or physical ailments may make them more trying companions for the people who live with them.
June 15, 2011 is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, a time to raise awareness and educate the public about this growing problem. Raising awareness is a fundamental prevention strategy that not only teaches new information but also helps to change attitudes and behavior.
Abuse of elders takes many different forms, some involving intimidation or threats against the elderly, some involving neglect, and others involving financial trickery. The most common types of abuse are physical, emotional, sexual, neglect or abandonment by caregivers, financial exploitation, and health care fraud. Warning signs of some kind of elder abuse may include frequent arguments or tension between the caregiver and the elderly person and changes in personality or behavior in the elder.
Under the law any health practitioner, police officer, or human service worker who has reason to believe that a vulnerable adult is in danger is required to report that fact to the local department of social services. A toll free abuse hotline 1-800-91prevent (1-800-917-7383) is available. Any concerned person may also call the number and file a report.
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