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Speaker 1: From Bloomberg News and iHeartRadio. It's the big take. I'm

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Speaker 1: west Kasova today. How guardianships can wind up hurting the

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Speaker 1: people they're supposed to protect. Guardianships in the US are

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Speaker 1: intended to help those who are judged to be unable

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Speaker 1: to help themselves, but in reality it doesn't always work

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Speaker 1: that way. They defrauded nearly a thousand of their clients

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Speaker 1: out of nearly twelve million dollars and nobody noticed. That's

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law's chief investigative reporter Ronnie Green. He spent months

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Speaker 1: digging into how guardianships work with legal reporter Holly Barker,

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Speaker 1: There's lots of periodic bluster at the national level. You know,

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Speaker 1: we'll have some big crisis and suddenly there's some interest

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Speaker 1: in at the be some hearings, there's testimonies submitted, But

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Speaker 1: then what the follow through is what you sort of

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Speaker 1: don't see. Their reporting resulted in a five part series

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Speaker 1: that reveals a system of widely varying rules in which

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Speaker 1: people under guardianship can find themselves trapped and sometimes exploited

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Speaker 1: by the people entrusted with their care. Ronnie, what are guardianships?

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Speaker 1: Our series focused specifically an adult guardianships, and what that

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Speaker 1: entails is an adult. It could be a young adult

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Speaker 1: in their twenties or thirties, or an older adult, maybe

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Speaker 1: in the final years of their lives. Whenever an adult

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Speaker 1: is in a situation where he or she or they

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Speaker 1: are not able to make their own decisions, oftentimes a

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Speaker 1: family member, sometimes a guardian, sometimes a lawyer will file

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Speaker 1: a petition to put that person under a guardianship. And

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Speaker 1: what that means is there's a decision and ultimately a

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Speaker 1: court decision that person does not have the capability to

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Speaker 1: make their own decisions, so someone else essentially makes those

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Speaker 1: decisions for them. And I would say, on one hand,

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Speaker 1: it's meant to be benign, helpful system. What we learned

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Speaker 1: is that adult guardianships are deeply restrictive. They lose the

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Speaker 1: right many times to make very basic decisions. Do I

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Speaker 1: want to buy this item at the store? No, I

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Speaker 1: need someone's permission. Can I marry someone else? No? I

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Speaker 1: need someone's permission, So they become deeply restrictive. And the

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Speaker 1: irony is the person under guardianship is called a protected person,

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Speaker 1: but the protective person really has no rights left when

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Speaker 1: they're in a guardianship. Holly. Sometimes when somebody is placed

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Speaker 1: into guardianship, it's a parent or family member who becomes

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Speaker 1: the guardian, but other times it's a company that actually

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Speaker 1: is contracted to take over that care. Is that right? Well,

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Speaker 1: it could be a company or any court appointed fiduciary

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Speaker 1: who's then paid out of the protected person's estate. So

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Speaker 1: I would categorize it as more a family member or

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Speaker 1: a professional guardian. And how does that happen. Let's say

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Speaker 1: I'm the parent of a child who needs a guardian

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Speaker 1: and I'm unable to provide that service. It's maybe beyond

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Speaker 1: my capability, and so I go to a company that

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Speaker 1: specializes in this. How does that then work? How does

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Speaker 1: my child get put into guardianship? So there would be

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Speaker 1: a petition typically, and it varies wildly by state, but

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Speaker 1: typically you would file a petition or emotion, some sort

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Speaker 1: of request for a guardianship be put into place, and

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Speaker 1: then at that point, the court or an examiner somebody

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Speaker 1: will determine whether or not a guardianship is necessary, and

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Speaker 1: then to decide what the parameters of the guardianship will be,

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Speaker 1: and they'll implement an order that specifies exactly what the

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Speaker 1: guardian's responsibilities are. You could have a guardian who's responsible

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Speaker 1: solely for somebody's personal well being, their care, making sure

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Speaker 1: that they're getting to their doctor's appointments, making sure that

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Speaker 1: they have nurses if they meet them. And then you

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Speaker 1: can have somebody who's responsible for all of your finances,

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Speaker 1: making sure your taxes get paid, if you live in

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Speaker 1: a nursing facility or necessary living facility, that they're getting

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Speaker 1: paid properly, all of those things. Sometimes it could be

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Speaker 1: the same person, sometimes you might have two different people

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Speaker 1: who are responsible for those aspects of your life. One

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Speaker 1: of the things that we found that was really striking

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Speaker 1: for me is on one end, you know, these systems

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Speaker 1: are so restrictive, where as an adult you're losing your

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Speaker 1: right to make so many basic decisions. But in the

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Speaker 1: other end, it is a system, a court system. I

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Speaker 1: think it's a very little scrutiny. Different states have different rules.

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Speaker 1: There's one standard set of rules and how guardianships operate.

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Speaker 1: There's not one standard set of rules and what guardians

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Speaker 1: can earn. Frustraman guardians, what their caseloads will be. No

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Speaker 1: one is even counting how many times a guardian abuses

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Speaker 1: the person under their control. So on one hand, you

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Speaker 1: have a system that takes away your rights under hand,

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Speaker 1: you have a system that's getting very little scrutiny. So

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Speaker 1: that in between that is the potential for sort of

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Speaker 1: the wild West of fraud and abuse, and we found

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Speaker 1: some instances of that. Oftentimes a lot of residents, older

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Speaker 1: residents and nursing homes will be under guard and chippoon

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Speaker 1: will happen. There is maybe a doctor working with a

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Speaker 1: nursing home will do an examination, will find that so

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Speaker 1: and so is no longer able to make their own decisions,

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Speaker 1: and we'll file basically a one page report. Suddenly the

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Speaker 1: nursing home or a guardian or a professional is petitioning

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Speaker 1: to put that person under a guardianship. A lot of

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Speaker 1: times that person in the nursing home may not even

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Speaker 1: be at the court hearing, is not even aware that

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Speaker 1: this is happening. So that speaks to the system that

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Speaker 1: really does not have the checks and balances you would

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Speaker 1: think that it should have for what's ultimately happening here. Ronnie,

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Speaker 1: let me ask you about one case that seems to

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Speaker 1: encompass every possible thing that could go wrong in a

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Speaker 1: guardianship situation, and that happened in New Mexico and it

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Speaker 1: is the focus of the first story in your five

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Speaker 1: part series. Can you tell us what happened there? Absolutely? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: This was really stunning and speaks very vividly to the

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Speaker 1: dark world of adult guardianships. As we explored, was a

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Speaker 1: company called Iodondo Guardians. Iodondo Guardians was formed in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and four by a woman named Susan Harris who

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Speaker 1: had been a nurse, and by a colleague and friend,

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Speaker 1: Sharon Moore, who had been dealing in medical records, and

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Speaker 1: so they formed this guardianship company. Had not had experience

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Speaker 1: in this field directly before this, but within a year

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Speaker 1: got to contract with the state. They were a nonprofit

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Speaker 1: and what happened was, for more than a decade, their

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Speaker 1: mission was to help those in need of help, to

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Speaker 1: help adults who had mental health disabilities, post traumatic stress

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Speaker 1: from serving time, and wars older adults. They were really

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Speaker 1: created a help of very needy population. But what the

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Speaker 1: Department of Justice found is for over a decade they

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Speaker 1: defrauded nearly a thousand of their clients out of nearly

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Speaker 1: twelve million dollars, and nobody noticed. The State of New

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Speaker 1: Mexico Office of Guardianship year after year after year, gave

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Speaker 1: Iodonto Guardians contracts, which gave them prestige, which gave them clients,

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Speaker 1: which gave them a body of clients from which to steal,

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Speaker 1: which is what they did. During the time that Iodondo's

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Speaker 1: executive were diverting client money for their own benefit. They

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Speaker 1: were going on cruises, they were buying fancy cars and

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Speaker 1: fancy homes. They spent three hundred thousand dollars for sky

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Speaker 1: box at the local college basketball games, all with client

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Speaker 1: money that they stole. A few months before the Department

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Speaker 1: of Justice in twenty seventeen indicted Iodondo Guardians and its executives.

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Speaker 1: The State Office of Guardianship was asking Iodondo to send

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Speaker 1: them a note about success stories that the state could site.

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Speaker 1: All along the way, they were stealing from people, leaving

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Speaker 1: several of their clients homeless, leaving several of their clients

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Speaker 1: to turn to drugs. It was really a hering example.

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Speaker 1: But for me it speaks to a syst him. Where

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Speaker 1: there's lots of money at stake, there's very profound human

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Speaker 1: issues at stake. People's rights were taken away, but no

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Speaker 1: one's watching. Who's managing the protected people? Do you spoke

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Speaker 1: to John Black the third, who is the executive director

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Speaker 1: of the State's Guardianship Office, and he said to you

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Speaker 1: that he was shocked by the fraud and said the

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Speaker 1: state would have done more audits of those under guardianship.

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Speaker 1: But he also said the courtshare some of the blame

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Speaker 1: when it came to monitoring people's cases. The pool of

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Speaker 1: money they were pulling from were these people's assets, so

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Speaker 1: it was their VA money and it was their Social

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Speaker 1: Security that they didn't have any claim to. They were

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Speaker 1: simply supposed to be responsible for overseeing. So on top

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Speaker 1: of the fees that they were collecting for the state,

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Speaker 1: they were also dipping in to the asset pool that

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Speaker 1: belonged to their clients and using that money to spend

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Speaker 1: and to pay their American Express bills every month to

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Speaker 1: buy their homes and gated communities. And the vast majority

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Speaker 1: of their victims were veterans, and a lot of them

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Speaker 1: were also receiving Social Security payments, and that is likely

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Speaker 1: a big part of the reason that this scheme was

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Speaker 1: even uncovered if it hadn't been for the involvement of

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Speaker 1: federal prosecutors. Ultimately, but federal agencies with all of the

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Speaker 1: red flags that eventually percolated up to be enough. Without that,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure how much longer this would have persisted, Ronnie.

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Speaker 1: You right that this company went to extraordinary lengths to

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Speaker 1: cover its tracks in falsifying all sorts of information. Oh absolutely, yeah.

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Speaker 1: When the VA asked them for proof of you know,

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Speaker 1: what's in your clients account shows that you're properly managing

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Speaker 1: the money. One of the executives created phony reports and

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Speaker 1: actually got a copy of a local bank or signature

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Speaker 1: that she affixed to the reports to make it look

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Speaker 1: like it was real. And so that was enough, Ronnie.

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Speaker 1: What happened to the people involved in the company. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the four directors who are prosecuted, four directors of Iodando Guardians,

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Speaker 1: all got prison sentences. They all, I should mentally, all

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Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to those charges. The company founder, Susan Harris,

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Speaker 1: got forty seven years, Sharon Moore, the former chief financial officer,

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Speaker 1: got twenty years in prison, and Susan Harris's husband got

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Speaker 1: fifteen years. William Harris and her son got just under

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Speaker 1: six years. They were convicted of money laundering, aggravated identity theft,

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Speaker 1: and various counts fraud Hollie Harris didn't respond to your

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Speaker 1: request to be interviewed, but you did speak to Sharon Moore,

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Speaker 1: who was the former chief financial officer of this company

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Speaker 1: from prison. What was she like? More sympathetic than you

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Speaker 1: would imagine. You know, I didn't see her, It was

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Speaker 1: all over the phone, but she sounds like somebody's grandmother.

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Speaker 1: I think that she was being as honest with us

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Speaker 1: as she can be with herself about everything that happened.

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Speaker 1: I got the sense that she was genuinely remorseful. She

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Speaker 1: does feel like her sentence was too long. She was

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Speaker 1: definitely not the mastermind of this scheme. She was a

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Speaker 1: five percent owner and profited far less greatly than our

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Speaker 1: co conspirators did. But you know, she forged the documents right,

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Speaker 1: and she couldn't tell you why she did it. She

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Speaker 1: did tell us that she thought about quitting multiple times.

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Speaker 1: But she is going to spend much of the rest

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Speaker 1: of her life, if not the rest of her life

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Speaker 1: and a federal facility in the middle of Texas, which

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Speaker 1: is a long way from her sons and her grandchildren.

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Speaker 1: More with Holly Barker and Ronnie Green after the break,

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Speaker 1: one of the things that really struck me about the

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Speaker 1: stories in this series where how little rights. Say a

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Speaker 1: parent who has a child place and guardianship has in

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Speaker 1: making decisions for their own child once that child has

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Speaker 1: been placed into guardianship. That sometimes if a parent says,

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Speaker 1: I don't like the way the guardian is treating my child.

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Speaker 1: I don't like these conditions, the courts are often indifferent

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Speaker 1: or even hostile to those people. That's absolutely true, and

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Speaker 1: it can be a really costly fight too. You'll have

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Speaker 1: to hire lawyers, And as Ronnie can tell you, there

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Speaker 1: tends to be sort of a one sided communications between

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Speaker 1: judges and guardians were often as arms of the court,

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Speaker 1: and there are frequently cozy relationships, and I think it

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Speaker 1: can be easy to make a family member seems sort

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Speaker 1: of insane or crazed when you have the judges ear

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Speaker 1: in that way. When you have those sort of one

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Speaker 1: sided discussions, judges can wind up sort of I think,

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Speaker 1: over crediting the information that they're getting from guardians without

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Speaker 1: sort of really examining or giving that person an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to truly be heard. Who are these judges? When we

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Speaker 1: think about a judge, we're thinking of a specific thing,

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Speaker 1: but guardianship judges are not always courtroom judges. That's right

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Speaker 1: in New York and New Mexico, for example. They are.

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Speaker 1: In Georgia, however, they're elected and there are very few

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Speaker 1: requirements for who may qualify, and the training is extraordinarily limited.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things we found was in at

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Speaker 1: least six states across the country, at least six states

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Speaker 1: allow non lawyers to serve as guardianship judges issuing guardianship orders.

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Speaker 1: In Georgia, for instance, counties of a small population, I

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Speaker 1: think it's ninety thousand or fewer residents, the probate judge

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Speaker 1: does not have to have a law degree, and that's significant,

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Speaker 1: I think experts will tell you because in guardianship cases,

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Speaker 1: you're issuing really significant orders. You're taking away someone's rights,

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Speaker 1: and so advocates who want to see a better system

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Speaker 1: will say, how can someone without illegal training make that

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Speaker 1: kind of decision? And the case we found in Georgia

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Speaker 1: focused on a young woman named Kaylee Bullwinkle who was

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Speaker 1: Asperger syndrome and her mom worried that she might be

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Speaker 1: taken advantage when she became an adult, so she thought,

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Speaker 1: maybe I'll put her an unlimited guardianship that she's eighteen

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Speaker 1: years old. When she did that, she found the system

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Speaker 1: to be really deeply restrictive. In fact, within a year,

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Speaker 1: the mother realized, hey, I made a mistake. Kayley doesn't

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Speaker 1: need this guardianship. She's doing things on her own. But

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Speaker 1: it took them almost three years, and all before they

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Speaker 1: were able to escape the guardianship. And along the way,

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Speaker 1: the judge in that case severely restricted her already restricted rights.

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Speaker 1: The judge took away Kayley's right to vote without telling

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Speaker 1: the family, without holding hearing on the issue. Kaylee had

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Speaker 1: a perfect driving record, was driving herself to and from

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Speaker 1: work with the judge, but hurtle on her ability to drive,

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Speaker 1: the judge said, Kayley can't write checks. The judge said

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Speaker 1: Kayley can't have her own checking account. And all along

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Speaker 1: the way, the mother was taken aback by these really

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Speaker 1: deeply restrictive rules and was challenging the system. Ultimately hired

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Speaker 1: a lawyer with an advocacy office in Georgia. The family

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Speaker 1: appealed the judge's orders in an appeal one on every

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Speaker 1: single account. Finally, Kayley was able to get out of

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Speaker 1: the guardianship. She's doing much better now, she's a full

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Speaker 1: time job. It's a daycare teacher, she graduated from college.

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Speaker 1: She's doing really well. It's really a vivid case study

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Speaker 1: of going into guardianships for the best reason and having

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Speaker 1: no idea what it's going to be like until you

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Speaker 1: get in, and really losing your rights. And as the

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Speaker 1: mom said to me, I didn't know that every decision

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Speaker 1: I made would be nitpicked, and she felt like she

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Speaker 1: sort of losing control being Kayley's mom. What were the

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Speaker 1: judges qualifications in Kayley's case and Georgia, In small counties,

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Speaker 1: the probate judge does not have to have a lot

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Speaker 1: of greyer legal training, and in this case, the judge

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Speaker 1: in question and not have a law degree. So she

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Speaker 1: is now the probate judge in the small county in

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Speaker 1: Georgia issuing these orders. What she will tell you I

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Speaker 1: interviewed her is that she very deeply studies the law.

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Speaker 1: She has law books in her office, she turns to

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Speaker 1: lawyers for counsels. She feels like she looks very deeply

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Speaker 1: into cases and gives them a thorough vetting before issuing

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Speaker 1: her orders. But what advocates I interviewed and Holly interviewed

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Speaker 1: will tell you is that someone sitting in that position,

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Speaker 1: issuing guardianship orders should have a formal legal training before

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Speaker 1: taking away someone's rights. Holly, I guess that also raises

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Speaker 1: the other question, which is how does one become a guardian?

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Speaker 1: What are the qualifications or career path into that line

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Speaker 1: of work? Again, it varies by state. In some states,

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Speaker 1: like New York, it's typically lawyers. There's no requirement that

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Speaker 1: a guardian and who's appointed by a court needs to

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Speaker 1: be a lawyer. It could be a social worker in

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Speaker 1: an ideal world, But in most states there is very

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Speaker 1: little training. Anybody can sign up to do it, and

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Speaker 1: in fact that there might not even be any sort

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Speaker 1: of screening process to make sure, for example, that a

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Speaker 1: guardian doesn't have a criminal background. It's a hodgepodge, but

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Speaker 1: in some states it's virtually nothing, and that I think

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Speaker 1: speaks to sort of where guardianship cases and probate courts

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Speaker 1: stands sort of on the rung of the criminal justice system.

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Speaker 1: They're near the bottom. Just to be honest with you,

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Speaker 1: only fourteen states certified guardians. No one can really tell you.

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Speaker 1: No one and government can tell you how many exactly

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Speaker 1: active guardianship cases there are. There's only estimates, No one

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Speaker 1: can tell you how much money is at stake. There's

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Speaker 1: only estimates. And what one of the advocates told me

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Speaker 1: is that you keep track of things when you care

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Speaker 1: about things, and when someone has the rights taken away,

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Speaker 1: we should care about those things. I think the fact

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Speaker 1: that there's so little scrutiny and attention paid to the

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Speaker 1: system speaks to sort of where the guardianship system stands

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Speaker 1: and sort of the ladder of the courts. So let's

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Speaker 1: now go to another example of a young man in

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Speaker 1: Indiana who is placed into a guardianship after he suffered

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Speaker 1: head injury. Tell us what happened there. Sure, this was

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Speaker 1: a really revealing case and evolves young Well now a

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Speaker 1: man by the name of Nicholas Klaus. When he was nineteen,

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Speaker 1: he got in a car accident had a traumatic brain injury,

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Speaker 1: so his mother and stepfather became his guardian. After several years,

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Speaker 1: Nick recovered from his traumatic brain injury, he married, he

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Speaker 1: had a child, and he was working full time. Yet

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Speaker 1: he was still under a guardianship and as he described

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Speaker 1: to us, he needed permission to basically make any sort

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Speaker 1: of purchases. He needed permission before he bought diapers for

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Speaker 1: his infant when the engine on his SUV failed, he

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Speaker 1: couldn't choose his own car, and so ultimately he linked

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Speaker 1: up with the disability writes lawyer in Indiana. But the

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Speaker 1: name of Justin Schrock, who nine years after the guardianship began,

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Speaker 1: helped Nick get out of the guardianship and Nick felt

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Speaker 1: like he was free. One of the first things Nick

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Speaker 1: did was he sold that car that didn't want to

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Speaker 1: buy because he wasn't able to make the choice on

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Speaker 1: what kind of car he could have. But his case

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Speaker 1: is revealing and sort of what these guardianships can be

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Speaker 1: like for folks who have recovered fully from traumatic episodes.

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Speaker 1: Justin Truck who you mentioned, that's Nicholas Klaus's lawyer with

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Speaker 1: a group called Indiana Disability Rights, spoke to producer Mobarrow

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Speaker 1: about how he and other advocates are able to step

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Speaker 1: in and help extricate people from unwanted guardianships. Really, his

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Speaker 1: case is representative of the cracks and the entire system,

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Speaker 1: because if someone that independent, someone who has been married

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Speaker 1: for several years, owned their own home, had a child,

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Speaker 1: at work full time, and all of these different jobs

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Speaker 1: that were not entry level jobs that actually require real

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Speaker 1: skills If someone like that can be forced to continue

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Speaker 1: under guardianship for years and years beyond the time that

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Speaker 1: it's necessary, then that really illustrates so many of the

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Speaker 1: shortcomings and gaps of our system, And his case isn't

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Speaker 1: an outlier, It's much more representative of the system as

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Speaker 1: a whole. Part of my success handling these cases has

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Speaker 1: a lot to do with the fact that the standard

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Speaker 1: to establish guardianships is so low to begin with, so

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Speaker 1: oftentimes in these cases there really hasn't been much consideration

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Speaker 1: of whether some other option less restricted than guardianship could

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Speaker 1: be appropriate for the individual. So when I come into

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Speaker 1: a case, the first thing I'm looking at and trying

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Speaker 1: to assess is what other options might there be that

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Speaker 1: could work for this person? Requires an honest assessment of

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Speaker 1: what their strengths and their weaknesses are. But at the

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Speaker 1: end of the day, just because someone isn't able to

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Speaker 1: manage their affairs independently doesn't mean they need all of

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Speaker 1: their rights removed and given to someone else. Oftentimes they

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Speaker 1: just need a little bit of support and a little

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Speaker 1: bit of assistance to be able to manage their affairs

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Speaker 1: really and almost entirely independent fashion. I'm able to connect

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Speaker 1: those dots. I think better than most as far as

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Speaker 1: what is actually out there and available and what might

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Speaker 1: work for an individual client. You know, when it's just

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Speaker 1: been assumed that because of the client may not have

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Speaker 1: been able to manage their affairs entirely on their own,

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Speaker 1: that tends to be the end of it. They get

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Speaker 1: assigned a guardian. The guardian is assigned all of their

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Speaker 1: decision making authority, and it's often kind of left to that.

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Speaker 1: And you know, some states will have pretty robust systems

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Speaker 1: to where they'll require analysis of the case and review

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Speaker 1: hearings every so often to you know, make sure that

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Speaker 1: the case is reviewed for continued necessity or oftentimes lack

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Speaker 1: of necessity, But that simply doesn't happen in Indiana and

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Speaker 1: many cases, I don't know that I'm necessarily doing anything

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Speaker 1: all that special. In a lot of cases, I'm really

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Speaker 1: just kind of doing the minimum of what should have

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Speaker 1: been done, either from the very beginning or somewhere along

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Speaker 1: the way. Because you know, any person, if we're talking

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Speaker 1: about someone eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old, disability or not,

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Speaker 1: they're going to be immature. Oftentimes they're not going to

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Speaker 1: make great decisions. I know, I certainly didn't at that age.

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Speaker 1: But when someone has an intellectual or developmental disability, they

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Speaker 1: aren't treated as though they can learn and grow from

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Speaker 1: those mistakes. They oftentimes actually get held to a higher

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Speaker 1: standard than the rest of us, and those, you know,

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Speaker 1: dumb decisions that they might have made at eighteen or

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Speaker 1: nineteen years old get held against them for the rest

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Speaker 1: of their life. Kristen Stackback, who was the lawyer for

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Speaker 1: Nicholas Klaus's guardian, said she couldn't comment on his case

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Speaker 1: and ultimately his parents supported ending the guardianship. When we

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Speaker 1: come back, at least one state is doing it better, Ronnie,

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Speaker 1: you said that there are only estimates for how many

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Speaker 1: people are under guardianships. What are those estimates right now?

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Speaker 1: It's about one point five million active guardianship and conti

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Speaker 1: conservatorship cases at a time. That's a lot of people

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Speaker 1: for something that's is loosely regulated. You would think that

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Speaker 1: that many people states would really be looking at it

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Speaker 1: much more closely as they should be. There's no question

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Speaker 1: they should be. And the best estimates are that those

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Speaker 1: guardians control fifty billion dollars in assets for those under

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Speaker 1: their control. But again that's just an estimate. Other folks

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Speaker 1: will tell you it's a lot more than that. But

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Speaker 1: just the fact that no one in the government can

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Speaker 1: give you firm answers on that almost speaks to sort

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Speaker 1: of where guardianship stand in sort of the public's eye.

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00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:18,159
Speaker 1: They need more attention. I think that's pretty clear what

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Speaker 1: can be done to fix this system. Actually, that's one

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Speaker 1: of the things we looked at pretty deeply. Nevada, which

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Speaker 1: had some pretty massive guardianship scandals a couple of years

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Speaker 1: ago with the guardians dealing hundreds of millions of dollars

405
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Speaker 1: from our clients, adopted an overhaul in twenty seventeen. And

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00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:39,240
Speaker 1: what's happening in Nevada is now whenever someone a family member,

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Speaker 1: a lawyer, or a guardian, anyone files a petition to

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Speaker 1: put someone else under guardianship, automatically a Legal aid lawyer

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00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:49,200
Speaker 1: gets involved in the case before the petition is approved.

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Speaker 1: And that's really significant. What that means is they so

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Speaker 1: called protective person has a legal advocate representing only that

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Speaker 1: person's interest, no one else interest, and that lawyer from

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Speaker 1: Legal Aid Society it's involved and looked at the petition.

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Speaker 1: The first thing the lawyer will ask the person who

415
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,360
Speaker 1: faced the petition is do you know about this? Sometimes

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Speaker 1: they'll say yeah, and you know it's my daughter. We

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Speaker 1: need to do this. You know, I can't make decisions anymore.

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Speaker 1: This is a good thing. Other times they'll say, I

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Speaker 1: don't have no idea who this person is. And what

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Speaker 1: we found was in Nevada, those lawyers get about twenty

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Speaker 1: five percent of petitions rejected, which is the pretty large number,

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Speaker 1: and it shows you maybe one out of every four

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Speaker 1: cases is not needed, which speaks to something that we

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Speaker 1: heard from a lot of experts, and that is guardianships

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00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:32,399
Speaker 1: in the best sense, can be a good thing, but

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Speaker 1: they should be a last resort, not the first. In

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Speaker 1: What the system of Nevada is doing, which has really

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Speaker 1: not been adopted by other states, is making sure that

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Speaker 1: the guardianship is truly needed. And I think that's a

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00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: good protection. I think that'd be a good first step

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Speaker 1: if many more states adopted that model. Ali that's Nevada.

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Speaker 1: As Ronnie said, other states aren't adopting what Nevada is doing.

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Speaker 1: What are some other states doing to fix this problem? All?

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Speaker 1: So interestingly in New York Act, it does have a

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Speaker 1: really robust guardianship system. It has a statute called Article

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Speaker 1: eighty one that governs adult guardianships that's considered a model.

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Speaker 1: It was part of a series of reforms over the

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Speaker 1: last several decades. The problem is that you actually have

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Speaker 1: to adhere to it, and you have to implement the rules,

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Speaker 1: and you have to observe them. And so even if

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Speaker 1: you've got reform on books, you sort of need to

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Speaker 1: audit it. So the rules will say guardians must file

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Speaker 1: their annual reports once a year. Do they not always?

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Speaker 1: And pretty infrequently? And they're supposed to be reviewed promptly.

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Speaker 1: How promptly are they actually reviewed? How much scrutiny are

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Speaker 1: they're getting. We know that they're supposed to be reporting

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00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 1: compensation that they receive, we know that they don't always

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Speaker 1: do it. We need to know more about how big

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Speaker 1: the problem is, what the problems look like. We need

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Speaker 1: more information about it before I think we can address it.

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Speaker 1: Once there's legislation on the books, they need to comply

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Speaker 1: with it. So it needs to be ongoing scrutiny on

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Speaker 1: top of reforms as we saw it with are you

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Speaker 1: down to the company in New Mexico that defrauded so

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Speaker 1: many of its clients? The US Justice Department stepped in,

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Speaker 1: and so the federal government is certainly aware that this

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Speaker 1: is a problem. Are there any efforts by the government

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Speaker 1: to create national standards. There's lots of periodic bluster at

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Speaker 1: the national level. You know, we'll have some big crisis

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Speaker 1: and suddenly there's some interests in it. There'll be some hearings,

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Speaker 1: there's testimonies submitted. But then what there's the follow through

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Speaker 1: is which you sort of don't see. One of the

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Speaker 1: people we talked with is a man named Rick Black,

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Speaker 1: who helped expose guardianship abuse against his father in law

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Speaker 1: in Nevada. He's a former corporate executive who has become

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Speaker 1: a full time guardian reformer. He has studied thousands of

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Speaker 1: cases across the country and he helped lobbying. You know,

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Speaker 1: when public hearings for reforms of Nevada that actually passed,

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Speaker 1: and once Nevada passed, it's overhaul. He was optimistic, like, hey,

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Speaker 1: this is a good system. Let's get all the other

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Speaker 1: states to do it. And he said, six years later,

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Speaker 1: nothing's happened. So other states have not taken up the mantle,

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Speaker 1: and it just shows that these cases have not become

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Speaker 1: a priority in our hope is that by putting so

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Speaker 1: much attention to this story that this will spotlight the

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Speaker 1: gaping need for reform and maybe there will be some

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Speaker 1: changes that will be meaningful. We're certainly going to keep

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Speaker 1: on top of the story and see what happens next.

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Speaker 1: Ronnie Green, Holly Rucker, thanks so much for speaking with

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Speaker 1: me today. That's our pleasure. Thank you, thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: to us here at The Big Take. It's a daily

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00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 1: podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows from my

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: you listen, and we'd love to hear from you. Email

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00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: us questions or comments to Dig Take at Bloomberg dot net.

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Speaker 1: The supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky Bergolina.

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00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,360
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00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:53,119
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Speaker 1: Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin I'm Westkasova.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take. Um um

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Speaker 1: hm