[h=1]How courts and guardians exploit the elderly and their estates and get away with it[/h] [h=2]"The Perfect Crime"[/h] By
Pam Zubeck
A California man spent $50,000 in legal fees freeing his stepmother from the clutches of a so-called guardian in Las Cruces, New Mexico, who charged $140,000 for services over a year’s time.
Prosecutors in Pinellas County, Florida, on Nov. 15 charged Traci S. Hudson, guardian and then-president of the Pinellas County Guardianship Association, with felony exploitation of an elderly person. She’s accused of stealing $541,541, via charges of $1,600 per day, from a 92-year-old man she persuaded to assign his power of attorney to her. Within 10 months, she allegedly stashed nearly all of his money in her own accounts. The case prompted a judge to order a review of 31 other cases in which she acted as guardian.
Last year, April Parks grabbed headlines when she was sentenced to six to 16 years in prison in Nevada for stealing from the elderly — the very people she, as legal guardian, was supposed to protect.
“She didn’t see them as people...
