00:16 John: Hey, everybody. Well, welcome back everybody, this is your host John Ross here live in the studio with Lisa Shoalmire my co-host. 00:40 Lisa: Hello everyone. 00:41 John: Yeah and we are here on Aging Insight because we come here every weekend and we want to talk to you all. We want you all to know about stuff, we try to entertain you a little bit. We try to keep you interested in what’s going on out there in the world. Particularly we know that there is information that you will need out there if you want to age on your own terms. If you want to navigate through the ageing process and if you want to do that without losing everything that you’ve managed to accumulate during your lifetime we know you can do that. We also know that you’re going to need some information if you want to do that. It’s a beautiful Saturday and you might even just want a little entertainment. We try to keep it interesting. 01:30 Lisa: That’s right, so we’re here on Saturday, it takes a lot of resources to make sure that happens for you. Just want to give a shout out to our sponsors Edgewood Manor. The Barnet Agency. Dierkse Memorial Hospice. Riverview Behavioral. Cowhorn Creek Estates. Curt Green & Company. St. Michael’s Hospital. Red River Federal Credit Union. Twin City Rehab and Inspirations in New Boston. 01:54 John: Thanks to all of them and of course the biggest thanks is to all the folks that are listening out there. I visited with some folks this week and the lady said, “Oh yeah my husband’s a really big fan of the show.” 02:06 02:07 Lisa: Oh great, so hello to him. 02:11 John: He’s always telling me he’s like, “Shhh, they’re talking.” Yeah we appreciate our listeners out there and of course if you want to you can listen, that’s what you’re doing if you’re on the radio. You can also watch if you’d like, either now because we’re live on the Ross and Shoalmire Facebook page. Or you can later on if you want to go see this particular episode or any of the ones that we’ve done, what the last four? 02:37 Lisa: Yeah, we’ve done I think four. 02:38 John: You can go to the Ross and Shoalmire Facebook page and scroll down and find our previous radio show. If you wanted to hear about... rehear about something that you saw previously you can go and check those out. That’s why we do the Facebook Live it helps us record things. 02:55 Lisa: It helps us record and as I was speaking with some folks earlier this week sometimes they’re a little worried about calling in. They would be okay typing out a question there on Facebook. I’ve encouraged folks, “Hey even if you’re a little shy you can always type in your question on Facebook Live and we could see it here from the studio.” We’ll be glad to answer those questions as well. We certainly always look forward to hearing from our callers. 03:26 John: Our elected officials down there in Austin have been busy. 03:30 Lisa: Yes, our Texas legislature it meets every other year. The joke is that we try to minimize the damage by only... by prohibiting them from meeting every year. They can only meet every other year and frankly John that’s enough for me. 03:50 John: Yeah, it really is. I think they have now put up all the bills that they’re going to put up. I think we’re 1,600 different bills I think is something between the Texas house and the Texas senate. 04:07 John: Yeah, they’ve been busy I’m not sure how much of them are really worth a count. A lot of them are very small changes. Adding a word or two. 04:18 Lisa: Or making some corrections to perhaps some poorly drafted codes . 04:22 John: You mean the legislator occasionally poorly drafts stuff? 04:28 Lisa: On occasion, on occasion. 04:29 John: Who knew. 04:32 Lisa: There’s a lot going on and we try to keep on top of watching what’s going on with the legislature that would impact, our clients, our community members. Even if you’re really quiet we want you to hear about this stuff, so that you are aware. Some things bubbled up to the top of what would be of interest to seniors, retirees and our older and wiser Texans. 05:00 John: That’s right. Yeah, and there’s one particular little change that’s out there and to be perfectly honest it’s a very small change and it’s going to have... it’ll probably have a little impact out there in the real world. It’s actually a change to the penal code. 05:18 Lisa: Yeah, we’re talking about the penal code which is the Texas criminal codes which define all the crimes that you might and could commit in Texas and of course in a criminal matter it’s the district attorney or the state of Texas that comes after criminals or people who’ve been charged with crimes. One of our listeners may think what in the world would a criminal statute or a penal code change have anything to do with me. 05:49 John: What does it have to do with him, but what does it have to do with a couple of elder law attorneys? 05:54 Lisa: Yeah, do not call me to defend your family member from a charge of a crime I can’t do that. 06:02 Lisa: That’s not how I... I would be incompetent and incapable as an attorney to defend someone in a criminal case. 06:08 John: Yeah, no I don’t know and in fact I give speeches all the time and that’s what I say. Is I say, “You may have heard me stand up here and run my mouth all morning and you’re thinking, ‘man that John guy he seems to know his stuff.’” When it comes to elder law that’s a pretty good assumption. I’m pretty hard to get one past on an elder law issue. Don’t think that that makes me an expert in all things law. If you get arrested later and you call me you’re going to go to jail. 06:38 Lisa: There’s some listener out there thinking about their brother-in-law who’s a lawyer who goes to the cocktail party and suddenly becomes an expert on all things in the law. 06:47 John: Yeah, that’s exactly right. 06:48 Lisa: I’m so glad John that you’re so self-aware. 06:51 John: That’s right and we... I have had clients that will call because of criminal cases. I’ll just send them out to... I know a couple of really good criminal law attorneys and will send them over to those folks. 07:04 Lisa: If you do need an attorney, attorneys usually do know who does good work. 07:09 John: As far as that goes it’s not the topic today but understand that law is a specialty, just like medicine is a specialty. Generally speaking if you want specialized knowledge and specialized attention. Then you go to the person that has that specialized knowledge and can give you that specialized attention. You would not use one doctor to treat your cancer and cut on your brain, and... 07:41 Lisa: Do a heart bypass and... 07:42 John: Do a heart bypass. 07:43 Lisa: Those are going to be all different doctors. 07:44 John: That’s exactly right. The same thing really should be in the case of attorneys. In fact I would say be weary of one that says otherwise. Anyway, that’s not here nor there. We’re talking about the penal code. 07:58 Lisa: That’s right. It’s an interesting change that’s coming up. 08:02 Lisa: I’m going to jump in and talk about what are the issues we see frequently? Sadly is we do see seniors that are financially exploited by mostly family members. 08:16 John: Typically family members. Although sometimes third parties. 08:18 Lisa: Sometimes third parties like a friend or... 08:20 John: It’s about three out of four is going to be a family member. 08:26 Lisa: Texas long ago has recognized that financial abuse of a senior adult is a crime against the state, because it’s a crime against a citizen and we want to discourage that type of behavior. That’s been on the books for a long time. I could go off on a whole another rabbit trail about how poorly enforced and poorly investigated financial abuse of seniors as a crime is... I do know of a current case that’s going on right now in Bowie County. We just don’t see that many going through the criminal courts. Although I know sitting from our couch in our conference room in our office we see plenty of potential cases. 09:12 John: Plenty of it’s happening, it may just not been getting prosecuted. 09:17 Lisa: One of the bills has been filed with the legislature of this session is tweaking this financial abuse or financial abuse of a senior. They’ve added a couple of words to the statute, John. The statute says that financial abuse means the wrongful or negligent taking, appropriation, obtaining or use of, or assisting in the wrongful or negligent taking or use of money or other property of another person, by any means, including by exerting undue influence. 10:02 Lisa: The statutes are pretty wordy. 10:04 John: They are pretty wordy. 10:05 Lisa: Essentially it boils down to financial abuse as if you were wrongful in your appropriating the assets of someone else and you’re exerting undue influence and that’s how you obtained those assets. Then, that could be a crime. Now they’re adding, they termed that if you do that or you assist someone else in doing that. 10:29 John: You’re complicit in the crime in some way because you’ve helped out. I thought for example I saw on the TXK today Facebook page. I saw a report of a scam against an elderly woman here in town. Where a guy shows up at the house, says he want to check out her roof. He climbs up on the roof, he looks at it, he comes back down, he says, “Yeah you’ve got some damage up there, but I can fix it. It’s going to be 5,000 bucks. I guess they actually maybe carried her down to the bank so she could pull out the 5,000 bucks. Then when they got back he basically went up to the roof and use some spray pain and spray painted some stuff. Then they collected the 5,000. Then I got they got greedy and came back the next day. 11:28 Lisa: Oh, yeah well if they knew they had a pigeon on... 11:31 John: Yeah and I think that’s... anyway one of the things the article said was that the guy who had done all of this had two people with him. These two people, I don’t know if they held the ladder or they helped drive or helped act like they are a... 11:53 Lisa: A crew... a roofing crew. 11:54 John: A roofing crew or something. I guess the point here is that essentially what the statute does is it’s expanding out the financial exploitation. 12:03 John: This is an example of financial exploitation of the elderly. 12:07 Lisa: The phantom contractors. We see that all the time. Yeah, “Well fix your driveway. Your roof. Remove the tree. Just give us the cash upfront or a substantial amount of the cash upfront.” Then you never see them again. 12:19 John: This is financial exploitation. The question becomes though we got the guy who clearly did it but what about the two yahoos that are just along for the ride? Essentially what the statute here is doing is expanding out the definition to not just the person who’s actively engaged in the exploitation but also the people that are assisting in it. Assistance can be a vague term. Was it just the person who drove him there? If they knew what he was going to do, then was just driving the transportation is that assistance, is it subject? I think that’s what they’re trying to get to is, “Yeah, if you know it’s going to happen and you’re involved in it somehow.” Then, yeah they want to try to catch it. Actually as I understand it, Lisa, this change to this statute actually comes from one particular case. 13:19 Lisa: You know, John, you know how under law at least when I was in high school sometimes we would talk about various statutes and things. Occasionally I would have a professor that would say, “Bad facts, make bad law.” 13:31 John: That’s right. 13:32 Lisa: A lot of times you’ll see a very unique situation and the facts are egregious. We’re all outraged and we want to do something about it and to make sure that situation never happens again. A law is hastily drafted and it is passed with gusto and it’s addressing that terrible, awful situation. It turns out the net is bigger than the terrible awful situation it was meant to address. 14:00 14:01 John: That’s exactly right. 14:03 Lisa: I think this change here in the financial abuse statute... when we come back from our break let’s talk about the net that the assistance of someone who is engaging in financial abuse of a senior who that may fall on. 14:19 John: Yeah, and we’re going to tell you about this story. If I’ve got a bucket and in this bucket I take a rich eccentric, Dallas... 14:32 Lisa: Model, Hollywood, starlet. 14:33 John: Ex-model, Hollywood, starlet widow who’s ageing. I add a couple of shady antique dealers and I... 14:44 Lisa: A well known Dallas mansion. 14:47 John: A well known Dallas mansion, and maybe a unscrupulous attorney. 14:53 Lisa: No, no unscrupulous attorneys. 14:56 John: Oh yeah, we’re going to put all these things in a bucket and see what kind of mess comes out the other side. We’re going to take a break, stick around and we’ll be right back. All right and we’re clear from that. Yeah, we’re going to be talking about a big Dallas case that came out a couple of years ago and it’s messy and it’s nasty and it’s good stuff. Nothing like a good story to illustrate the point. 15:28 Lisa: Dallas is always good. Everything is bigger in Dallas. We’ve got big facts, big crimes, big situations, big personalities in this case. Spoiler alert, maybe even some big jail time. 15:51 John: Good stuff out there. Of course if you’re watching whether you’re watching live or whether you’re watching one of our recorded version if you have any questions, you have any comments always feel free to push your comments right there on the page. 16:07 John: Or if you have a question ask it and even if we don’t get to it live we will respond to those questions and we’ll try to help you out and get you straight on all of that. In addition to all of that, if you like the show feel free to give us a like, like that person just did. You can share it with your friends because they might want to know some of this information as well. 16:38 Lisa: No. When we come back, John I know we’re going to end up talking about are you familiar with the Swiss Avenue area of Dallas? 16:45 John: I’m not, I don’t know it. You seem to know it, but I didn’t know it. 16:50 Lisa: Every Halloween I know Swiss Avenue is a big place where a lot of trick or treaters like to go. Because there’s all these old mansions that were built in the 1910s and 1920s. They really take part in decorating the mansion to make them spooky. Of course when you got these big old house is just perfect. Swiss Avenue is well known for their Halloween candy and coming out. 17:16 John: Who knew. I didn’t know that. Apparently, Lisa knew that. Probably anybody that’s got any association will Dallas would know that. Then, I’m not a Dallas person. 17:26 Lisa: Well, when that whole area was it was the place to be before World War 2. The family who built and donated dollar property for SMU lived in that area. This is for the movers and shakers. 17:44 John: Back in the old days. 17:45 Lisa: That’s right if J. R. Ewing had been living in Dallas in 1920 he would have lived in the Swiss Avenue area. How’s that? 17:53 John: There you go I think that pretty much settles it right there. All right we’re going back live in about 15 seconds. 18:00 18:28 Lisa: All right everybody, welcome back to Aging Insight. We are back here live on the radio. Of course if you have any questions you can give us a call at 9037931071. Today we’re talking about some change in the law about financial exploitation of seniors. Which adds the term that if you assist in some... it doesn’t even say in what way it just says, “If you assist with financial exploitation of a senior. Then you could be charged with a crime.” Before we get to our story today though. We do have a caller. Caller welcome you’re on Aging Insight. The caller is asking about that we did a show that we talked out putting someone on some real estate so that that real estate did not have to go through the probate process. Right. 20:10 Lisa: Is that reversible? All right so the question here is, and it’s a great one. Is if the senior adds a younger person to their deed in some way, so that the person goes to that person later without probate when the senior passes away. If that younger person has their own issues where they’re in a rank or disabled, can the senior change something about that deed and get that younger person off? 20:38 John: Or otherwise could the... like if it’s a car-wreck could the plaintiff come in and take the house? Or something like that. The short answer is it’s possible if it’s not structured correctly. For example one of the things that we often... one way we often do this is with something that we call a ladybird trust. It’s a type of deed where you are in fact adding... you’re putting somebody else’s name so that the property will pass at death, but you’re not exposing the asset to those other people just yet. They won’t get it until that seniors person dies. If they get divorced. If they file bankruptcy, if they get sued. If they become disabled. None of those issues would affect it. Yet, the property would still passed to them outside of probate. They would do it in a way that would escape Medicaid. 21:39 Lisa: Essentially there that younger person has no ownership interest that is attachable by a creditor or a plaintiff, so long as that senior landowner is alive. 21:53 John: To your question I have seen people that have done deeds on property where they just gave the person an outright interest in it. 22:04 John: Mom owns 50% and daughter owns 50% or something like that. 22:10 Lisa: Or even just a life estate, where mom keeps a life estate but gives the remainder interest in the property to daughter now. 22:16 John: That’s right and in those situations we have seen several situations where the child’s disability, the child’s liabilities can impact that. The short answer to your question is if it’s done properly you shouldn’t have to worry about that. 22:35 Lisa: Just need to check out what kind of... how that was structured? 22:38 John: That’s right. Sure absolutely, thanks for calling. We’re coming up on our bottom of the hour break here. 22:47 Lisa: Yeah, so our listeners will have to wait for this juicy story that they could learn something from when we get back from our news break. 22:55 John: Stick around we’ve got some... it’s going to be... it should be a good little story, anytime you get some weird Dallas entanglement it’s always pretty unusual. 23:07 Lisa: Well, and there’s always something that you can take from it. Sometimes it’s like observing what happened to others and you learn from it. 23:15 John: That’s right, stick around. All right so back on our break here and... 23:28 Lisa: That was a good question. It took up our time there, but it’s good to get clarification on that. 23:36 John: We apologize because of the way that Facebook Live is structured and the way our studio is structured we cannot get the callers voice on to the Facebook Live. We just don’t have the technology available to us at this point. We were trying some different things but right now we just can’t do it. 23:59 Lisa: We try to repeat what the caller’s question would be so that you can keep up with us. 24:04 John: It was a good point and this is something that I preach all the time which is you don’t ever plan for what you hope happens, you plan for what could happen. You plan for the bad stuff and then you go back and hope none of it happens. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen somebody where mom does a deed... she deeds her property to her two kids, three kids, one kid but retains a life estate. The right to live in it as long as she’s alive. Because she’s got these three kids and she loves these three kids and their world are all fine and dandy and so she’s not worried about it. She’s assuming though that that is going to be how it will always be. In reality though lives change and so I’ve seen a situation where one of the kids dies and their interest in that property goes to somebody that grandma really didn’t want. She didn’t like them. Maybe a spouse an in law or maybe a kid that’s got a problem themselves or something. We get grandma back in the office saying, “Well, I want to change this.” “Well I’m sorry it’s a done deal. You didn’t give yourself the power to change that sort of thing.” 25:27 Lisa: That’s why when we entered the caller, the question it really does depend on the proper structure of that type of transfer and that type of gift. That’s just vitally important. 25:39 John: A lot of this is where, this is where you get experience. This is where the drafter, the advisor that’s where our experience is going to come in to play in something like this. Because we do see those situations and we learn how to address those situations. Somebody that does this type of legal work on the side they do this also. 26:08 John: Oh well yeah they do... mostly they do car wrecks, but they’ll also do this. They’re not going to have this kind of experience and they’re not going to now how to structure it. Frankly they’re not even going to know that there was a problem. 26:21 Lisa: They’ll think it’s taken care of. 26:23 John: They' think it’s taken care of until it goes wrong. Then it’s already too late at that point in many cases. Some of these things you can’t do situations that you cannot undo. Many of it most situations when we see crisis there are ways to undo it and get it back to where it was supposed to be. There are some that you just can’t fit. 26:53 Lisa: When a caller calls in like that I always wonder what’s the back story? 27:00 John: Right, yeah are they already in that mix? Or was this just a... or was that person just... 27:07 Lisa: Just curious. 27:07 John: Just curious. Are they just thinking it through? I’ve had some pretty strong clients who will think it through. Let’s see we’ve got one minute left. Yeah, some clients are pretty sharp, they ask pretty good questions. Anticipating things that I haven’t told them yet. More often you get a call like that when they’re probably already in a mix. There’s probably already a problem. Yeah, unfortunately you’ve got to anticipate the problems way back before there ever are problems. Which of course one of those problems is the potential for exploitation. 27:48 Lisa: That is a big problem so many people they think of their parent as capable and competent. You know as we get older as we face health challenges. 28:03 Lisa: We’ve seen folks that we never would have thought would have been a victim, have been victimized. 28:06 John: The hardest thing for us to protect you from is yourself. All right. Going back in two seconds. Welcome back to Aging Insight everybody, this is your host John Ross here in the studio with Lisa Shoalmire we’re live on the radio. We’re live on Facebook, you can call us 9037931071. You can go to the Ross and Shoalmire Facebook page and check us out live there and type in your comments. If you have any, or you’ve got a comment, you’ve got a question or anything like that we’re out there. Anyway, we’re available here to you. Now, Lisa get us started on this story. 28:53 Lisa: All right, so this story involves a lady by the name of Mary Ellen Bendtsen. 28:59 John: Which is a fantastic name by the way. 29:02 Lisa: It’s a good Texas name Mary Ellen 29:04 John: Mary Ellen, yes. That’s right. 29:05 Lisa: That’s right we’re going to call her Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen Bendtsen she was born in the 1900s I think I should say. She was a Dallas figure of the 1920s and 30s. She was a tall blonde, statuesque. Just think of 29:28 inaudible she was striking. She modeled in the Dallas area. 29:37 John: She made the cover of Cosmo. 29:40 Lisa: She made the cover of Cosmo magazine. I bet she probably had a few more clothes on than the ladies do now on Cosmo. 29:46 John: That’s probably right. 29:47 Lisa: She ended up in New York where she was wined and dined in Manhattan with Cole Porter and all the celebrities of the day. She ended up back in Dallas where then she spent the rest of her life. 30:02 Lisa: She came back to Dallas in the late 40s and spent the rest of her life there in Dallas. Particularly she loved her home which was located as 4949 Swiss Avenue. The sprawling 7,000 foot Prairie style architecture, yellow home. If you’ve ever been over to Dallas you wouldn’t miss it. 30:27 John: Three stories tall, 7,000 square foot under roof and I forget how many bathrooms and 30:37 inaudible. 30:37 Lisa: Chandeliers and hand rubbed mahoganies, beautiful staircase. This was a glamour house for a glamour lady. Even after she returned to Dallas she continued to play the piano and sing and continued to hobnob with all the rich and famous in the Dallas community. She also apparently sang for President Truman when he came through Dallas. She had quite a collection of antiques and glamorous furs and jewelry and different things. She had this wonderful life. She married one time and she had one daughter. Time stops for no one, John. 31:25 John: Yeah, that’s true and her... she outlived her husband, he died I believe in was it in the 90s? 31:34 Lisa: I think it was a little earlier than that. 31:35 John: Oh yeah, late 80s I think maybe, late 80s. 31:37 Lisa: She’s by herself and her daughter had married and ended up moving to the East Coast. 31:42 John: Yeah, moved off to the East Coast. She’s now widowed, she getting older. 31:50 Lisa: She stays at that house. 31:52 John: She loves that house, this thing has been in her family, I think her mother originally. 31:59 Lisa: Yes, her mother originally purchased it. 32:00 32:01 John: Her sister owned it for a while. She’s got it now and I mean this thing is just a treasure. There’s a concept of trying to live the Dallas lifestyle. No better way to live the Dallas lifestyle than to have a home that says, Dallas. 32:25 Lisa: Right, more home than you could possibly need as one little lady with 7,000 square feet. 32:30 John: I have a member of my family that went through this as well and continued to buy bigger and bigger houses until they got one that was just ridiculous. Their water bill was more than most people’s mortgage because the house was so big. 32:44 Lisa: This lady as she retired and she didn’t have her performances and entertainment. Money is tight. She can’t keep up the house, it can’t be maintained, but she won’t cell the antiques and the beautiful furniture because it’s part of the house. She was playing the part of the movie starlet. She has these wonderful parties at her home even though the dining room ceiling is falling in. 33:14 John: Starting to sag and... 33:18 Lisa: People said she would come and wear her heals and her fancy dresses and her furs and host these parties. She attracted the attention of a couple of antiques dealers. 33:28 John: Enter the antiques dealers, Mr. McCay, was it McCay? 33:34 Lisa: Mr. McCay and Mr. Burgess. 33:37 John: McCay and Burgess have been on the scene in Dallas... 33:44 Lisa: Since the early 90s. 33:45 John: Since the early 90s and are known about the circles of wealthy older people. 33:54 Lisa: These antiques dealers seem to befriend older couples, older individuals. 34:02 Lisa: Then, somehow by the time these older folks passed on you know who ended up with the estates? 34:09 John: Let me guess McCay and Burgess. 34:12 Lisa: McCay and Burgess. These two I will call them men and not gentlemen they were on the radar. APS Adult Protective Services had been called in before. Other families had fought with these two men over the estates of their elderly and now passed away loved ones. With some success and some failures. 34:33 John: Right, but to a large extent these two had been managing to go out there befriend older folks and manage to make some financial gain at least for themselves. Now of course like any other story you’re going to have two sides. If you’re talking to McCay and Burgess they say that they are essentially the saviors of many of these older people whose families want to throw them into nursing homes. 35:05 Lisa: Or who’s families are just not around. 35:07 John: Or who’s families are just absent and they have nobody and so who else is going to take care of them but McCay and Burgess? 35:14 Lisa: Right and I don’t think there’s any question that they did provide attention to these seniors, they grocery shopped. They brought meals. They checked on them. I don’t think there’s any question about that. They also often had them sign some legal papers. 35:30 John: Yes, powers of attorney. 35:34 Lisa: Deeds. 35:34 John: Deeds, trusts. Different other things that again if you ask them those legal documents were necessarily so that they could help them out. 35:47 Lisa: Continue the wishes of their friends. 35:48 John: Continue their wishes. Help preserve their assets for in case they ever had to go to a nursing home. Or to use those assets so that they wouldn’t have to go to a nursing home and different things. 36:00 John: Again, a lot of very in many cases very legitimate sounding at least reasons. Often what this ended up being were some significant financial gain on behalf of these two. 36:13 Lisa: Here we have Mary Ellen who is the ageing model, New York 36:18 inaudible starlet. Ageing there in her humongous rambling house on Swiss Avenue chock full of antiques. John a lady like Mary Ellen who got to live the glamorous life and who always was so adored by gentlemen. Ladies were so jealous. A lady like that usually likes some attention. 36:45 John: Yeah and she might respond well to the attention of a couple of young men like McCay and Burgess. 36:52 Lisa: Right, so here we had Mary Ellen in her 80s and they end up securing an invitation to one of her lovely parties. During that party she just met... she just... that was when she met them. McCay ends up going upstairs even though it was roped off so he can just admire according to him. Just admire the home and the antiques. That started a relationship that would last for the next several years up until Ms. Mary Ellen’s death. Let’s take a break and we’ll come back and talk about what happened in the last years of Mary Ellen’s wife. 37:34 John: That sounds good, stick around. If you’ve ever listened to our show before, particularly if you ever listened to the show where we did the anatomy of elder abuse. We talked about how you... it always starts... there’s always the initial meeting and that initial meeting is always positive. 38:03 John: There’s always a gushing over the senior complimenting them based on who they are. In this case we have a lady who clearly likes attention. Likes to be thought of as retaining her... 38:16 Lisa: Elegance and dignity. 38:17 John: Elegance and then so you’re going to get somebody that plays on that. In other circumstances if for example if the person is a very religious minded person then the person will play on that. 38:31 Lisa: If they’re insecure about the future and everything that person will come in and offer them security. 38:38 John: Essentially whatever the scammer always starts the introduction by playing on what does that person fear or want in life. Whatever is going to get them in those good graces. That’s essentially what these guys did in this situation. By all accounts they were very good at it. Had done it many times knew what they were doing. We’re coming up on our last segment here so we’ve got about 15 more minutes of radio for you. In five seconds. 39:26 Lisa: All right everybody welcome back to our last segment today on Aging Insight and today we’re talking about a suggested change in the penal code that would allow a person to assist in the financial exploitation of an elder to also be charged with a crime just as much as the person who actually made it. The financial elder abuse and this law we believe has largely come out of this case involving Mary Ellen and McCay and Burgess. 40:00 40:00 John: We got Mary Ellen she’s getting older, she’s trying to live in her own home which is this gigantic old school Dallas house. We’ve got McCay and Burgess who are now inserting themselves into her life, building some relationships, building some confidences in all this. I do believe that during this time they started getting a little pushy. 40:26 Lisa: They do. They even hosted a party where they invited Mary Ellen’s friends that were, ‘On their side.’ To encourage her to sign a power of attorney in favor of them so that they could just take care of things for her. At the time Mary Ellen who had enough with her own wits about her that she was pretty offended by this pressure play and she did not sign the power of attorney at the time. She had this only daughter who lived on the East Coast but who by all accounts was very close to her. Called her frequently during week. Flew the mom to the East Coast for holidays. She came to Dallas frequently to check on her mom. Her daughter also had friends still in Dallas who would go by even weekly and check on her mom. There was not an estrangement there. In fact as Mary Ellen started having some more health issues and ageing issues McCay and Burgess got a lot pushier about, “Your house is falling down. You’re daughter is just going to want to put you in a nursing home. If you’ll sign over the house we’ll make sure you stay here. We will help fix the code problem where the city of Dallas will get off your back.” They got to be very, very pushy with her on this. One day when a friend stopped by Mary Ellen handed her a piece of paper and said, “Keep it.” 42:02 Lisa: It was a will that left everything to her one and only daughter. She said, “Keep it just in case.” Looks like we’ll take a caller here on our program on Aging Insight. Caller you’re on the air. That makes our day, thank you. 42:43 John: Yeah, no that’s awesome we appreciate that. 42:46 Lisa: All right. Well, thank you so much that’s a great... 42:48 John: All right, you too. Bye, bye. 42:51 Lisa: Great caller there. Just like Mary Ellen we all like a little stroke. 42:56 John: Everybody likes it. Everybody appreciate a compliment, but it’s awesome. 43:00 Lisa: In this case eventually Mary Ellen she took a fall. She was walking out of her home to check her mail and she fell down the steps down the tremendous front entrance. Ended up at Baylor Hospital. Eventually ended up having a stroke a short time later. John, you know who made it to the hospital room? 43:25 John: Yeah. My guess, just a wild guess, I bet it’s McCay and Burgess. 43:30 Lisa: McCay and Burgess. 43:32 John: She’s at the hospital, she’s had this fall and bam here comes swooping in McCay and Burgess the saviors. They’re there to make sure according to them that she’s being taken care of and all... 43:46 Lisa: That her evil daughter doesn’t come make her leave her Swiss Avenue home and move into a nursing home. 43:53 John: That’s exactly right. They’re going to be there to make sure of that. They brought some legal documents. 44:01 44:02 Lisa: They did they brought some legal documents including, if there was ever a guardianship needed that Mary Ellen would want McCay to serve as her guardian. They also brought a two page Will. With this Will came the attorney Mr. Olson. 44:23 John: Now, enter the attorney. Mr. Olson who had had some contact with her in the past, with Mrs... with Mary Ellen. Had also been acting as an attorney for McCay and Burgess as well in many of their legal dealings. In comes attorney Olson with a Will. I’m sure the Will appoints her daughter as the executor and leaves everything to the daughter. 44:54 Lisa: No. This new Will that replaced the will that Mary Ellen had previously done a couple years before that did leave everything to her daughter. This new Will left everything to McCay and Burgess. 45:08 John: Of course it did. 45:10 Lisa: No, it didn’t name them as executors. It named another friend of theirs as the executor. Ultimately they did end up with everything. The house et cetera, et cetera. 45:19 John: Under the document. 45:20 Lisa: Under the Will, yes. Of course Mary Ellen’s daughter has become aware of her health situation. She’s rushing into town. She even goes so far as to purchase a little home in 45:34 inaudible so that she can move her mom in with her in 45:37 inaudible and she’s going to stay with her mom. Who at this time is about 88 years of age. 45:45 John: McCay and Burgess they’re blocking contact. 45:49 Lisa: Yes, they cut off all contact based on the documents that they have. They tell the hospital that no one can see her. Even her friends from the neighborhood. That’s another thing straight out of the playbook. 46:00 46:01 John: It really is. Yeah. Cut off contact. Isolation and that’s what they start doing here. Now the daughter does the right thing. She goes and hires her own attorney and tries to get a temporary guardianship. 46:16 Lisa: That did not work, John. That is such a case by case basis and even a judge by judge basis or court by court basis. 46:25 John: Basically when she went to try to get a temporary guardianship despite all of these facts. The judge looked at it and he said, “Well I just don’t see enough here that it...” 46:38 Lisa: Imminent danger to her proper care. 46:41 John: There’s no imminent danger today. There’s no reason why we can’t take our sweet judicial time and spend a couple of weeks or months looking at everything and making a determination. 46:55 Lisa: The daughter was unable to get a temporary guardianship? 46:58 John: That’s right. 47:00 Lisa: The permanent guardianship proceedings were in play but that hearing was quite a ways off. In the meantime the judge had ordered that Mary Ellen remain in a rehab situation, getting medical care. The day he made that order Mary Ellen had already checked out and had gone back home to her Swiss Avenue rambler mansion. 47:28 John: That’s right with the help of McCay and Burgess. 47:29 Lisa: McCay and Burgess. The other thing, John is the attorney Olson he was representing, allegedly, Ms. Mary Ellen. When the judge ordered that Mary Ellen stay in a health care type environment the attorney did not disclose to the judge that Mary Ellen had already left the building. That she had already left the rehab facility. Which there’s problems there. Ultimately within a few weeks Mary Ellen had... she passed away. 48:02 John: She had a massive stroke and that was pretty much the end of it. 48:07 Lisa: During those few weeks, the daughter was prohibited from seeing her by McCay and Burgess. Within hours of her passing Olson files the two page Will leaving everything to McCay and Burgess. The will is filed for probate within hours of Mary Ellen’s death. 48:28 John: Within hours. 48:30 Lisa: That doesn’t happen folks. 48:32 John: No, it just doesn’t happen. Not unless there’s something going on. There’s clearly something going on. Yeah they filed the Will. Of course the daughter still has her Will that says that she’s supposed to be the executor. Now you’ve got a Will contest. What is discovered in relatively short order is that the attorney Olson’s two page second Will that leaves everything to the antiques dealers it’s got some issues. 49:02 Lisa: The notary never saw Mary Ellen sign it. The witnesses weren’t there at the same time to see her sign it. There were some issues. 49:16 John: The execution of a Will has to be done with some certain formalities. 49:21 Lisa: The statute is very clear about that. Ultimately, John this case works its way through the courts, for years and years and ultimately the daughter is successful. During that case the attorney... the antiques dealers are charged with the crime of defrauding a senior. The facts were so bad that Olson the attorney even though he did not benefit from the estate of Mary Ellen. Even though there was no allegation that he had done anything... pressured her or anything like that. 50:03 Here the reason this new statute is being proposed we believe is because they want to be able to catch in the criminal net anyone that assists. 50:17 John: Yeah. Because here’s the deal is that we got McCay and Olson who I believe were... 50:20 Lisa: McCay and Burgess. 50:22 John: I mean McCay and Burgess who were sentenced to I think four years in prison for financial exploitation of the elderly. Attorney Olson was disbarred. His law license was removed. Now the case was referred over to the district attorney’s office. District attorney’s got an indictment on attorney Olson. As I understand it that indictment is just sitting there. They have not actually gone through with the prosecution yet. 50:54 Lisa: Yeah, because right now if you look at the penal code there’s no... I don’t really know exactly what the attorney there was indicted for. 50:59 John: Right, because he did not participate. He did not financially exploit the person because it wasn’t his gain. Now he may have been the tool but the law as it sits currently doesn’t allow you to prosecute the person who assists in it. It just allows you to prosecute the person who did it. 51:23 Lisa: Who gains from it. We think this law is really something that has come up specifically for this Mary Ellen case that the district attorney is so frustrated that they can’t do something about this attorney Olson from a criminal standpoint that they’ve asked the legislature to include some rules that would help them do that. John, one thing I look at and worry about is what about a notary. Or what about a witness to a Will who is not all that familiar? 51:53 John: Well, and that’s the thing and then we’ve got a caller calling in but we’re here at the end of the show so we’re not going to be able to take the call. 52:00 John: I guess that’s the point is you know there are a lot of grey situations in here. Yeah if somebody said, “Hey my mom signed this Will, but you know she’s homebound. You work at the bank so you’re a notary would you mind notarizing this?” 52:17 Lisa: No, no, no. 52:17 John: If it came back later. Yeah, no, I think even that notary could have the potential of criminal prosecution. Not just, “Hey you’re a fool and you’re going to lose your notary license.” You know you may have the potential of going to jail for elder abuse which is a much bigger deal here. That’s just a lot of stuff going on. Anyway thanks for listening everybody. 52:47 Lisa: See you next week. 52:47 John: Well, see you. 52:55 Lisa: All right, see you all. 52:58 John: Yep, bye. We’ll see you. Thanks for watching.