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The Elder Law Coach
Todd Whatley is a Certified Elder Law Attorney, practicing attorney and now the Elder Law Coach. His passion is to help attorneys become proficient Elder Law Attorneys. He still practices law with over 22 years of experience with offices in two states. He is the Past President of the National Elder Law Foundation, the ABA accredited certifying organization for the ABA. He LOVES working with new and experienced attorneys to help them have the best job in the world and help a great population. Visit him at www.TheElderLawCoach.com. This podcast was formally known as Elder Law in a Box.
The Elder Law Coach
Uncovering Elder Abuse: Insights and Solutions with Leslie Albrecht
Ever wondered what it takes to identify and combat elder abuse effectively? Join us as we sit down with Leslie Albrecht, a leading authority on elder abuse, who shares her transformative journey from her early days with the San Diego Police Department to establishing the pioneering Elder Abuse Unit in 2000. Leslie offers a candid look at the struggles of recognizing elder abuse as a criminal offense and the critical need for law enforcement training. Listen to her compelling insights on the pervasive issue of financial exploitation among seniors and learn why distinguishing between criminal acts and social issues is vital in protecting our most vulnerable populations.
Our conversation navigates the intricacies of elder financial abuse, with Leslie shedding light on subtle signs that can often go unnoticed. We delve into the complexities of family dynamics and the importance of creating a safe space for seniors to voice their concerns without fear of intimidation. Discover the nuanced techniques investigators use, such as observing body language and ensuring confidential interviews, to ensure seniors aren't coerced into unwanted financial decisions. Through Leslie’s expert lens, gain invaluable knowledge on how to protect seniors' autonomy while preventing them from becoming unwitting financial resources for others.
As we turn our focus to the challenges within the elder care system, Leslie highlights shocking gaps in caregiver background checks and the unintended consequences of technology in elder scams. Her stories are a stark reminder of the broader societal neglect faced by seniors, urging immediate reforms. We dive into real-life cases of elder abuse, stressing the importance of awareness and collaboration in building strong legal cases. Leslie’s insights underscore the need for careful caregiver selection and maintaining seniors' independence, offering a clarion call for society to reevaluate how we safeguard our elderly community.
To contact Ms. Albrecht:
Albrecht Consulting/Criminal Investigations
San Diego Police Department- Detective (Ret.)
901 E St. Louis St. Ste 107
Springfield. Mo. 65806
(417) 771-5899-Desk
(619) 992-8682-Cell
Check out our new website www.TheElderLawCoach.com.
Thank you. Specialized experience, Whether you're an established attorney looking to refine your expertise or an emerging lawyer seeking a successful foray into elder law, this is your masterclass. Now let's get started with the luminary in the field. Here's Todd Whatley.
Speaker 2:That's right. This is the Elder Law Coach podcast. My name is Todd Whatley and, as always, I'm extremely thankful that you are here with us, and today we have a fantastic guest. It's not just me talking today, I have a guest that, if you've done elder law for probably more than about two days, you have probably seen some elder abuse, and today's expert is Leslie Albrecht, and she is a elder abuse expert. So, leslie, thanks for being with us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Todd. I'm very excited to be here. It's always good to get the word out when we can, Leslie.
Speaker 2:I think your history is very interesting, so tell us how you got into this.
Speaker 3:My career in law enforcement started in 1989 when I joined the San Diego Police Department and like all law enforcement agencies, you start at the very bottom and you just sort of work your way through whatever section of law enforcement you want to get into. And in 2000, I decided to put in for investigation. I received that promotion and I was selected as one of six investigators to start the San Diego Elder Abuse Unit. So the San Diego Police Department started the very first dedicated investigative team of detect. To this day, elder abuse is investigated by law enforcement but it's often tucked into investigations of domestic violence, investigations of child abuse. Investigators that have those cases tend to also get the elder abuse cases. Well, you can imagine what happens you get pushed to the bottom of the back because there is so much domestic violence and so much child abuse that these cases often get overlooked. So San Diego saw that and said we need to start dedicating some expertise into this. And so I was one of six investigators that started that unit and I ended up staying there. I really took to it and enjoyed it and I ended up staying there for about almost 10 years and really honed in on my craft and I've been doing it ever since.
Speaker 3:Now my law enforcement career. After 10 years in that unit, I went into other units, but I have always maintained, you know, one foot in this field at all times. And once I retired in 2014, I decided to start up my own practice. I got my PI license and I'm also doing expert witness now. I've traveled the country, have taught in just about every state there is. I have taught at academies. I've taught sworn, non-sworn, I mean, you name it social workers, attorneys. I've been a keynote speaker and I've also testified in multiple elder abuse cases. So, yeah, really, really have enjoyed it and also found that there's not much expertise in it in this country.
Speaker 3:So I've had a lot of work.
Speaker 2:Sure. So what do you see as being most challenging in this line of work?
Speaker 3:I can tell you right off the bat, the number one challenging is getting law enforcement agencies to even recognize this as a crime.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Every time I have called and I have clear evidence and they're like this is a civil matter. This is a civil matter and I'm like so how do you address that?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, the first thing I say is well, if it's a civil matter, let's take a look at your law book and see if we can find it. And we immediately find it, don't we? So theft is theft, physical assault is physical assault, and depending on the circumstances is what type of crime you have. And so when I point this out to our young officers in the academies, or even our seasoned officers, who arrive on a scene and don't realize what they're looking at, then the big light bulb comes on. Then the next challenge is getting the superiors to acknowledge it, getting that agency to actually start getting some training in there, because if the officer responding to the case doesn't understand that it's even a criminal matter, how's he going to know how to investigate it?
Speaker 3:So that is the number one issue, and I thought way back many, many years ago that we would slowly get that word out. And we have gotten the word out. But the problem is acceptance. Acceptance and taking it in as understanding this is not a family problem or there is a thing as coercion and undue influence, and that people can be talked right out of their life savings. So, yeah, I would say that's the biggest frustration.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you kind of delved into it. So how would you define elder abuse?
Speaker 3:Elder abuse is a crime perpetrated against a senior. Depending on the state, it could start at age 60 or 65. You can be a senior in many states at 55. To be an actual elder, where you're protected within the law, it's usually 60 or 65. The law has recognized that our seniors in our country are as vulnerable as children, and so we have to protect them. The one difference is they have money and our children don't. So the number one crime perpetrated against elderly and when you say elder abuse, people go gross. That's somebody lying in their filth and those home care agencies and the facilities. And yes, that does happen.
Speaker 3:That is true, but the actual number one crime perpetrated against the elderly is fiduciary. It's financial and it is in the multi-billion dollar point at this, and so you have many types, so the top one is fiduciary. I see financial issues involved in almost every type of elder abuse. It is very rare to find an elder abuse case where money is not at some point involved in it.
Speaker 3:I would absolutely agree with that, you've got to go back the layers and find it. There's always a motive and it's almost always money. And then you have physical abuse and you have neglect. And then there's also self-neglect. But that's not a crime. So the investigator needs to understand is this a social issue or is this a crime? So it is a kind of crime that you've got to understand these layers and all that goes into it. So you have physical, you have neglect, criminal level neglect that could be shredded by a caretaker, and then you have physical.
Speaker 3:you have neglect, criminal level neglect that could be shredded by a caretaker. And then you have fiscal, financial neglect. I often see people say verbal abuse. You know verbal abuse happens in elder abuse cases but you cannot charge just on verbal abuse. Social workers call me and go oh, they're just the son or the daughter is just so horrible to this person and they call them names and they ridicule them. Now we want to dive into it, see if maybe more is going on.
Speaker 2:Probably is yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but just in itself being an idiot, a jerk or whatever you want to call somebody we cannot do a case or charge them. And I often say to groups when I teach we'd be putting half of America in custody if it's being just a jerk, because you know you can't do that. So that's what you see in the types of cases. I want to make sure I've listed them all. We've got physical assault, we've got theft, we've got neglect. I think that's self-neglect. Did I forget one?
Speaker 2:I don't think so I think that's all of them. Yeah, that's a pretty good list. So what are some signs? I mean as attorneys, since this podcast is going out toward attorneys what are things that we need?
Speaker 3:to be looking for. I'll tell you, the first thing and I'm sure your guests will recognize this is when you have someone bring in a senior to start maybe working on an estate plan or suddenly have an estate plan change. You want to pay close attention to that. We expect our seniors to start getting their affairs in order and that's absolutely fine. But pay attention to who's walking in your office. Do you know that senior? Sometimes you know your clients and you've known them for many, many years and you know the family and you know the dynamics. You've worked with them before on maybe some other legal issues they've needed. Well then, obviously, pay close attention to that.
Speaker 3:Attorneys in most states are not mandated reporters of elder abuse because you have that privacy privilege. However, I would hope ethically that attorneys would always try and do the best to their ability to protect. So if you see someone come in, something's not right, the senior's looking extra nervous, the senior seems hesitant, the senior is mentally not sharp. You know you've got to do your due diligence and you want to do a separation and you never speak to your client in front of the other persons that might have arrived with them initially. Ok, so now I know if a client wants a person in a room, we've got to let them do that. But if there's a possible way you can do a separation where you can spend a reasonable amount of time just you and that senior talking to them, asking some basic questions, engage in a conversation and see if it seems right and if your gut's telling you something's not right, and even if you can't pinpoint it, still make that call.
Speaker 3:I always tell everyone report suspicion. You cannot be held liable. You know if a report of potential elder abuse is made in good faith you cannot legally be liable for that. You're also kept anonymous and I worked in elder abuse issues in multiple states. I don't see any social services that ever give that information away.
Speaker 3:That is highly maintained. It would take a court order from a judge to give away who the reporting party is. I've never seen it relevant in a case. Anyway, we could get right into what you find when you got the report. So spend some time and talk to them. And what did they want? Talk to them about their family. Talk to them and know the answers ahead of time, because seniors who are starting to have cognitive issues can very easily do what's called masking or they can very well make it look like they're answering the questions normally. Now you can say tell me about your children. Well, I had three kids, but no ahead of time. Do they? Or do they have five?
Speaker 3:right and what are their names and what are their ages and what do you want to see? Well, you know it's really my desire to have everything even. But my kids are really upset and they might very well bring you into the family dynamics. Don't get yourself wrapped up in some legal problem if you can help it. So if you start seeing those legal dynamics, it's always easier to back off. You start hearing about the family you know well. They brought me in here. They really want this and you know those things. You've heard them in your world. Back off of it. Make another appointment. Find a reason to delay them if you're not comfortable confronting, but make that 1-800 phone call to your local elder abuse hotline and at least get it looked into.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I come across this a lot because I do a lot of Medicaid and I think a lot of our attorneys do Medicaid and there's a five year. Look back on gifts and people sometimes don't consider making a child's car payment as a gift. Well, it is, or, you know, paying off things or giving college money or whatever. I've got a guy just this week and he's been making his daughter's his 47 yearold daughter's car payment for the last two or three years, you know, and it's just like, yeah, he spent his money the way he wants, if he's cognitively sound to do it.
Speaker 3:And that's what's key is we want to make sure he is making the. But then again, see and that's why you've got to understand the layers I've had it where, in your case, like, let's say that man has always done that, he's always done that for 20 years and now he's starting to show some cognitive issues. And somebody in the family might go, uh-oh, he's got cognitive issues. He can't be doing that, but the investigation's going to show that that has been his norm for 20 years. We don't have a crime. Now what we want to do is get him into the social side, get him set up, because he clearly is starting to fail cognitively. But as far as what he's been doing has been a habit, and so you look at that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's delve into that just a little bit, because my, you know, one of my questions is and I always tell my coaching clients, we need to honor our clients' dignity and you know, autonomy, okay, but even though this person has no dementia, you know where do we draw the line between you know pressure from a daughter to say, you know, I've got to get to work and I can't get to work if I don't have this car and I need you to make this payment, and them feeling tremendous pressure from someone but yeah, they're competent, and the difference between doing it voluntarily or doing it under undue influence. I'm sure that's a very fine line.
Speaker 2:It sure can be.
Speaker 3:Again, that takes getting into their life, getting into their world, which of course you can't do. You have a business to run and that's where my world comes in. So and that's where I try to talk to these officers Don't just walk up to the door, knock on it, spend 30 seconds saying hello and saying everything looks great here and walk away, get in and figure out what's going on. So that fine line, a lot of it is just your gut feeling that something doesn't seem right. Maybe they're just a little off, and in order to see the difference, you know, again, that just takes looking at the family dynamics. Like one of the things I'll do as an investigator is, of course, I sit down with my senior and they absolutely have to be alone and I want them to feel comfortable in their environment and I want them to feel like they can open up to me. So I'll spend quite a bit of time just visiting with them, just talking, and then, once they start to feel a little comfortable with me, then I start to ask them questions about the family dynamics and it might come out just in a conversation about how I don't, you know, I don't, I want to help my daughter. Maybe they'll say but I'm on a fixed income and I just can't afford it. But I tell you she gets so angry and I, and that just assists. You know, I just get, I don't want her to get nervous. Well, are you scared of her? They might say, no, I'm not scared, but I don't like it when they get angry. So you have to take in all that as an investigator, taking all that as an investigator.
Speaker 3:I do a ton of description in my investigation, in other words, when I'm writing my reports, I talk about my entire environment, what those homes looking like, who's living in what rooms, who's driving what cars. Because we'll have someone come into a senior's life and take over their home and take over the master bedroom and take over the nice car in the driveway master bedroom and take over the nice car in the driveway. So let's see if everything again is normal behavior for the family, if this is sudden change behavior. Can the senior afford it, you know? And then at some point I'm going to actually talk to the person who might be taking advantage of the parent and find out what they have to say. You will hear them and I'm sure you have. Well, I'm the only kid in the family that really pays attention to mom and dad and I'm the only one who cares for them and my brother and sister are just too busy and they just don't have the time and I'm there day in and day out, so I deserve it.
Speaker 3:Well, that's really not how it works. So I've often had to tell people you have to wait till you inherit to take your inheritance. They're actually still alive. So, again, we look at the dynamics of it all I look at. My whole thing is to get cooperation from my senior and if I start getting cooperation then I can, you know, I can get more truth out of them if it's actually working right or they're going to cover up and they're going to be scared and they're going to be nervous. And that's another thing we train investigators to do is look at the person's body reaction, look at their face. Look at their eyes darting around and nervous that that caretaker is going to walk in the room and hear what we're talking about. Pay attention, the person who's caring for the senior. If that's our perpetrator.
Speaker 3:Pay attention, the person who's caring for the senior, if that's our perpetrator, are they hovering, are they answering for the senior? And these are all red flags that I start going oh, I'm not going away. Or sometimes after two hours I'm absolutely satisfied, Everything's fine and I have a ticked off sibling. That's just, that's jealous. And the senior, you know, because this is the thing, you can spend your money on anybody you want to, and you can spend your money in this country any way you want to. You are free to do so. So what we have to figure out is are you cognitively making a good decision? Are you coerced or do you just not know what you're doing?
Speaker 3:I have people that I call the local atm a senior living alone in a house that has quite a bit of money and the local dirtbags in the neighborhood figure it out and start showing up at the front door to be their new best friend and they become the local ATM. So we have to go in and figure out. So sometimes it's a matter of getting their permission and I'll have them fill out a form to where I can take a look at their finances. Sometimes they'll say I haven't seen my finances. I don't know how much money I gave all that over to, you know, my son or my daughter or my cousin or whomever is taking care of them, and so I don't know how much money. Well, why don't we go take a look together? And sometimes I find nothing and I go away, and other times I find something.
Speaker 2:Tremendous, yeah. So yeah, it's interesting how I typically do it. If the kid comes in with the parent, I will bring them both in initially and just have very opening conversations, nothing in depth, and then if I start to sense something, I will ask the kid to leave Because you know, like you said, the older person is very nervous. They're not used to lawyers and I'll bring them in so that they can say that I'm generally a nice guy and this is not going to be high pressure.
Speaker 2:But then I asked the kid to leave and they're like oh, mom can't answer questions without me. I'm like, yes, she can. Well, if she truly can't, then we need to do a guardianship, but if if she can answer questions, you need to leave that resistance. If there is resistance, that's a huge red flag that okay, I know what we're dealing with now, and so you absolutely, um, yeah, eventually they well, I mean, I've had some not leave. I'm like, if you don't leave the room, I will not represent your mom right.
Speaker 3:You know, and you can easily explain it to them, that you can even tell them it's a requirement that I talk to them individually just to make sure everybody's on the same page, and they just shouldn't have a problem with that.
Speaker 3:You know now. The second thing I see a lot of people do is they love to wave that power of attorney in front of you as if it gives them free reign to do anything in a person's life and when and I've had officers fall for that Well, they had power of attorney, they had power of attorney and so and you could see a young officer, right, they don't go to these calls every day and they get very little training, if any, in the police academy and they will show up at a house or at a bank or wherever they're getting called and they see this paperwork being thrown out. I'm the power of attorney and everybody's arguing but what about guardianship? And they hear all these words in these terms that they don't get. So they just back up. I don't know. Power of attorney, legal mumble, jumble, I don't know. I'm just going to back off.
Speaker 3:I think this is just an issue. We'll have officers not do anything, but at least they'll make a call to adult protective services. So at least they'll make a call to Adult Protective Services, so at least we'll get them in the system and we'll have a social worker digging a little further. So I at least try to get the officers to understand that anytime they walk into a senior's house, if anything's being accused of by anyone, whether you believe it or not at least when you leave you have to make a report that you were there and what the issue was, so that we can go behind them.
Speaker 3:When I say we, I mean the social workers, because I work so close with them, and the social workers will then get that they have within. It depends on the state, but most have to respond within 10 days, unless it's an emergency right now, and then they have to go out and start digging a little further, and they're highly trained on looking at the red flags and the issues, and they then send a report over for law enforcement if they uncover something that could potentially be criminal. And that's how I often almost always got my cases were referred from social workers or referred from officers the social workers. The first thing they'll say is well, we called the police, they didn't do anything because they said it was civil.
Speaker 2:Civil, her family matter. Yeah, there we go yeah.
Speaker 3:So I've had to fight a few times. I've even had to fight with prosecutors who don't want to take my case, especially here I'm currently in Missouri.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it is a lot to learn in the field of elder abuse out here. A lot, there's a lot to learn. This is one of the reasons I got so passionate into this. I was so excited to be a brand new detective. And the reason I got into the elder abuse unit was because I had done a few cases and I knew if I put in for it I might have a chance to get it. And when I got it for me, at the beginning it was just another investigative job.
Speaker 3:But within a few weeks of starting the job I got one of many cases on my desk, and this particular case was a financial case and it was a case of a grandmother who had had a decent amount of money in her life and she lived in a nice part of San Diego and her children and grandchildren had put her in a independent living facility. So she basically has her own little cute apartment, but she goes down to the cafeteria for food and you know this kind of stuff Activities are always done. But she needed a caregiver to come into this little apartment to help her with bathing and cleaning and so forth, and so the family contacted a well-established home care agency and they hired a caretaker through them that would come in and do help around the house and with cleaning. The caretaker arrived and, unbeknownst to anybody, within 48 hours she had found a stack of checkbooks that were in the house and she had started taking checks out of the back and forging them Now.
Speaker 3:It didn't take long and the family soon realized because they were overseeing grandma's money and didn't realize a checkbook had been left in the apartment. So somebody caught it pretty soon. There was not a lot of money missing when the call came in. So the call comes in, the police take a report, it gets to my desk, I'm looking it over and I do what any investigator who is this caretaker hired by this well-established, good agency? And I do my work and I start looking up her background. Kaboom, the girl's name and date of birth that the care agency had on her comes back to a 14-page rap sheet. I thought some care agencies did background checks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, did they not do a background?
Speaker 2:check yeah.
Speaker 3:So I called them up and I said to the care agency did you do a background check? Yes, okay, did she pass? Well, to be honest with you, detective, we hired her before we got the results back, because, you got to understand, caretaking is such an evolving door. It's hard to get someone to stay in these positions. We just go through people and we didn't want another agency to grab her. So we went with our gut and we got her in there and we got her working and we are still waiting. She just started a few weeks ago and we're still waiting it to come back. Is there a problem? I go well, yeah, it's not going to pass, it's going to come back failed. Who did you send the money off to to do a background check? The going to come back. Failed. Who did you send the money off to to do a background check? The department of justice. They told me the California department of justice, and that's who we went through and I said, okay, well, it's going to come back and get ready. You're probably going to get sued because this family is going to realize that you didn't do a background check when you always claim you do.
Speaker 3:So a week later they call me up and they go we just got the background check and she passed what? Wow? I'm looking at a 14, and every single thing on her rap sheet had to do with financial theft. She had done shoplifting, she had done burglary, she had done petty theft, you name it. She'd done forgeries. Her entire world was all about being a thief, and yet she passes the background.
Speaker 3:I said what do you guys get for your background? I don't know, I'm just the HR person, I just send it off on this fax machine. So I called the Department of Justice. I'm like what's going on here? How did this girl pass the background? And I get a hold of the right people at Department of Justice and I eventually find out that the Department of Justice offers a background check to care agencies and it's only a 15 at the time, and this was 20 years ago. I'm sure it's only 20 bucks now though, but at the time it was like 10 bucks and they send in the person's info and the DOJ does its background check and sends it. And I go well then, how did this girl pass? And they said they took a look at everything and they said oh, we see how she passed. You see, in California, but you know, I'm starting to find it Todd in other places as well.
Speaker 3:Okay, at the time in California the DOJ placed background checks for elderly children in the same category as background checks for children caregiving, child care agencies. If you want to work at a preschool, if you want to be a coach of a baseball team, the volunteer type stuff, background checks.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Okay, so that's why it got put in there. Yeah, they didn't know at the time where to really shove it. So we do the same background checks we do for people that work with children, because we figured that would be important. This is the problem the background check for children has everything to do with physical assault and sexual abuse and nothing to do with financial, because children don't have money. So the only thing checked on this woman was drug use and assaultive behavior. Physical abuse and death is not even on these people, and the number one crime against the elderly is financial. And then it gets better. And then I started looking further. I decided at this point this has got to stop. And I started a whole committee. We're going to get this to stop. We're going to get this to stop. We're going to get the law changed.
Speaker 3:And in our research for the next year, I found that the California prison system offers and I believe it might still be doing it the California prison system offers a vocational course to inmates. You know all those rehab things you can do. So when you get out and you have a job, yep, well, guess what? They offer a course on caring for the elderly so you can get out as a convicted felon and be in a senior's home that afternoon, good, great. And when you look at the Department of Corrections curriculum for courses given to inmates, the only one that has to do with caring for people is elder. There's nothing in there where you could be a caregiver for children.
Speaker 3:It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous, and I found that because I had seen I had the drug addict getting out of prison and being in a home that afternoon by Golden Care Agency. That's going to go into grandma's, so there's nobody watching. You have to do due diligence to watch your family. We are much more diligent as a country to make sure who's taking care of our children. We would never allow a convicted felon to take care of our children. We don't seem to care when it comes to our seniors and they have just as much to lose as a child does if not financial.
Speaker 2:I always say that there's a lot of fundraisers for neglected puppies and children, but there's not much for seniors.
Speaker 3:That's another thing I say. We have shelters for domestic violence and we have shelters for families that are homeless, and we have shelters. We have places for veterans. We have nothing for seniors to go to in an emergency. We have nothing for seniors to go to in an emergency.
Speaker 3:Time and time again I get calls all over this country from officers saying Leslie, I have a senior, I found them in filth in their house. They cannot stay here. So we take them to the hospital because they got to be looked at first. Right, yeah, well, the hospital's ready to spit them out in 24 hours. Where do I take them? They can't go back to their house because they need care. They don't have anyone because they're the only one left in their family. There's nobody caring for them. The house is deplorable. Where do we put them? What do we do? I have begged doctors to keep them in the hospital. We've had it where the hospital calls and says we're now getting a cab, we're pushing them out the door. Where do you put them?
Speaker 3:We have runaway shelters for juveniles. We have nothing for seniors. We need this country to pay attention that we're living longer and we need more to help, and we're all going to be there one day. So if somebody needs to take an officer needs to take a senior out of an environment that is dangerous. We have nowhere to put the no temporary where there's caregivers and people to oversee what their needs are until our social workers can get them permanent homes, which takes just a period of paperwork, because a lot of times they qualify for, you know, a senior housing, but it's the paperwork that's going to take a month. So we need a temporary shelter and that's what we need to start doing and I've never seen anybody do it yet.
Speaker 2:You're right, I hadn't thought about that. But yeah, they go to the hospital and then they have to go somewhere because the doctor's like, okay, yeah, we fixed them up, we got them hydrated.
Speaker 3:They're not that bad. Off, boom off they go. And yeah, take them and put them right into a skilled facility, but there's paperwork, you, you cannot. The facility will not accept them. So we've got this big red tape problem. And so, even if it's an emergency, they won't accept us. So you have to have a temporary in-between and that's the fundraising that I'd like to see start happening to help our seniors, like we do for all the fundraising. I mean we need all those other shelters. We also need them for our seniors.
Speaker 2:You're right, very good point, all right. So what are?
Speaker 3:some trends that you're seeing that we can address. Since I've been involved in this now for 25 years, I've probably investigated well over 700 elder abuse cases, and the one thing I used to say when I'd go out and do my speaking engagements is I would say, at least we don't have to worry about the computers, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, but now we have to worry about the computers.
Speaker 3:So that's the trend I'm seeing now. There's so much loneliness in getting older and so people reach out and they start learning and even if they just have the basics, it really takes nothing. So what I'm starting to see is a lot more sweetheart scams being perpetrated over the Internet A lot more. You know when COVID happened, oh Lord, the loneliness, granny takeovers where someone meets or gets to know a senior who's living alone in a house and talks their way in and basically becomes a roommate and then takes over the house and starts selling drugs out of it or whatever might be happening.
Speaker 3:We've had a couple of cases. You know quite a few cases of that. But the computer one is an issue and I often tell people. Young people will say, well, I'm going to tell my senior parent, I'm going to show them how to get on the internet so they can get in these chat rooms and they can visit and get to know other seniors. That is not a good idea If someone of a senior level is not interested in learning a computer because they don't do that modern stuff. Don't push it, don't push it.
Speaker 2:That's a good idea, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well and you know, I grew up I'm 59, I'll be 60 this year and so I grew up in an age where the phone was hanging on the wall or sitting beside the couch and if someone called, they're meaning to call you, it's someone you know, and so you pick up the phone because that's just what you do, and these older people still do that. If someone calls, they're like, well, I have to answer, no, you don't. You don't have to answer because tenses are, it's a scammer. And if you know and I think that's one of my biggest things is, yeah, stay off the computer if you don't know what you're doing. And, god bless my mother, she was. She died in 2016.
Speaker 2:And for the last few years of her life, I was constantly going over to her house because she would click on an email link and it would just cause all kinds of problems. I'm like, mother, don't click on these links. And it was just, yeah, the computer was a huge frustration and she never fell for those, but I can see how easily. But I think the biggest thing and I had a friend of mine called the other day and she said her sister just sent some scammer $8,000 because they called and said hey, that computer that you ordered, we need payment up front before we send it. She said, well, I didn't order a computer. Oh, yes, you did it up front before we sent it. She said, well, I didn't order a computer, oh, yes, you did. She's like, no, I didn't. And she argued with him and said yes, I have the order right here. If you don't pay for this, the police are going to come to your house. Yes, oh my God, that is so ridiculous, you know exactly what to say.
Speaker 3:She got scared. You know exactly what to say. We're talking about a group of people that believe that everyone's honest and they're very patriotic and they're very polite and they don't want and they believe. I mean, why would someone lie? I mean why you know. So that's the hardest part is is the gullibility you know and you appreciate that, that gentle kindness. But at the same time you've got to teach them to be wise and to be cautious. And they've had that same phone for 45 years, so you know they're going to answer it, they're going to talk to whoever's on the other line. They're lonely, so they chit-chat for a while.
Speaker 3:And yeah, we got the phone scams. Go down and buy me some gift cards, and that's why every time you go into a bank or a lot of the and I do a ton of bank training you know when the seniors come in and they need to make large withdrawals, they'll ask them questions to make sure. But then the scammers know what to tell the senior to answer. So we see all sorts of scams like that going on the sweetheart scams over the phone. We have the bank scams, where I'm the bank examiner and you're going to help us catch a bad teller who's stealing from.
Speaker 3:And we noticed they were looking at your account. So we're going to need you to go in and make a withdrawal and we want you to come in and do it and then walk out to the outside and we'll take the money and put it back for you. I mean, it sounds bizarre, right? Oh yeah, I haven't heard of that one. Oh yeah, come down. Oh yeah, that's one.
Speaker 3:We're calling from the bank. We're the authority at the bank or we're the bank examiner, and I need you to go get some money out of your account because we have a teller who's stealing and we know that they've been looking at your account. So we want you to go in there and take, you know, $5,000 out. We're going to have you come in and the teller you go up to and the senior will fall for it and they'll go up to the teller and they'll withdraw the money and they'll go out to outside and there'll be a person waiting and they'll go. Ok, you can give it back to me and I'll go put it back and we appreciate you helping in the investigation.
Speaker 3:Or we have the grandma I'm in jail scam and I need money right now and I'm going to have somebody come pick it up.
Speaker 2:With. Ai now they can duplicate voices so well, it sounds just like them, and that's kind of sad about how disconnected families are. That a grandparent wouldn't know that their granddaughter's not in Mexico, you know? She calls us like hey, grandma, I'm in Mexico and I just got arrested. Oh for you not to know that it's just kind of sad.
Speaker 3:Double-check these things right and they often don't. So those are the really hard ones. We can't get the money back. And to lose that kind of money I mean when seniors lose chunks of their investments or chunks of their money it's devastating. I mean it's devastating to anybody, but it can be even more devastating to a senior because they can't make that money back, they can't go back to work. They feel terribly taken advantage of.
Speaker 3:They don't even want to tell people in their family it's happened yeah so a lot of times we'll have such a great loss of money because it's going on for a period of time and they're just not going to tell anyone. Because if they tell someone that they got scammed, then they're going to think they can't take care of themselves. And that's the scariest thing of all is a senior losing their independence and being taken away from their home, because that's the number one thing seniors do not want is to lose their independence and be taken away from their home. So that's also the number one thing that is threatened to a senior if they don't cooperate. In other words, what I'm pointing out is your number one and number two suspects in these cases statistically proven are caretakers and family members. It's actually family members first, then comes caretakers, and often the family member is the caretaker, but family members are by far the number one suspects in these cases. And what are families? How do they pick? How do you pick the right person to look out for you? I'll tell you something.
Speaker 3:This is the story I always share everyone, because I see this happen time and time and time again. You'll have a regular family and, let's say, this couple has four children. Three of the kids grow up and do fine. They're normal, they have a normal life. They, you know, go on, they get married, they have careers, they have families and everything is wonderful. But there's that one kid, that one in that family of four that never got their act together. They screwed up in school, had a little bit of a drug problem in high school, couldn't keep a job. Mommy and daddy felt sorry for him, bailed him out constantly, has babies. They're not paying for lives off of mom and dad in the basement. Let's go on and on. We're all recognizing we might be recognizing our own relative right, those who are listening now?
Speaker 3:Okay, so guess who mom and dad expects to be their taker.
Speaker 2:The one that's there, the one who's?
Speaker 3:already moving off of mom and dad, the one who's already living at home, and guess who always agrees to it? All the other children who are too busy to deal with mom and dad. So yeah, let's let Junior do it. He's a screw-up anyway. And that way you know what. We can even sign him up for IHSS in-home support services and then that way the government will pay them. If mom and dad makes low enough income, then they can actually get a few shekels from the government to be the caretaker to mom and dad, and all we have to do is have mom and dad sign off on their timesheet.
Speaker 3:Guess who forges the timesheet and doesn't ever do any work for mom and dad. Guess who yells at mom and dad to make sure they forge that. Who guess who keeps taking money on top of the other money? Guess who cannot take care of mom and dad if they can't take care of themselves? He's got children he doesn't take care of. He's got a job he can't handle. He can't get his bed made in the morning. How is he gonna take care of mom and dad or she? But yet that person the whole family agrees needs to go in the house to take care of mom and dad. Don't do it. The person who needs to take care of mom and dad is probably the busiest person in the family, but definitely don't allow the problem child to be the one, because that will then be a absolute nightmare that you're contributing to.
Speaker 3:When the time comes, I wish I was to the point where all the money's gone and all of a sudden everybody looks and goes. What, hey, we put you in charge to pay the bills. The house is going into a rear engine.
Speaker 2:I wish my listeners could see this. I'm doing this visually and she is riled up, you see me getting all this. She is riled up, that's good.
Speaker 3:I'm very passionate.
Speaker 2:I appreciate the passion.
Speaker 3:I'm all over the room like that. So I have some great classes I teach, if anybody's ever interested, and I have tape recordings and everything of interviews. I've got some undue influence stuff that just blows your mind. And another thing, and let's point out, and I'm sure your listeners are aware of this, elder abuse doesn't happen just in the lower income areas. Elder abuse can be rich on rich. I have a case I'm working on right now where the daughter is very successful and very wealthy, but so was mom in her day, and the daughter is doing the best she can to get all the inheritance to the tune of unduly influencing mom right over the phone. So what does a good investigator do? I record those phone calls. So there's so many ways and that's what you do as an investigator. You start looking at the law within the state you're working in and how you can work these cases, and there's rarely a situation you can't put together a decent case if you have cooperation. That's key.
Speaker 2:So what can you do for us as attorneys?
Speaker 3:Well, what can I do? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, if we see elder abuse, if we see something going on and if we say we can't get the police involved, they just won't get involved. Can we call you and get you to look at some things for us?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I have a website elderabuseexpertcom. I can be reached on that and then I'll be glad to hand to you if you want to later I'll give you all my personal information and that you can get it out to everyone. So, yeah, I do a ton of training and do a ton of speaking and I'm not expensive because I love to travel.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Okay, paige is a happy girl, but also, you know, I want people just to care. Yeah, you know we can get so busy into making money in our careers and moving along, moving along, but remember to care. Seniors are not easy to work with. Okay, this is not an easy area to work in. Yeah, not an easy area to work in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Seniors can be grouchy, stubborn, set in their ways, absolute pain in the butt and full on liars if they want to be Sure, because they're just human, like everybody else, and they're nervous. The minute they're in your office they're nervous. The minute I walk in their home or they come to my office, they're nervous. So make sure you spend some time learning. Get your training in there and just the training of the law that you all know. Learn the social side. Learn from trainers who can come in and show your staff how the elder brain works, because seniors look at things different. They come from a different time than we do. They have different expectations. They have even male-female differences.
Speaker 3:You know you look at your grandparents and how their dynamics were as a couple and how they ran their home, and now one of them's dead and say it's dad, grandpa, who died and grandma never handled the checkbook because he was the man in the house. Okay, we can get mad at that, all we want, but we just need to deal with it. And right now, let's take over that checkbook and make sure grandma's okay. So I guess my thing is to just truly get it. Get it in its entirety and you will find you are a better attorney for your client because you're going to understand all their needs. You'll pick up on little things that maybe aren't even in your wheelhouse but you might be able to share with someone they might need that. But yeah, you know, that's really. What I want to say is just make sure your training is extremely thorough and don't give up on your law enforcement.
Speaker 3:I guess, call me and I could put the word out to local law enforcement. Or, you know, when you're having your conversation with an officer who's trying to tell you it's civil, pull out the law book.
Speaker 2:The criminal law book, the guy who's on your offices.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true, we say in my part of the world, let's look at the law book. Oh, you say this is Sybil. Okay, here, every single state has an elder abuse statute. Sure, every single one. And you'll be amazed at how powerful they are if you don't understand them. And when you look at it, you show that law book to that officer who's standing in your office and you're trying to make a case. Look at it.
Speaker 3:Says through deception, coercion, undue influence and money was taken. Because they think undue influence is, she gave permission. Well, they were talked into it, but she still gave permission. No, no, no, no. There's a thing called undue influence. It's like brainwashing. Can you talk a child into being a victim of child abuse? Yeah, how do our child abusers lure their children in? Seniors get lured in also for a different reason Financial gain, almost always. So that's how I explain to the officer. So if there's a way you can still be passionate about it and say you've, and then don't be ashamed, but I'm a fighter is to ask for their supervisor.
Speaker 3:You're trying to make an elder abuse report. You know you're looking at good evidence, you know you have a crime and you have an officer going. No, I'm sorry, it's civil, let me talk to your supervisor. You have a right as a citizen that I want to talk to your supervisor and make that supervisor then come into your office. Tell me why, because I'm looking at it in the law book. Tell me why you can't take a report on this. But I'll tell you what the problem is. Once they do get you, get them talked into taking that report, who's he going to give it to? The detective hasn't been trained either. If he hasn't trained his officer.
Speaker 3:So, my biggest dilemma now is, as I'm getting close to retirement, I'm trying to get as much training in as I can. To get these agencies to realize you need a dedicated team. You need to at least dedicate some of your hours of your academy towards training elder abuse. And I am now starting to get invited into these academies so that people understand.
Speaker 3:But just don't give up. Just call the next officer, or at least call APS, every single time you see something that could be something. And even if you're not sure it's not your job, to be sure it's the social worker's job All you need is suspicion. That's a good point and you have every right to make that call, and wouldn't you sleep better at night to know you had someone checking, then to find out six months later you read it in the newspaper that we have a dead senior. Oh, I knew that person.
Speaker 2:Oh my god I knew that was gonna happen. I know they got that dirtbag kid in their house, yeah, with a drug problem. You know very good points. Okay, is there anything else we've not talked about that you want to let our listeners know? Give?
Speaker 3:me a call anytime yes, and you've got my email. Elderviewsexpertcom're right, it's fairly new.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, leslie, thank you very much. I appreciate your time today and to all my listeners. Thank you for listening and if you need Leslie's help, her contact information will be in the show notes. And, as always, thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time. And, as always, thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining this episode of the Elder Law Coach podcast. For those eager to take their elder law practice to new heights and are interested in Todd's acclaimed coaching program, visit wwwtheelderlawcoachcom. With Todd Whatley by your side, the journey to becoming an elder law authority has never been more achievable. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing and stay passionate about elder law.