National

Association

to

Guardian

Abuse©

 

•

 Special
TV
Reports
   
   

BECOME INFORMED:
 
 • Ten Dirty  Tricks
 • Warning Signals
 
•
 		 Partners in    Crime
 •
 		 The Enablers
 
 •
 		 The Pirates
 
 •
 		 An Open
Door
 
 •
 		 Misnomers
 
 •
 		 No One is Safe
 
 •
 		 Veterans
In Peril
 
 •
 		 Stripped of All Power
 
 •
 		 Practical Advice
 
 •
 		 YouTube Videos
 
 •
 		 Great Escapes
(Success
Stories!)
 

 •
 

 In Memoriam
 
 •
 		 Victims
 
• Memorial Donations
   
 •
 		 Soapbox
 
 •
 		 Who's Really to Blame?
 
 • Who Else is Paying the Price?
   
 • Related links
   
 •
Our Mission
 
 • Wanted!
   
 •

JOIN  NASGA Advocates for Reform
 

 •

 Contact  us!
   
 • NASGA's BLOG

Great Escapes!
(Success Stories!)

We celebrate these successes and congratulate the families.....

 2009

So happy to tell your readers how I was restored. My sincere appreciation to a fair and objective neurologist from Northfield, Il. who took his time to listen to my story and agreed I did not need a guardian. This letter from him was the ticket out of the system.  Immediately, my money was returned and my property.  It took months for the mail to get back to me. It all started with a letter from a neurologist in Hinsdale, who was not fair or objective, and is now facing legal action.

The court seems to act on direction of the physician, without a medical doctor.  I doubt people would find themselves as property in the for-profit and legal swindle of guardianship.  The one thing that baffled me and still does:  the ward is not even given basic competency tests.  It should be required before the judge gives your rights, money and mail up to anyone, or in my case everyone.  My daughter, her two lawyers. The OPG (office of public guardian) caseworkers, more lawyers, the GAL (guardian ad litem) and finally my attorney who admitted I was high functioning - normal as any one of them - and more so than some.  I showed up at every court date for two years, while I worked a full time job, and wrote letters of complaint to all organizations I could think of. I was on a mission to beat the system and get my life back. Nothing was gonna stop me; I was determined. It cost me and plenty, but it worked. Freedom really is priceless.

Also, the only agency that was even willing to act on the behalf of the ward is "Equip for Equality".

So, that is the end of two years of fighting, stunning legal fees and the family I used to depend on -  the same family that used to depend on me.  I miss my grandsons and hope someday things are different.  And final thanks goes to the attorney who took my med malpractice case to court.

 

 

    January 2008 

Maydelle Trambarulo is finally FREE!  A resident of NJ, she has been trapped by the CT probate system for three long years and imprisoned in a CT nursing home away from her family

After a Superior Court judge recently ruled Maydelle could return to her family, unbelievably, her conservator asked the judge for a stay of Maydelle's release from his custody!  The battle seemed insurmountable, but the Trambarulos believe in miracles - and they just got one!

  Look at these smiles! 

See this story on Fox TV:

 http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=5821397&version=4&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

 

 

Helen Fabis is Sylvia Rudek's beloved Aunt and God Mother. 
She was clothing designer and gifted seamstress.  She designed and sewed Sylvia's wedding dress, veil, purse-the entire outfit including the apron that is customary to put on at the end of the wedding reception. This photo still makes Sylvia smile; it always will. 

Although Sylvia lost her dear Aunt, she was instrumental in seeing that the temporary guardian, Kathleen Simane, was held accountable and lost her  own freedom  when she was sent to prison.

 

Woman sentenced for swindling
great-aunt (Published Friday, July 21, 2006 11:19:31 AM CDT)
By Mike DuPre' Gazette Staff

 (Note:  Kathleen Simane was Sylvia's Aunt's court-appointed temporary guardian.)

The next 20 years of Kathleen Simane's life will be either behind bars or under the state's watchful eye.  And if Simane violates either extended supervision or probation she could spend up to 25 years in prison.

Judge James Daley sentenced Simane, 36, St. Paul, Minn., on Thursday for two counts of theft by bailee in a case in which her great-aunt, Helen Fabis, and other relatives were swindled out of more than $78,000.  Simane pleaded guilty to the two charges in April.

In a barely audible voice, Simane apologized to her relatives for her crimes and said she would pay the court-ordered restitution: $78,290.

In addition, she must pay a 15 percent surcharge-$11,743-to the estate.

"She is incredibly remorseful and never intended to do any harm to (Fabis)," said Simane's attorney, Stephanie Ames of Woodland Hills, Calif.

Simane became Fabis' guardian because no one else in the family was willing to help the elderly woman, not because she was after her money, Ames said.

"This is a crime of impulse and opportunity," the lawyer said.

Fabis, an 85-year-old childless widow of 30 years, fell seriously ill in March 2001, and Simane was named temporary guardian in what was a family emergency.

Fabis, a rural Edgerton resident, died the next month.

Prosecutor Barbara Oswald, an assistant attorney general for Wisconsin, painted a different picture: "This is a case about greed, not about need. … Kathleen Simane is a financial predator. She preys on people whose assets allow her to live a better lifestyle."

Within days of gaining access to Fabis' accounts, Simane started spending her great-aunt's money, Oswald said.

Simane paid off one car and bought a better vehicle, Ames said.

Simane paid for breast augmentation with Fabis' money, and after Fabis died in April 2001, Simane asked that the funeral be delayed while her breasts healed, according to court documents.

"(Simane) also went to the effort of cashing (Fabis') Social Security checks," the prosecutor said.

Two relatives-Estelle Hartman, one of Fabis' sisters, and Sylvia Rudek, Hartman's daughter-asked the judge to sentence Simane to at least 10 years in prison.

"I am sad, and I feel guilty for the tragic way Helen died," Hartman said in a statement read by Ames. "The pain became greater as Kathleen's betrayal and treatment of my sister was revealed by my daughter, Sylvia."

Rudek said:  "Our family of four generations was destroyed by one person, and that person is Kathleen Simane. Kathleen Simane is not considered a member of our family. …

"There is nothing that Kathleen Simane won't say or do to get what she wants," Rudek said.

In levying his sentence, Daley noted Fabis' vulnerability and Simane's speed in taking advantage of her great-aunt.

"The funds should have been used for her benefit, but you used them for your benefit," Daley admonished Simane. "You took money from someone who could not protect herself. You were supposed to protect her. …

"We as a people will be judged by how we treat the least in our society and those who cannot help themselves," the judge said.

(See also:  From Television Personality to Prison)

 

Wrenching Story Ends With Justice
Waterbury, Connecticut
by Rick Greene
July 14, 2006

(Note:  Daniel Gross is NASGA Member Dee King's Father)

I could go on about the travesty that left Daniel Gross - an 86-year-old New York man with no legal connection to Connecticut - locked in a Waterbury nursing home for 10 months, his freedom stolen in the courtroom of Waterbury Probate Judge Thomas Brunnock.

Gross's shameful ordeal is a powerful lesson for our state legislators and governor, who are unwilling to demand reform of Connecticut's shoddy probate court system.

But Gross is now a free man. I prefer the words of the Superior Court judge who ordered Gross freed at an emotional hearing in Waterbury Wednesday.

"A terrible miscarriage of justice has happened here," Judge Joseph Gormley told the courtroom as Brunnock and the lawyers who worked on the old man's behalf hung their heads.

What happened was Gross, ailing and living alone on Long Island, came to visit his daughter in Waterbury last summer. He was hospitalized in August, suffering from cellulitis, as his children bickered over his care and who should control his money.

With Gross increasingly uncooperative, the hospital asked probate court to step in. His children agreed. Within days, Brunnock approved handing control of Gross's life to a court-appointed conservator.

Gross didn't want a conservator and wasn't even at the probate court hearing at which a conservator was named.

"This case has disturbed me from day one. I kept looking for evidence to support what was done, but I find none," said Gormley, who freed Gross on a writ of habeas corpus, terminating the conservatorship.

Gormley had strong words for Gross's court-appointed lawyer, Jonathan Newman. Last September Newman urged Brunnock to name a conservator for Gross, taking away his freedom and control over his finances.

"It is obvious to me he grossly underrepresented and misrepresented Mr. Gross," Gormley told the court as Gross looked on. The ruling removes Newman, and Kathleen Donovan, his conservator, from Gross's life. Newman was unavailable for comment Thursday.

Gormley said he was mystified how Brunnock thought his court - which covers Waterbury, Wolcott and Middlebury - had jurisdiction over the estate of a New York man visiting his daughter. He likened it to the absurd notion of forcing visitors to the state to pay income taxes merely because they spent a few days here.

Mr. Gross's plight is yet another reason to doubt the probate courts. It is a system in which prospective judges with close ties to the local legal community win office through election, their campaign coffers stuffed with contributions from lawyers and political insiders. No legal training is required to be a probate judge. Procedures can vary widely from district to district.

I wonder how many other Daniel Grosses there are, ones whose lives are buried in the backslapping underworld of probate court.

Were it not for two volunteer lawyers, John Peters of West Hartford and Veronica Halpine of Greater Hartford Legal Aid, Gross might still be in Grove Manor Nursing Home. His house, approved for sale by Brunnock, might have been sold, and an old man forever lost.

Ambling out of Wednesday's hearing with a walker, Gross said he couldn't wait to return to Long Island, where he will now live with his daughter Carolyn's assistance.

"I am overwhelmed with happiness," he said.

So am I.

Rick Green's column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached at rgreen@courant.com

 

           
(c) 2006