Guardians for Profit: When a Family Matter Turns Into a Business:

Jones’ conservator is part of a young, growing and largely unregulated trade in California.

Conservatorship began as a way to help families protect enfeebled relatives from predators and self-neglect. As a final recourse, courts take basic freedoms from grown men and women and give conservators sweeping power over their property, their money and the smallest details of their lives.

But lawmakers and judges did not foresee that professionals would turn what had been a family matter into a business.

In the hands of this new breed of entrepreneur, a system meant to safeguard the elderly and infirm often fails them.

A couple of thoughts. First, my guess would be that this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Second, how could lawmakers not foresee this result?

Postscript (8:29 AM / Mon- Nov 14, 2005)

Here is part two.

Emmeline Frey was wheeled toward the bench, escorted by a family friend. She was 93 years old and frail, suffering from dementia and a broken hip.

In San Diego County’s busy Probate Court, it was up to Judge Thomas R. Mitchell to decide how to preserve the $1 million she had amassed pinching pennies over a lifetime. On the recommendation of Frey’s attorney, he appointed a professional conservator named Donna Daum.

Frey’s affairs were now in the hands of a caretaker acting under court supervision. Her money should have been safe.

It was not.

Daum gave her son, a car salesman turned financial advisor, more than $500,000 of Frey’s savings to invest. Over the next four years, the investments lost more than $100,000 in value while the son collected commissions.

Mitchell, who described himself as the “super father” of the seniors who entered his courtroom, never questioned what Daum was doing with her client’s money or why her son was involved.

The case illustrates how inaction and inattention by the courts have left many elderly Californians vulnerable to abuse by the very people entrusted with their care. (Read the Rest)