 I just need you to sign this right here, okay? And this will help so I can take care of things for us. What is it? It's just a document that lets me take care of bills for you, you know, so that you don't have to be involved in everything all the time here. Just take the pen, will you mom? I can't read it. We don't need to. You don't need to. I'm telling you what it is. Elder financial abuse has become the crime of the 21st century. Elders are afraid and they do not report. There are a lot of people that don't believe that elder abuse exists. It was a crime of opportunity. Maybe they got power of attorney for legitimate reasons but then they realized that it sort of gave them carte blanche to go and do whatever they wanted with the person's assets. I just need you to sign this right here, okay? People are afraid of withdrawal of care. They're afraid of premature institutionalization due to financial destitution. It's a very serious crime and we must pay attention. Daddy used to do this. Daddy used to do this. You know but I'm doing it now because daddy's not doing it right now, okay? So I'm sort of taking daddy's place so you just take the pen and you sign it and everything will be good. Let daddy do it. Daddy can't do it. Daddy's going on a trip, remember? When there's financial abuse occurring it always involves emotional abuse and most often involves physical abuse. Come on, just sign the paper. Right there. That's it. Come on. Good. Go on. The last name too. Put your last name too. Come on. Cunningham. There are a lot of instances where a victim will have signed the grant deeds. They'll have signed the checks. They'll have signed all the real estate documents to transfer a title of their property but if they didn't understand what they were signing it's no less a crime. Mom, you're not making marks. Mom, you've got to make marks on the paper. Make the marks. You could do it. Come on. Cunningham. Cunningham. Come on. Let's do it together. Write your name on the paper. Mom, please just write your name on the paper. Come on. Come on. Don't. Come on. Mom, now you're just doing this. Mom, you have to sign the paper. Mom, you've got to sign the damn paper. Would you sign the damn paper? Sign the damn paper. Mom. Come on. Come on. You'd do it if daddy asked you to. Just do it for me. Would you just sign the paper? Just so I can get things fixed up for us so we're okay? Come on, Mom. Sign it. Sign the tragedy it is to reach one's golden years and be a ripped off victim. All right, Mom. All right. All right. I'll tell you. That's real good, Mom. Give me the pen. Good. That's real good. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. You can wear your wedding ring tonight. I'll get it out for you. You can wear it tonight. Okay? Okay? That'd be nice, huh? Wouldn't that be nice? Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Mom. People see it in financial institutions every day where somebody may bring an elderly person to the bank and withdraw large sums of money. You may see it at the recorder's office where a person is adding a name to a deed or taking a refinance on someone's home. I think people see it. They just don't realize what is actually behind that. It's there. I think it's there every day. That's great. Okay. What, honey? What? Oh, there. Yeah. All right. All right. Yeah. Okay, Mom. Okay. Mom. Mom, it's okay. Oh, Mom. Come on. Stop it. Oh, Mom. Come on. It's all right. Just, Mom. Okay. Mom. Come on. I can't do this. Mom, I don't like this. Come on, Mom. Mom, it's all right. Okay? Come on. Just read your magazine. It happens to all socioeconomic groups and it happens to all cultures. Prevention is the key. And the second thing is the rapid response is absolutely the way to go. If we don't respond immediately and stop that looming predator, then the assets are gone. We have either recovered or prevented the loss of $71.8 million of our elders' assets. That's about saving money, but more than money, we save lives. Mortality rates for victims of financial abuse are three times higher than non-victims studies reveal. While the nation's violent crime rate decreases, financial crimes against the elderly are increasing due to the aging of the population and greater concentration of wealth among older people. California's Santa Clara County, like the rest of the country, is experiencing exponential growth of its senior populace. Financial abuse of the elderly has also been dramatically rising. Since persons over 50 control at least 70% of the nation's household net worth, they are frequent targets for exploiters, especially if they are homebound and disabled in some way. These critical factors were all influential to the development of Santa Clara County's Social Services Agency, Department of Aging and Adult Services, Financial Abuse Specialist Team, FAST. In developing a model to address the complex problem of financial abuse, it became clear that rapid response would be essential to stop the loss of the elder's estate and begin recovering those assets that may have already been lost. Hi Mrs. Cunningham, my name's Valerie. I'm a social worker with Santa Clara County. How are you? I'm fine. Good. This is my co-worker, Herlinda. Hi Mrs. Cunningham, my name is Herlinda Acevedo. Nice to meet you. I'm with Santa Clara County Public Guardians Office. How are you today? How do you do? And this is Greg, my other co-worker. Good morning Mrs. Cunningham. Greg Razier, I'm with the Public Guardians Office also. Nice to meet you. And here's my business card. We were wondering if we could speak to you for a few minutes inside. As a result, the Department of Aging and Adult Services created a multi-disciplinary rapid response team made up of professional staff from various departments within the county system. This includes Adult Protective Services, County Council, Public Guardian and the District Attorney. The team assesses reports of financial abuse received by Adult Protective Services including response to imminent danger and life-threatening situations 24 hours a day. Sources of reports include law enforcement, healthcare professionals, family members and financial institutions. The initial response is a coordinated effort and usually occurs within hours. Your report too fast starts in Adult Protective Services. Oh, he's having problems with his husband. Sounds like this might be a case that we can investigate, financial abuse. Can you give us a quick summary of your report? We've got several people that are dedicated to just taking reports. It then goes to the emergency response fast supervisor who does a risk assessment to decide whether it's something that looks like it needs to be taken care of immediately. We call those super fast if we need to convene the team immediately or if it's less risk game can wait until, for instance, our next meeting and he immediately faxes it over to the Public Guardian's office and also to the District Attorney's office and County Council. So basically all the partners that are part of fast get alerted at the same time that something's going on. And if the case is super fast then we start getting on the phones right away and try and set up the different players in the team and who's going to go out immediately. Ben? Ben? Don't quiet down. I'm going to put you in a damn nursing home. Just give me about ten minutes without Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben. Will you? Just be quiet. Hey, Mom, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what, you know the house is mine now. You know? And the money's mine now and there's nothing anybody needs from you anymore. You might just as well go ahead and die. What I'm looking for is the perceived degree of severity or risk to the client in the reported information. We may have more or less information at the time the report comes in depending on what the reporting party knows and we have to make some judgments based on that information. So if we have information that indicates that the person may have limited ability to advocate for themselves or manage their own affairs, that's certainly a risk factor. If there's a recent loss of a spouse that had perhaps managed the affairs, that's a risk factor. All those things come into play and help us determine what kind of response we should make to that particular report. Okay, alright. Okay, a little bit there. Good. Alright, alright, got some money. Now we can go. Thanks, Mom. One of the things that people don't realize about financial abuses is that it's usually perpetrated by family members or relatives. A typical scenario might be a situation where you've got an elderly woman who is supporting her 35 to 45-year-old son who hasn't had a job for an awful long time, probably a substance abuser. Any time you get into a dependent class of victim, there is going to be less reporting and the reasons are obvious. They're so afraid that what little support they have is going to go away. They're so afraid of becoming homeless that they'll put up with a lot. So the problem is great and that's why the public at large needs to be more aware of the problems that elders face and ensure their safety. The biggest fear is that if your adult child who's abusing you goes to jail, then you're going to end up in a nursing home and so frequently we'll get elders that will say that their adult child is not abusing them and we go ahead and proceed through other types of evidence and corroborative statements. But there is shame. Elders don't imagine that they raise their children to do this to them. For the physical abuse cases and the financial abuse cases, there is often recanting. It's like, well, I've called the police. He said he won't do it anymore. He said he's going to get a job and repay me. I might have fallen down after all. I'm really not sure now what happened is something that we hear and it is absolutely heartbreaking because it's so reminiscent of what the domestic violence victim does and it's the same situation. Their abuser has power and control over them and so they keep that power and control through a criminal prosecution. And I have to be very quiet. They're very noisy but I have to be very quiet. I can see that that's making you real upset. I don't want them in the garage. You don't want them in the garage. The red flags, you look at somebody who, they should have money and now they're not able to pay their bills. A big red flag is somebody who is confused about their financial affairs because if somebody is confused about their financial affairs, if they have not been victimized yet, they probably will be because somebody around them is going to catch on, that they're confused about their financial affairs and seek to capitalize on that. An elder person with a shiny new car in the driveway when the elder is not driving anymore, credit cards that are maxed out because in this day and age our senior citizens don't tend to use credit cards very extravagantly. A bank account that decreases very rapidly refinance on a home because think about it, a 30-year mortgage taken out by an elder, you've got to look at how they're going to pay it back if their income at that point is social security. Is this a mortgage that they're going to be able to pay back? And what are their monetary needs? Other types of cases we see are ones that are referred to as transient criminal activity. Those are the cases where you've got whole organizations that prey on elders. People stop by an elder's home and, you know, they know which elders are home during the day. They've studied the neighborhood. They'll stop by and say, well, I'm in the neighborhood trimming trees for your neighbor around the corner and I've got some extra time. I'm in the neighborhood trimming trees or we're in the neighborhood and we're paving driveways and we've got some extra materials. Can I pay your driveway? And either they charge exorbitant prices for this kind of thing that the elder can no longer do for themselves or arrange for themselves or they don't deliver the work. Other types of cases we see typically they'll call an elder at home and say, you've just won a million dollars with the Canadian lottery but you need to pay the taxes first. So I need you to wire the taxes to and then give an address. By the time we can actually locate them or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police can locate them, they've moved. A lot of cases we get that involve mortgage fraud. The loans are huge. And when you look at the loans compared to the elder's income, that should be a red flag. How is this ever going to happen? And in truth, what happens is those mortgages go into default. The crook doesn't care because they've taken the loan proceeds and it's the victim that's left holding the foreclosure notice. One of the things I would recommend that every fast team take a look at is not having some sort of dollar amount on a particular case. For us, we've always taken the position that a person who is built out of their SSI check, that's all the money they have in the world. And that's just as important to them for taking care of their needs as a person who has a $10 million estate. And so we approach all these cases the same way and consider them all with the same importance. I wondered if I could ask you some silly questions about your memory. Yes. Would that be okay? Sometimes I forget. That's okay. But I'm good at poetry. Okay. Well, you're going to feel like you're in school again. All right. And how about today's date? It's in the paper. Oh, okay. Is that how you keep track? Yes. Oh, okay. And tell me what season it is outside. It's winter. All right. And what's the day of the week today? It's Wednesday. All right. See, you're doing great. And how about the month? It's February, January. February. One of the tools we do use routinely in helping us understand risk and what a person might need from us is the Full Steam Mini-Middle Status Exam. And while it's not a perfect tool and it doesn't answer all the questions about person's capacity or abilities, it is a guideline. And it helps us have at least some objective findings early on in our casework about where we may need to be heading or what additional information we may need to get. The probate courts almost always require a medical finding of incapacity in order to establish conservatorship. But I had one victim and she said to me, well, I don't care what happens in this case because what matters to me is that you cared. And so it's comments like that that really pump you up and make you realize that what you're doing does affect people and is important. The APS social worker is the person who's dealing with the alleged victim, helping to care for that person, already setting up services, grocery shopping, ordering medications, sitting with that person and talking with them about what's gone on and how can we help you to remove the immediate risk at hand. It's a complete picture and then also we can address the victim's needs very comprehensively because while we're off going and trying to get the bad guy and hold the bad guy accountable and put together our criminal case, Adult Protective Services is working to make sure that the victim has someone to take care of him or her, is taken to the doctor, someone's buying groceries and they take care of the finances so they make sure that the bills are being paid and those are all things that really we can't do. And if we were to just go in and especially in a lot of our cases the suspect is somebody that was previously performing those functions for the victim. So if we go in and we just focus solely on the criminal case, we may have left the victim in a worse case from a human standpoint than they were before. So we need to address their needs comprehensively and the way we can do that is with the work of all the agencies together. Deputy Public Guardian is a court appointed conservator for individuals that are unable to take care of themselves. They have problems with making medical decisions, housing decisions, financial decisions. Frequently are very much exposed to potential abuse, physical and financial. Deputy Public Guardian investigators are in the home looking for assets. What is the situation? How bad is it? How do we assess what's happened in terms of preventing financial destitution? Once a case is referred to the public guardian and it's appropriate, and that's a key word, appropriate for conservatorship, then it moves us into a whole different arena. We are responsible for all the financial assets for that client. That means taking possession of bank accounts, stocks and bonds, stocks accounts, making sure the house is safe. We have, by code, we have the responsibility to secure assets, to make all essential payments for that client, to make sure that their medical care is paid for, to arrange for that within the means of the client. And sometimes what it means is you have to be very creative on how you work with that individual. You know, if they can stay in the home, but you don't have a lot of money, maybe it's a refinance. Maybe it's private caregivers. There's a lot of different scenarios that we can work out to assure somebody's in their homes. The, it's actually, the 2901 is the section that sets up a certificate, which allows for the public guardian to immediately freeze assets when there is an intention of filing for conservatorship on an individual. And where that really is significant with the FAST team in the work that we do is that a lot of times we need a few more days to do a little more intense investigation, plus be able to freeze those assets so they don't leave, freeze those bank accounts to temporarily stop a property sale, that type of thing. We've had situations and scenarios where we've actually been able to get a call in the morning, file papers in the afternoon, freeze assets and really protect that elder immediately. There's a civil matter that needs to be carried forth on behalf of a conservatee, let's say recovering property or so on and so forth. That would have to be done by our county council. And so those cases that we responded to nearly three years ago are just coming up in court because of the backlog. You're also talking about the criminal prosecution. If there's a criminal element to the particular situation, it can take quite a bit of time for the district attorney to bring something forth. In the meantime, Adult Protective Services in the public guardians office is still dealing with the needs of that particular person. You have to walk a fine line when you're intervening in someone's personal financial affairs. And we do look at these cases very carefully. But if there are the basic facts before you that show someone may be being taken advantage of and may not have all their faculties, doesn't it serve the better good to hold on to those assets while you explore whether or not the person is being taken advantage of? So I would err on the side of going out there and collecting the assets as the law allows and sorting out whether this is folly or just a frenzied caretaker able to get away with something. So there's a civil avenue. There's also a criminal avenue that these cases can take. We've gone out and we've kind of seen how cases have played out. I'll just address the criminal side. We've seen what kinds of cases we can prosecute and what kinds of cases we're not going to be a successful in court. And so we've become wiser about which cases we're going to allocate resources to. We will always conduct that initial investigation. But we've learned to figure out earlier on which cases ultimately leading us to a successful criminal prosecution and which cases are really better addressed in the civil courts. The law enforcement component is represented by the district attorney's office. So what we do is review cases, review reports to see if crimes have been committed. And in the event that they are, then we would direct the investigation and the follow-through on those cases. And we've educated the police they've got to be more proactive and we've, as deputy DAs and our investigators, have to be more proactive and actually go out and investigate cases before there's clear evidence of a crime, which increases our workload. But it's worth it because what happens is we go out on these cases sooner and a lot of times we're actually able to stop a loss from occurring, which then in the end eases up our workload because we don't have a criminal prosecution. If the facts of the case meet the legal criteria for conservatorship, the public guardian and county council collaborate to obtain an emergency temporary conservatorship. This provides the legal authority to secure assets, continue the investigation, and pursue possible criminal prosecution. Through fast action, in addition to preserving financial assets, steps are taken to improve living arrangements and greater independence, provide broader choices regarding medical care, and enhance physical and emotional health. Fast efforts have generated inestimable savings in costs to government agencies and the community as a whole. Without assets, an elder or dependent adult would be forced to turn to public assistance for support, including possible costly institutionalization. Cases are prosecuted or otherwise resolved faster, reducing law enforcement and court costs. One thing I could help you with, would you let me help you with that? I'd like to help you with that. Would you let me do that? Okay, okay, well let's see what we can work out. The beauty of this partnership is that all of the partners were able to know what their strengths were and what might be obstacles that we needed to overcome. In terms of strengths, everyone was open to know not only what their role was, but to try to understand what the others' roles were and to try to really listen and understand and work together for an outcome. In a lot of our cases that we've done the most good, our victims really aren't in a position to really comprehend it. It's like domestic violence where when you've sent someone to prison and you've really gotten them out of the victim's life, sometimes that victim comes in things you've ruined their lives because you've taken this person away and that was their source of support. I mean for some valid concerns that they have. Similarly in these cases where you've really, you've really reversed a very bad situation. Usually the reason that bad situation was allowed to occur was because you had a victim that's not in a position to really understand it. It's really reflected in our county by the environment that is set by the Board of Supervisors in Santa Clara County. When I went to them asking them for their support and for resources, they were so committed to combating this crime that they not only approved of the plan but said whatever resources were necessary they would put forward. And they made a statement that said, we want you to respond to every person in need. You do not have to triage, evaluate, assess, and only take the very emergent or urgent cases. You need to respond to each person as they come in. So that means the person who has very little and the person who has a great deal. Let me share this. When I first joined the Elder Financial Abuse Team, I applied for the unit. I didn't quite know what I was getting into but my team leader told me this. You're going to be involved with some very difficult cases. These are going to be some of the hardest cases you're going to have to prosecute as a deputy district attorney. But when you meet these victims, your heart does not go out to them. If you don't feel a sense of meaning in your work and that you're standing up for the right victims, then you need to find another job. This is what we came to BDAs to do, is to protect these kinds of victims. These are some of the most vulnerable victims in our community. Realize that we've got the baby boomer generation coming in and we're going to have to address this problem and it's better to do it sooner rather than later. Realize the benefits of specialization. Realize how much more productive you can be working as a team and realizing that this is a sufficiently high priority that the best people should be assigned in this area. To me, the essential challenge of the role and the responsibility is to balance an individual's right to self-determination with the society's responsibility to protect vulnerable individuals. In our efforts in the district attorney's office to combat elder physical and financial abuse, we have recognized that it's unrealistic to think we can do it by ourselves.