Recently, Mom had major surgery after which she went to a rehab facililty. During this time, my sister and I gained power of attorney to sort out her finances. We found out that a younger brother has been writing checks to himself from Mom's account as well as using her account to pay for other items the amount, so far, is around $10,000 (just in the last two years). Mom adamantly denies writing or authorizing these. She did not want to prosecute. We changed her account and then I filed a claim with the Vulnerable Adult Unit of our state attorney general's office. One sibling is very mad at me for potentially causing little bro to "go to jail". Was I wrong? Have any of you successfully prosecuted someone stealing your loved one's funds?
I'm not surprised she declined to prosecute, your brother knew this.
One thing you might want to think about is having your attorney do a "Guardianship in Case of Incapacity" done. I don't know if this works in all states but when we went to do my mom's POA, update will, etc back about a decade ago, her attorney made us do this. OMG what a great idea as it provides for you the ability to step in and use guardianship powers when mom or dad in a fit of pique or dementia turns on you and says "I'm changing POA, I hate you, You can't make me do......whatever". You can then take out this form and it trumps them changing the POA's. Otherwise you may find yourself where mom or dad has gotten POA's changed and you have to go the expensive and traditional guardianship through the courts route. Personally if it were me, I'd use this downtime from brother's latest scam as a reason & leverage for mom to go to an attorney and update everything. Bad brother will be around again as he likely feels he can do anything without fear of any consequences. Good luck.
The terribly hard part of this, is his anger at me, (now my only living sibling), his continued lies, my lack of ability to really communicate well over the phone w/ my mom...or to do anything there about changing the POA without her approvals. It feels like a mess with no good solution. And her wavering is so telling! It's been 3 months since I discovered this and 1 month since everyone knew. I have been extremely patient, I feel with my brother on getting the credit card statements and her other papers to me, but he's still lying about when they will come, thus the bank notification. I feel very bad about that, and know it will also upset my mom. This is a really twisted situation...so even when right and wrong are very clear, there are decades of family relationships and ties and sibling dynamics that make reporting this very hard to do. I appreciate you all reading this, I haven't been able to really share it with a group who's also dealing with this. It wrecks everyone's lives, he's wrecked his, my mom's, mine and has removed any trust I could have had for him, forever. I hate that my family fell apart in such a disgusting way. And he has the nerve to tell me to back off taking to mom, that 'I am making her upset.' What about what HE DID!?
arghhh, thanks, folks. :-(
On the other hand, if Mother has to apply for Medicaid down the road, I would think that filing the claim is strong evidence that she did not give this money away.
I think Mother's interests come first.
It is less clear to me exactly what that means regarding the claim you filed.
I would be interested to hear other opinions.
Two Years this July my mother has been living with me:
https://www.agingcare.com/discussions/Cant-care-for-mean-and-hateful-mother-anymore-150326.htm
It's a very long thread- but I have found a way to read it and you can stop til the next day and NOT keep hitting the "NEXT" button over and over until you reach page 400-410. When you read and decide to stop reading at 201-210 page. You see the top of the page "http/www..."? ... Copy and paste this to your Word File that you have on your computer's desktop.... Then save this file.... When you come back, just open your Saved File on Desktop, click and copy...then log in here and paste it. Tada! You can start reading exactly on page 201-210.
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