New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating about a half-dozen guardianship organizations and how they manage the health and financial affairs of hundreds of elderly and infirm New Yorkers who are deemed unable to care for themselves, according to people familiar with the matter.
An investigation by lawyers in the office’s charity bureau follows annual series of ProPublica it revealed how some guardians neglected vulnerable clients entrusted to them, while others used their court-appointed positions to enrich themselves at the expense of their wards.
Judges often rely on guardianship companies to care for so-called adversaries, people who don’t have friends or family to care for them. However, there is little oversight of these caregivers, with officials rarely visiting the wards to check on their care. Meanwhile, courts that appoint guardians rely mostly on financial records to determine a person’s well-being. The news organization found that this dynamic has led to fraud, abuse and neglect of the most vulnerable sections of the state.
Among the groups being scrutinized by investigators is New York City’s Guardianship Services, which was profiled in ProPublica’s work, said one person familiar with the state investigation, who, like the others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate nature of law enforcement.
ProPublica discovered that it was at the NYGS failed to meet the needs of more than a dozen people Those entrusted to her care, including an elderly woman whom the company placed in a dilapidated house with rats, bugs and no heat. NYGS collected $450 a month in compensation from the woman’s limited income while claiming in court filings that her living situation was “adequate,” even though internal company documents and her own emails showed she repeatedly complained about the conditions.
After ProPublica published the first story, a judge ordered NYGS to repay the trust $5,400, about a year’s worth of fees, writing that the company provided “minimum services, if any” during that time.
In another caseProPubica reported that the company charged the elderly man a monthly fee even after he left the country — as well as after his death.
Highlights from this series
Company executives declined to answer questions about specific clients, but previously told ProPublica that NYGS is accountable to the court and that its work is scrutinized by experts who have the authority to raise any questions.
But a ProPublica investigation found that the system has too few examiners to provide timely and thorough oversight. According to the latest court data, a total of 157 experts are responsible for reviewing the reports of 17,411 chambers in New York. And there are about a dozen judges who check their work. As a result, ProPublica found that the annual evaluation, which details the finances and care of wards, can take years, depriving judges of important information about people’s well-being.
Courts have taken a similar approach to vetting guardians. ProPublica found that while NYGS presents itself as a nonprofit, it has not been registered as such with state and federal authorities.
The attorney general’s investigation is not the first foray into the world of custody. A decade ago, the same unit investigated a nonprofit guardianship organization called Integral Guardianship Services, ultimately finding that the group improperly loaned its top officials hundreds of thousands of dollars while its wards were needlessly housed in nursing homes, according to court records. To fix things, Integral agreed to various reforms, paid back loans and brought in a management consultant, the Harvard Business School Club of New York, to audit its systems, operations and finances.
Even so, Integral closed after just a few years, leaving behind hundreds of clients whose cases were absorbed by other nonprofit groups and private attorneys. Among them was NYGS, which was founded in part by Integral’s former director of enforcement, Sam Blau, who was not named in the attorney general’s lawsuit. Other Integral employees also stayed in the guardianship business, starting their own groups or working as court-appointed trustees, court and tax records show.
People familiar with the attorney general’s investigation said some of those successor businesses are now among the sites under review by state investigators.
NYGS executives Sam and David Blau did not respond to an email seeking comment. The Prosecutor General’s Office too.
News of the attorney general’s investigation comes as Albany court administrators and lawmakers face increasing pressure to fix the custody system. Court officials said they needed more money to address the issues and announced last fall that they were appointing a special advocate as well as a statewide coordinating judge to oversee the reforms.
Advocacy groups have launched their own lobbying campaign, asking Gov. Kathy Hachul and legislative leaders to allocate $15 million annually to support a statewide network of nonprofits with experience in government contracts to serve adversaries. Another proposal advanced by the state’s judiciary advisory committee calls for the creation of an independent, statewide, $72 million agency to serve as a public guardian.
It is not clear what the democrat wanted to provide for guardianship on the eve of the upcoming session of the legislative parliament. She will present the executive budget later this month. Last year’s $229 billion spending plan included only $1 million in funding for a statewide guardianship hotline. A spokeswoman for her office did not respond to questions about her funding plans or to comment on the AG’s investigation.
Guillermo Keuhan, a former NYGS chamber attorney who has since died, said he was pleased to hear the company might have to answer for what he called outright theft. He tried to force NYGS to reimburse the ward’s heirs for the thousands of dollars the company took in compensation while his family provided for his care in Colombia. So far the efforts have been unsuccessful. Blaus did not respond to questions about Kuhan’s claims.
“We are very disappointed,” he said in an interview. “Hopefully this is an opportunity to get the authorities involved … and not have more people with the same problem.”
