Dirty Money (2018–…): Season 2, Episode 5 - Guardians, Inc. - full transcript

Subtitles by NarcosDEVS
Thanks Netflix!

It looks devastating, barren.

They took this property away from me,
and they said it was all legal.

They sold it
for just over three million dollars...

and to this day,
I never received any proceeds,

not even two dollars.

As it is now, I'm totally penniless.

Totally penniless.

And the judge...

said I'm not allowed
any financial resources whatsoever.

I'm a ward of the state.



[woman 1] Guardianship exploitation

is the crime of the 21st century.

[woman 2] A guardian has great power.

[man 1] They'd be able to sell a home
right out from under people...

[woman 3] ...relocating you
to an assisted living facility.

[man 1] Make banking decisions...

[woman 1] Sell the car,
or begin selling the jewelry.

[woman 4] The ultimate goal is to maximize
someone's assets.

[woman 1] Usually, the only way
to get out from under a guardianship

is through death.

["Lie, Cheat, Steal"
by Run the Jewels plays]

♪ Lie, cheat, steal, kill, win, win ♪

♪ Everybody doin' it ♪

♪ Lie, cheat, steal, kill, win, win ♪



♪ Everybody doin' it ♪

♪ Lie, cheat, steal, kill, win ♪

[woman]
In 2017, I worked on a story about...

the abuse of guardianship laws.

It sounded fundamentally paranoid,

this idea that you would, like,
lose your home and your money

to the state.

I think the only reason I really...

looked into it more was because
there were so many similar patterns,

and that seemed unlikely
that, like, all these people

would have the same paranoid fantasy.

Guardianship derives
from the state's power

to act as a sort of parent to people,

and so, when someone is too weak
or vulnerable

to care for themselves,
the idea is that the state comes in

and makes those decisions for the person.

And once the guardian
becomes a guardian of someone,

they assume control
of the ward's financial decisions,

their decision
about who to associate with,

where to live,
what kind of medications to take,

what kind of treatments to have,

so pretty much all the important decisions
in a person's life.

Once the guardianship is in place
and the guardian comes in,

everybody should strive

their very, very hardest,

and you do their ethical and utmost best
to keep the person

as vibrant in their community as they can.

You don't want a guardian
to warehouse you in a facility

and to tell you what time to eat breakfast

and whether to have
Cheerios or Froot Loops.

No, thank you. You don't want that.
Can abuses happen? Absolutely.

That's not what guardianship
ever should be.

It should be to maximize people's lives.

[man] Yes, good afternoon,
for attorney Lisa Belanger.

My name is John Savanovich,

and I need legal assistance.

[woman] I first got acquainted with John

when he left a voicemail for me,

saying that he had been...

exploited by his attorneys...

and that he's been placed
under a guardianship.

He...

was crying out desperately for help.

[Savanovich]
I'm still bewildered...

at how I lost all my property.

Everything.

[Belanger]
This is a very personal matter for me.

I had been dealing for over seven years...

trying to extricate my dad

from guardianship and conservatorship.

Not only...

am I an attorney,
but my dad was an attorney.

He was well-prepared,
he had all his estate planning.

And yet, for seven years,
they bled him dry.

The court-appointed guardians
got the court

to throw my family and myself out
of our home with my father.

I fought like hell to see him,

and...

that battle I did win...

because I got to see my dad
three months before he passed.

Unfortunately, I wasn't successful
in freeing him from guardianship.

But when I heard John's voice...

and after talking to him...

I knew that this was the one person
who might actually get to be saved.

I grew up
in the town of Needham, Massachusetts.

I graduated from Needham High School,
late 1950s.

I don't have any siblings
and I don't have any children.

I never married.

[Belanger]
John was very close with his parents.

Unfortunately, his father passed away

when John was in his early 20s.

And he spent most of his adult life

taking care of his mother.

[Savanovich]
I worked in a large electronic company,

Radio Corporation of America.

They were located in Needham.

I retired in 2003, 2004.

[Belanger] John had been living
in the house that he grew up in.

Right around the corner,
he was able to purchase

five adjacent properties.

His objective was to use that

as investment property
for the rest of his life.

The problems started for John...

when his mother passed away.

He fell into a depression...

and that led to him

letting the property go into disrepair.

A neighbor had been complaining
to the town officials

about the upkeep of his property.

[Savanovich]
So, I received a formal letter

from the Massachusetts
Attorney General's office,

saying that, if I didn't respond
within ten days,

they were going to take legal action
to seize my property.

So naturally,
I called the Attorney General's office.

It was always recordings, recordings.

And no one ever contacted me.
I left my phone number.

I needed some kind of legal assistance.

So I went to what I thought
would be easiest,

is to seek out the bank
that had the mortgages.

The lady at the bank said,
"Go see Peter Russell.

He's a very good Needham attorney."

She told me that he's experienced
and he'll...

take care of all the matters
involving real estate.

[Aviv] There's all these clusters
of services that serve older people,

and when someone would go
to any of those services,

there's a kind of referral network,

and then, in a more sinister way,

I found that some guardians
would actively recruit...

um, sort of put out leads,

like, people would know to call them

when they confronted a... older person
who had a lot of money.

[man] I like helping people,
helping their families.

They usually come to us
in a time of need.

If it is emotional, we calm them down.

Everything is done openly,
honestly, and transparently.

Peter Russell was far away

from open, transparent, and honest
when dealing with John.

[Savanovich] When I called him, he said,
"It's an awful lot of work.

I'll need a retainer."

I says, "All right."

And he wanted...

uh, an amount of $6,000.

I said, "What do you think is wrong?
What's the basic problem?"

He says, "Shrubs."

I said, "What?"

He says, "Your shrubs are overgrown,
and you need a new asphalt roof."

I says, "I'm well aware of that, but,"
I said, "what is the real problem?"

He says, "That's the problem."

And he told me...

that an attorney general
has the power to seize your property.

John suffered a mild stroke.

That mild stroke
probably wouldn't have occurred

had it not been for the stress
that he had been put under.

After John suffered that stroke,

Peter Russell puts down paperwork
in front of him.

[Savanovich] He said,
"You just have to sign a document

that you're agreeing to do work."

So I signed it.

[Belanger]
John didn't have the wherewithal,

especially after suffering an illness,

to know that he was signing
a durable power of attorney,

which meant that...

basically, Peter Russell
could do whatever he wanted

with John's money.

[Savanovich] He brought somebody
to look at the shrubs

where I resided on Highland Terrace.

He looks it over, that landscaper,

he says, "Oh, that needs a lot of work."

He says, "Why don't you demolish
the whole property?

It's not worth it."

The attorney, Russell, also agreed.

He says, "It's best to sell it off."

I says, "I don't want to." "Oh," he says,

"I've decided it's best that you do."

He says, "I have power of attorney."

He says, "If you don't go along,
I can have it sold anyway."

And boy,
then my head was really spinning.

I thought, "Oh boy, he's a real shyster,
this guy."

One day, a Needham Police Officer

came to my home.

He says, "You'll have to leave now.

We're taking you to the hospital
for a wellness check.

He says, "The ambulance is waiting
for you outside."

I said, "I'll lock the door up."

"No," he says, "You're not allowed.
I'll take care of everything."

So they were in charge when I left.

John had stated right from the start

that when he went
to Attorney Peter Russell,

his whole goal was

that he wanted to live
in his childhood home.

Regardless of what John wanted,

Attorney Peter Russell...

sold the property

[Savanovich] They demolished everything.

Nobody ever notified me
to pick anything up.

Whatever was there, personal items...

furniture and whatever pictures
or few things, I assume it's gone.

[voice wavers]
It's a terrible feeling.

I can't describe it.

When this person--

when he told me on the telephone,
my heart went down.

[Aviv] The concept of elder abuse,
I think, is pretty new.

We've had this idea of child abuse
since the '70s,

and it's, like, a concept that resonates

and that scares people
and motivates people.

I think only recently
have older people been seen

as, like,
a distinctly vulnerable population,

and a population that is also growing.

[man] You've reached
the Guardianship Fraud Hotline

in the clerk's division
of the Inspector General...

[woman] My area of expertise and duties

is to monitor the guardianship process.

In 2011,

I created
the first guardianship fraud hotline.

We started getting calls
from all over the United States.

That is when I realized
this is a national problem.

[woman 1]
I'm 100 percent sure this is fraud.

[man 1] I know that the guardian
is a chummy friend with the judge.

[man 2] ...warrant to remove
350,000 to 400,000 dollars

from a durable
power of attorney bank account.

[woman 2] I know that she will just spend
every penny of his money if she can.

[man 3] I'm prepared to do whatever
it takes to stop this from continuing.

[Bock] We would be hearing desperate cries
from family members

in which they will have contacted
the guardian

and weren't able
to get a copy of their finances.

They weren't able to see
their bank records.

We heard cries
that wards were not being fed properly,

or were given the wrong medication.

We heard literally thousands of cases

where guardians were using funds
for self-gain

and may have even gone so far
as to sell the house,

or the car, or selling their paintings,
without notifying the court.

This is an epidemic.

[woman 1] The most significant
guardianship exploitation case

in Nevada history...

Former private professional guardian
April Parks

pleaded guilty
to a total of six felony charges.

[woman 2] Isolation, over-medication,
double-billing.

[woman 3] Investigators say
they helped themselves to their money

to fund a lavish lifestyle.

[man 1] ...embezzled $4 million to pay
for items such as a Mercedes-Benz,

tickets to the Final Four,
and expensive vacations.

[woman 5] Barbara Lieberman.
The guardian and prominent attorney

ran a scam
with the owner of a senior care company

and two others.

The victims? Their own clients.

[woman 6] The senior citizen who says
she had everything taken from her.

[woman 5] Her IRA cashed out
and her belongings taken.

[woman]
What do you want people to know?

Well, I think they should be made aware
that this kind of thing is going on.

Good afternoon, everyone, this is...

Charlie Thrash.

I'm the owner of Thrash Driveshaft Service

and I have been for the past--
since 1958.

[sirens wailing]

[man] On March 6th, 2019,

the police showed up...

and took Charlie away.

[woman] My son looked up and he said,

"Mother, there are
about six or seven police officers."

My head was racing.

[man] Charlie's guardian had stated

that she feared for Charlie's safety.

But there was no emergency.

They took Charlie away against his will,
from his home and from his family.

He was terrified, and it was very...

It was heartbreaking
and I just felt empty,

and I have been empty since that day.

[Ross] I believe it was a crime.

At least it was a violation
of his civil rights

under the Texas Estates Code

and the Bill of Rights of Wards.

[Aviv] A lot of times,
once people would go under guardianship,

usually against their will,

or sometimes without even knowing
what had happened,

they were removed from their house.

They were separated
from their family members,

even if the family members
wanted to be involved.

One scholar I talked to described it
as "becoming a legal ghost."

[Martinez] In 2012,

my son Joe was working at CT Thrash
Differential and Axel Service.

Joe knew that I didn't have a boyfriend,

so he decided that it would be great
if I went on a blind date with his boss.

I met Charlie, hit it off immediately.

[woman] Charlie was super sweet to me
and my whole family.

He asked my mom to work at his shop,

just doing bookkeeping,
cleaning up the shop.

They moved in together,
fell in love... [chuckles]

...all that.

[Martinez] We just spent
a lot of quality time together.

We were inseparable, day and night.

And, you know, I cooked for him,
he cooked for me.

We lived at the shop.

Then we started shopping
for about a year and a half, two years,

started looking for a home.

[woman] I think what happened
in Charlie's situation

is that he had been stockpiling money.

Cash, um,

which is not untypical of men of his age.

They're used
to keeping money around,

don't necessarily trust banks
all that much.

When he decided that he wanted
to buy a home

for Laura and he to move into,

he then took the cash to the bank
to buy a house.

And they were shocked.

Seems like

banks are one of the first frontlines
to notify APS

that there may be something going on
with an older person's bank account.

[Aviv] APS is Adult Protective Services.

Their role is to look at people
who seem at risk,

but one phone call
can sort of put people on a path

in which they're sort of removed
from their life as they know it.

[Ross] Frost Bank,
Charlie's principal banking institution,

had raised some red flags
and reported...

unusual financial activity...

around the time
when Charlie bought a new car.

He bought a 2016 Corvette automobile.

Cost over $100,000.

He also bought a $750,000 house.

And there was an investigation

to determine if there was any evidence
of exploitation

or undue influence.

[Rivera] The APS investigation
seems like it concluded

that there was nothing going on
that was wrong in the house.

Charlie was not in danger.

Laura was doing a good job
taking care of him.

Charlie and Laura had been together
about seven years.

Charlie and Laura
consider themselves to be married,

that they were common-law husband and wife
under Texas law.

I am the one
who is actually supporting Charlie,

and his wishes
are not to have a guardianship.

He wants me to be his protector.

What's being done to Charlie
is pretty much a textbook...

um...

guardianship abuse process,

where...

you have a person like Charlie and Laura,

who are enjoying their life
and being carefree.

All of a sudden the government agency

files the application
to create a guardianship.

And even though there was no evidence

that Laura
was not acting in Charlie's best interest

in their relationship,

they're stuck with the court-appointed
psychologist or psychiatrist who,

typically or predictably,
will say that the person

is totally incapacitated

and needs a guardian of their person
and their estate.

[Rivera] Once the courts got involved,
they declared him to be incapacitated.

And then Charlie ended up
into a permanent guardianship.

[Belanger] For about a year,

John kept asking Attorney Russell
and his associate, Nick Louisa,

for the proceeds from the sale,

and they just simply ignored...

John and refused to answer...

his, uh... his inquiries.

I never received a portion
of the proceeds at all.

And I kept asking each month,

because I would see him or speak to him.

He would never respond in any way.

[Belanger] Peter Russell had John sign
a power of attorney originally,

but here's the problem.

That...

durable power of attorney was
specific to...

that childhood home.

John had the five other duplexes.

and they needed
to be able to have control

over those five other properties.

The easiest way to do that

was through saying
that John was incapacitated,

because that way,
they would have complete control over him.

Peter Russell and his colleague,
Nick Louisa,

started orchestrating the guardianship
behind John's back.

Louisa did all the legwork.

It's all there in his own words,
in his affidavit.

It's a road map

on how to throw someone
into guardianship.

From day one, it seems the goal was
to get John's properties.

Once Louisa and Russell got a few offers,

they needed to delay the sale

until John was securely placed
under a guardianship.

That's why they needed a doctor
to declare him incapacitated.

[Savanovich]
After I was thinking about it on my own...

I'm 100% convinced
that they've been at it.

I'm not the first one or the second,

because everything went just so smooth.

There was no delays.

No stops, just...
They knew exactly how to plan it.

One day,

this man banged on my door.

I didn't know that he was a doctor
until a couple of months later.

He mentioned my name

and he says,
"You own property on Riverside?"

And he said the number of houses.

"Are they for sale?"

I says, "Are you an attorney?"

He says no.

I says, "I'm not interested."

I said, "I need a--
one house for-- to reside in, so..."

"No," he says.
"You have to sell every one.

You can't keep one."

As soon as he said that,
I knew it was them.

I said, "I'm not interested."

I says, "Not-- not now."

I says, "I might think about it later on."

I says,
"Leave your name and phone number."

"No."

No name, no phone number.

"Well," I says, "discussion is over."

So it was barely five minutes.

Two weeks later, he reappears.

I says, "I'm not interested."

I says, "If you come here once more,

I'm making a complaint
with the security office."

[Belanger]
That man was actually a psychiatrist,

and he was the doctor who they hired

to write a report...

stating that John was,
supposedly, incapacitated.

And that was used
to be able to seal his fate

under a guardianship...

to force him into having these attorneys

be able to control his entire life.

[Bock] There is a myriad of people
that can begin the process

of declaring a person incapacitated,

and it can be filed
by a family member,

it can be filed by a hospital,

it can be filed
by an assisted living association.

Once they are declared as incapacitated,

then the court
assigns a guardian to them.

At that point,

the guardian is in charge
of all the assets

and the person under guardianship.

[officer] All rise!

Probate court of Fulton County
is now in session.

The honorable judge...

[Aviv] These are hearings
in which people are losing

basically all their civil rights,
and they would sometimes last 30 seconds.

The longest hearings
would be maybe 10 minutes.

And often, the wards would not be there.

Um, so there would be no opposition

to the guardian's suggestion

that this person
needed to be a ward of the court.

[Savanovich] They never gave me
the slightest indication,

from anywhere,

that they were planning this guardianship.

I never knew anything like that existed.

[Aviv] I found it ironic that...

the concept of guardianship is...

based on this idea
of benevolent paternalism,

and yet, in practice, it often...

seemed to create
this kind of capitalist dystopia.

[Belanger]
The day John walked into his bank

to ask for financial advice,
it set the whole process in motion.

He gets passed
from the bank to an attorney.

The attorneys choose the doctor
who declares him incapacitated.

Once he's declared incapacitated,

he's passed on to his guardians.

All of these people are paid
with John's money.

He loses money every step of the way.

The more he fights to get out,

the more the people around him get paid
to work on his case,

and the more money he loses.

Everybody who's involved
in that court process,

they get paid...

for e-mailing each other.

They get paid for telephone calls
to each other.

They get paid for putting stamps
on the envelope.

[Ross] When I first met Charlie,

we spent a lot of time together
because I wanted to be sure,

if I was going to get involved
in his guardianship,

that...

I was confident that he had capacity.

Charlie...

appeared to me to be a normal,

if not exceptional,
80-year-old businessman.

I've known Charlie
since I got here in San Antonio,

which would be, uh...

when I was 14 years old.

He's like a big brother to me.

[man] I'm trying to figure out
where that relay is. I thought...

[Billy]
I'd come in and help Charlie in the shop.

He does everything...

and he's known worldwide,

so people...

call him on the phone and tell him

that they need
a special differential setup,

or a special driveshaft setup
made in a special way.

And he does that
and ships it out all over the world.

And I think he could have gone
for another 10 years

without a problem.

[Ross] Charlie's family doctor

had given Laura and Charlie a report

that, in his medical opinion,
Charlie did not lack capacity.

But when I first looked at the record
of Charlie's guardianship,

I could see who the players were.

The first thing was
that he was in Judge Rickhoff's court.

And I knew from personal experience
that Judge Rickhoff was inclined

to appoint guardians for people
that didn't necessarily need them.

Or obviously didn't need them,
like Charlie.

As a result,

Charlie was appointed two guardians.

Laura became the guardian of his person,

and Tonya Barina
became the guardian of his estate.

Charlie told me
he didn't know Tonya Barina.

He had heard
that she was the granddaughter

of one of his brothers

with whom he had no relationship,
an estranged brother.

[Martinez] In the courtroom,

when Judge Rickhoff said,

"Well, we prefer the family.

Is there a family member in the courtroom

that would like to volunteer?"

She got up, raised her hand,

and walked up and sat there, and...

They qualified her as someone
who would be a good guardian.

Okay.

The family asked me to step in
to apply for guardianship to help Charlie.

You know, no,
we weren't the closest of family.

We don't have annual family reunions.

I've never been--
We've never had a family reunion,

as far as I've been around.

Um...

But he's very, very thankful,
and we're very-- we're very close now.

Mm-hmm.

[Bock] This is a very easy entry business.

You need to just be registered.

There is not even
any credentialing for it.

As a result of that,

there is a segment of society

that gets into being a guardian

because it can be used to gain access

to people's checking accounts,
to people's finances,

and then be in a position
to take advantage of that.

Once Tonya Barina
got the power of the estate,

Charlie was forced out of his business.

She came early one day
before business hours

and she locked the shop...

without giving Charlie any notice
or anything.

[Duncan] Tonya showed up here
and had a locksmith with her.

I asked her-- I said,
"What are you doing here?"

And she says, "I'm helping Charlie."

And...

I says,

"Well, you know,
I don't think you're helping Charlie.

This is Charlie's shop
and this is Charlie's therapy,

this is Charlie's church.

This is what keeps Charlie going."

And...

And she said, "Well,

I think you need to leave."

[Barina] I have to make decisions
on what I feel is best.

He doesn't like all of them,

um, but they're for his best interest,
and we...

explain, you know,

if decisions have to go a different route

than Charlie chooses, we explain why.

[Ross] Before the guardianship,
Charlie was doing very well.

He was paying all of his bills.

Now, Charlie doesn't have any money.

He's a multi-millionaire,

and he didn't even have
$100 in his pocket.

And Laura didn't have money.

They had past-due bills
that were piling up,

that the guardian,
Tonya Barina, wasn't paying.

Tonya Barina
had closed their bank accounts,

And she has decided to sell

about a million dollars' worth
of his assets.

Charlie never would have agreed
to do that.

In Charlie's case,

they can probably bleed his estate
for at least

a quarter of a million dollars a year.

Tonya Barina has four attorneys,

and they're all billing the estate,

individually, probably between
250 to 500 dollars per hour.

And Charlie doesn't get to have a voice

in what's happening in his life
and his estate.

[Barina] I have a team of attorneys,

um,

that I'm extremely close with,
so we talk about things,

we make decisions as a group.

Charlie is involved
in every aspect of decisions.

You know, he...

gives us his opinions and, um...

and we go from there.

Just got our shop closed down

to where I can't get into it.

She wants to try to take my cars,

my home,
and put me in a nursing home.

And...

I certainly don't appreciate that.

I'm too young for a nursing home.

I don't need to be there.

[Martinez ] Corvette.

A '63 Corvette.

This is a Honda Goldwing.

The '59 Triumph, that's here.

And then we've got the Harley.

The 2008 Harley and the Triumph.

[Barina]
I did an inventory of the vehicles

and I did remove them from the home...

and relocated them.

It was very hard for me to do my job.

Um...

So I removed the vehicles to a...

safer place, if you will.

Um...

Mm-hmm.

[Ross] Charlie was very successful.

And he had a right,
under the Bill of Rights of Wards,

to keep possession

of all of the personal property
that he could afford.

Because his guardian is spending

far in excess of his monthly income,

she has decided he can't afford to keep

all of his automobiles or even his house.

[interviewer]
Can I ask how much you make?

I don't know what I-- It's--

It's based on a percentage,
and it's an annual.

[Aviv]
There's just been no systematic attempt

to understand how big guardianship is,

how much money it controls,

and the outcomes
of these individual guardianships.

The Government Accountability Office
did a report in 2010.

They couldn't find a single website,

or local or federal or state entity
that was keeping track

of how many guardianship cases there are.

Because there is so little oversight,

the ability to discover

a guardian who is a predator

is very, very difficult.

It is a for-profit business,

and, as a result of that,

it can and is exploited.

[Ross] I spoke with Ben Wallis,

who was Charlie's attorney
during the temporary guardianship.

He told me, personally,
that negotiation took place.

Charlie's estranged blood relatives
had demanded

to be paid half of Charlie's estate

in order to...

resolve, compromise, and settle
the guardianship action.

Fifty percent to the family?

I don't even know where that comes from.

I--

This is the first I've heard of that.
I've never even seen that.

[interviewer] This is the letter.

[stammering] I've never seen that before.
That's absolutely--

No, no.

Mm-mmm.

So no comment on that.

[Bock] It's been estimated

that there is approximately

250 to 300 billion dollars

in the hands of guardians.

We believe that is a very low estimate.

We probably are over 500 billion,

and probably even closer
to a trillion dollars.

[hammering]

I had a row of pine trees in the back,
the last two there, and...

they're all cut.

They were well-established
when I got here 50 years ago.

[Belanger] After Peter Russell
gets the guardianship into place,

they then sell John's five...

adjacent properties
for 3.2 million dollars.

The problem is,
John has absolutely no idea

what balance he has left,

what the money has been spent on.

They have not kept him informed.

For all we know, every cent could be gone.

There's documentary evidence
that exists...

from his own primary care physician...

showing that in no way
is John incapacitated.

But the attorneys pressured John

into an assisted living facility.

They insisted.

They...

they said, "It's better for you."
And they says, "We made arrangements."

I don't like it at all.

[Finkel] How do you remove people
from their home

and put them in a strange place,

without...

any due process? That is cruelty.

That's not guardianship.
That's an abuse of a system.

That should never be allowed to happen.

[Belanger] There's absolutely no reason

why John should be forced
to be paying $6,000 a month

to be in an assisted living facility,

when he had a home that was paid off for.

[Savanovich]
At the present time, my income is...

$300 every 20 days.

I buy some groceries,
I have to buy the...

toiletries and paper products,

quart of milk and...

small items, so it adds up today.
Everything adds up.

I have to pay my medication.

And one is quite expensive.

So I can't splurge on things,

and I have to watch the balance.

I was better off on my own.

Another problematic aspect would be

that... the guardian
would be represented by a lawyer

who ends up being paid by... the ward,

but the ward doesn't have access
to those funds,

so the ward can't pay
for his or her own lawyer.

[Belanger]
That's how they do their dirty work.

They do not want him
to choose his own attorney

because they want an attorney...

that they already know...

and who's already working with them.

That's the web.

I think cronyism is, like, closely linked

to a lot of the counties
where there were long histories

of dysfunctional guardianships.

It wasn't unlikely
that there was also some sort of

clubby relationship with the guardians

and the judges or with a family member
of the guardians and the judges.

It just seemed too friendly.

Tonya claimed a right to be the guardian
of Charlie's estate and his person,

but she decided,

probably on advice
from her legal counsel,

to hire a professional guardian
who had political connections

and lived in the same town as Charlie,

and would be able to control Charlie.

[Brittany Martinez] My mom was originally
the power of the person,

so she was just supposed
to maintain Charlie's well-being,

you know, make sure he's healthy
and gets everything that he needs,

medication-wise.

And the judge at the time

took that power away
from my mom and legally gave it

to... a woman by the name of Mary Werner.

[Martinez] Mary is a Texas-certified
legal guardian.

She's actually the wife
of the Shavano Park mayor.

Allegations were being brought against me,

that I had converted all of his assets,
his house, his planes, everything,

under my name, which was all false,

that I was starving him,
that I was beating him up.

I mean, on and on, just accusations.

-I'm over him, okay?
-[Martinez] Got it. So he's eating, Mary.

Well, I'm glad to hear that,

because that's not what--
When I got the phone call,

that kind of shocked me,
that I heard that you weren't eating.

[Martinez] That's not true.
He is eating.

[Barina] I asked Mary Werner to step in

as guardian of the person.

My team of attorneys know her very well.

She's great at what she does.

[Werner] Anytime, you call me, okay?

Other than finances,

because I can't do a blessed thing.

[Brittany Martinez]
She came off very strong.

Kind of pushy.

Charlie doesn't need that.

She was very aggressive, very scary.

She sat right here on this couch
and pointed at him.

"I am your new boss,
and I'm going to take you to lunch.

I'm going to take you
to go get a new wardrobe."

Okay?

"Put on your shoes.
I'm going to take you to eat.

The court says
you haven't eaten anything."

Very aggressive form.

Need to talk to Tonya about that.
She's over the estate...

[Ross] There is evidence
that Charlie is in a guardianship

that is against his best interest...

and that...

his estate is being exploited

by the people that had been appointed
to manage it.

[Werner] I don't get paid per month.

And that's the falsehood that's out there.

I don't do it for the money,

and I'm not gonna talk
about Mr. Thrash's estate.

We're a definite team,
and I rely on her expertise a lot.

She loves her wards.

Um...

She ensures their safety.

She wants them to feel safe.
She wants them to feel...

Uh...

You know, they're--
She just wants them--

She makes them feel safe.

The courts are concerned,
so I'm going to call them

and tell them that I came over
and you declined to go with me.

[Rivera] Charlie has been isolated
from his support system and his family.

That makes it much easier

for the guardians
to start to manipulate Charlie.

As far as the court's concerned,

he's mentally incapacitated.

He's out of the picture.

He could be in a nursing home,
he could be in a coffin.

It doesn't matter to them.

The only ones
that are really digging in and fighting,

like, "Where is Charlie Thrash?"
is Laura, Phil Ross, Brittany.

They're the ones that are going like,
"Hey, this isn't about the money.

This is about the person we love
that's missing from our family.

Where is Charlie?"

I will not disclose Charlie's whereabouts.

He was, uh, removed from the home
for his safety.

[Martinez] I just pray for Charlie.

I want him to be free and happy
and at home, and at the shop,

and those are his wishes,
those are his rights.

I'm praying that they're not
overly medicating him

or brainwashing him against us.

[Bock]
Prior to getting hold of their money,

you have to disrupt

a person's normal life.

You have to take them out of their home
and put them in

an assisted living facility.

You have to isolate the family.

You have to overmedicate
or under-medicate.

A lot of times,
once people would go under guardianship,

they would receive a level of medication

that was far greater
than what they have been doing

when they were in charge
of their own decisions,

and often, these are people
who have no mental illness,

and yet-- Maybe they showed
a little sign of dementia,

but they would be given
heavy antipsychotics,

which would really make them
very compliant,

so that, in some ways,
become easier wards of the court.

[interviewer] Have they been trying
to give you medication?

Well, they tried a couple of times.

[Belanger] For John,
this is such an extraordinary case.

There is no doubt

that this man
does not need antipsychotic drugs,

that he is a full-functioning person.

It's extremely rare to be able to...

find a person
who's been placed under guardianship

that has not already...
been destroyed by antipsychotics,

and able to actually advocate
for themselves.

[Bock] The restoration of rights

for a person, once they have
been declared incapacitated,

is very difficult and very expensive.

As a result of that,

getting removed
from a guardianship situation

is extremely rare.

[Savanovich]
I want all of my funds returned now.

And I want to recoup all the losses
that they took from me.

And those exorbitant fees,
tens and tens of thousands

that they charged for preparing this...

guardianship,
preparing all that paperwork.

You'd be shocked if you saw it.

You need a whole two hands.

A man holds two hands and he walks.

You'd think he was carrying
heavy metal weights.

It's all sheets of paper like that.

That heavy.

Just for me, one person alone.

It's unbelievable.

[Martinez]
A guardian should not have the right

to come and create such chaos,
and to turn your life around,

and take away your assets
and your property,

and your rights.

[Ross] Charlie's civil rights
have been violated in so many ways

that it's hard
to even know where to begin.

[voice wavers]
I have no control over what's happening.

There's nothing that I can do.

You know, for the meantime, um,

we just have to follow everything and...

[breathes shakily]

I'm sorry.

We just hope that,

hopefully, somebody in the court system

can realize what they've done.

[Barina] We've been in court
for almost two years now,

and it's been over 80 filings
since January.

Um...

Anywhere from trying to get, you know,
guardians removed...

But you know, it's a lot. Over 80.
And they're still coming in.

We'll see where it goes from here.

I'm not going to let Charlie down.
I'm going to keep fighting.

I really don't know what the future
is going to hold for Charlie.

I assisted Laura in filing a complaint
with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

And I believe it is a matter
for law enforcement.

Our society has treated...

any kind of fraud

or deception of the elderly
as a civil offense,

to be handled through the court system

by filing a lawsuit.

Why doesn't our society recognize

that that is theft?

And theft is a crime.

A guardianship that commits a fraud

actually commits a crime.

[Savanovich]
You're left in a fog and you...

you say,
"How can this be happening?"

And according to the courts,
it's all legal.

This is a terrible nightmare
that just keeps evolving and evolving.

This is supposed to be America.

[voice breaking] You won--

You wonder what's going on
in America today.

I can't believe it.

I still can't believe it.