Our Legal System And Our Elders: Analysis of a Failure

by Ray Fernandez 3/27/07 revised on 4/23/07

On August 21 2004 Clara was improperly removed from her home and her husband Dr. A.J. Fernandez. Note prior to that, Dr. Fernandez and Clara had not as much as spent a day apart from each other.

During the weeks and months that followed, Dr. Fernandez was not allowed to see or talk to his wife of 58 years, and after receiving news that the joint accounts he held with Clara were being 'Overdrawn' and all the accounts held in a Trust under Clara's name for protection were being liquidated, and all property held by Clara was being Quit claimed.

It has been very expensive for Clara G. Fernandez,who has been a victim of Financial Elder Abuse to be re-united with her husband who died on January 9Th 2006, three (3) days after Judge Richard Payne ruled that Clara could stay and continue to live in Key West with her husband Dr. A.J. Fernandez.

I can only sympathize with the family of other elders who find themselves in a similar situation and they are not able to pay for a lawyer's services because the victim has never had much money or because the victim's life savings were lost as a result of the exploitation that would be the subject of the lawsuit and they are unable to pay huge sums of money to be reunited with their loved ones or to see that justice is done in compensating the victim for damages, enabling victims to recoup financial losses they've suffered, or punishing the perpetrator(s).

"The slow pace and customary delays of the legal process are
particularly onerous to older persons in general and to those who have been abused in particular."

Lori Stigel, J.D.

abridged read it all here >>

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