Elder Abuse Hollywood Style - Minnelli and Dr. Fernandez

In this case study filed in 1992 by Lee Anderson Minnelli , Lisa Minnelli's 94-year-old stepmother, who sued the singer for breach of contract and elder abuse. Lee Anderson Minnelli claims that she was guaranteed housing in the will of her late husband Vincente Minnelli (Liza's pop), but that the performer is trying to force her from her Beverly Hills home by allowing the property to deteriorate, firing household employees, and allowing electricity to be shut on March 27. "While defendant is honeymooning all over the world, having fed 850 of her closest friends a 12-foot cake, plaintiff is alone in a cold, dark house," according to the lawsuit.

The senior citizen had been invited to Minnelli's wedding to David Gest, but the offer was rescinded via this cold letter from the singer's lawyer

More >>Courtesy of The Smoking Gun

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Dr & Clara Fernandez circa 1950's

Follow up story by Ray Fernandez

When we look at case histories of Elder Abuse we always look for the common thread that makes these cases stand out. In Dr.Fernandez's and Minnelli's case we don't know the final disposition of the case, we strongly suspect that the latter was settled out of court.

This tactic of trying to force the Elder from their familiar surroundings (their home) and on the street is rather common, and often done for purely financial motivations, in a lot instances the Elders properties have accumulated a lot of equity and have appreciated substantially over the years.

Dr. Fernandez whom we write about often in this blog received messages from his elder son Al Fernandez, a Social worker for West Palm Beach, Florida whom after having tricked Clara , who suffers from dementia into signing a Quitclaim Deeds for all properties contained in her Trust and Dr. Fernandez's home and latter threatned to the effect of " Do you vacate the house voluntarily or do we force you out! Clara's car which was now Dr. Fernandez sole source of transportation was also UN successfully attempted to be repossessed.

When the perpetrators overdrew his bank account, causing it to be closed his utilities could not be paid under automatic pay and were turned off, a false complaint was made to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alleging that Dr. Fernandez was using medications without a prescription thus effectively cutting off his flow of expensive medications needed to keep him alive .

Every effort was made to remove Dr. Fernandez from his home, the Florida Children and Families (DCF) continually hammered Dr. Fernandez with questions to see if Dr. Fernandez would admit to being mistreated in order to remove him from his home.

Even thus a concerted effort was made to remove Dr. Fernandez from his home so that it could be sold Dr. Fernandez insisted that he wanted to stay in his home and did not budge....

Dr. Fernandez's heroic efforts to resists being removed from his house are well documented, when allegations and false reports of Elder and Financial abuse were filed against Dr. Fernandez's caregivers, an exhaustive investigation ensued during which long private question and answer sessions were held, Dr. Fernandez always insisted that he was well taken care of, and was where he wanted to be, and all efforts to remove him from his home failed.

Dr. Fernandez frail health suffered during the onslaught, and the illegal separation from his wife was too much for him to take he died on January 9, 2005 exactly one year and six months after being ' improperly' separated from his wife Clara whom he was married to for 58 years.