Letter from the Editor of E.A.

by Ray Fernandez

Recently I have gotten many letters and phone calls from people that are concerned because my on line presence has been spotty.

As many of you know when my Dad suffered a stroke in 1999 his wife Clara G. Fernandez, 87 yr old wife of Dr. A.J.Fernandez for 58 years was removed from her home without the benefit of a court order or any thing resembling one , recognizing that when a middle class citizen goes to jail for a bag of pot he gets fined, the bailsman , attorneys, jails gets business and everyone makes money but when an elder gets abused there is simply no money to be made unless the elder is committed so the authorities do the old "Shoulder Shrug."and send you down the road to the folks that do the committing.

We turned to Florida Division of Children and Families who said that in order to Dr. Fernandez to ever see his wife again a Guardianship was needed so we filed for one, little did we know that the guardianship nightmare would take four years of full time fighting to free our mother from the tyrannical hold of those that seek to control us and profit from every aspect of our private lives.

In an effort to protect those without a voice who were being victimized twice . First by financial abuse by the criminals that committed these crimes and then by the authorities in charge of protecting our elders that had not responded to these victims as they needed to, this led to four hard years of endless court hearings during which my mother's estate was billed down to zero, the guardian's attorney first order of the day was to declare war on the "Ward's family and vilify them through insinuations and false accusations.


Special thank you goes out to Judge David J. Audlin who once he realized he had been mislead by trusted 'Officers of the Court" who mis represented the quality of care Clara was receiving in order to prolong the Guardianship even after her assets had been depleted, Judge Audlin had the wisdom to return our mother back to us.

Now that I no longer have to fight the tyrannical over reach of the State into our private lives I have activated my Real Estate Broker License which is a full time job along with working the financial markets, and as a Certified General Contractor jump starting projects that were previously put on hold. Having three (3) full time jobs to make up for lost time and income leaves little time for dallying.

I also want to especially thank attorney Adrian P. Thomas who when everything seem lost never gave up and when my father , Dr. Fernandez said to me " Ray I want to see my wife again, I don't care if you have to spend every dollar I ever made" made this dying man's wish come true.

Also want to thank attorney Samuel Kaufman and all others who worked to free my mother and re establish her most basic of civil rights , the right to travel, the right to her social security income, the right to dental and medical care, right to decide whom and were she want to be with and generally rights that were denied her during the guardianship period re- established .