Kentucky Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Attorneys Call Financial Crime Against Seniors a Growing Concern
Posted in Press Releases on December 16, 2011Bowling Green attorney Lee Coleman said this month that he applauds the University of Kentucky for holding a conference last month that was aimed at calling attention to the problem of financial theft and fraud targeting senior citizens.
“As leaders at UK and elsewhere have recognized, the issue of elder financial abuse is a growing problem in need of more public awareness,” said Coleman of Hughes & Coleman Injury Lawyers, a Kentucky law firm that focuses on protecting the rights and interests of nursing home abuse and neglect victims.
“Particularly in nursing homes, where residents can be more isolated from family and other support, senior citizens are often vulnerable to predators bent on committing theft or fraud,” Coleman said.
In November, the University of Kentucky Justice Center for Elders and Vulnerable Adults held an elder abuse conference titled “Broken Trust: Elder Financial Abuse.”
Pamela Teaster, director of the center, told Kentucky Forward that a 2011 MetLife study, which the center contributed to, found that financial elder abuse in the U.S. costs victims $2.9 billion annually.
“Through our work, we have seen seniors in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities victimized by financial abuse perpetrated by their direct caregivers and even by administrators of the nursing homes,” said Coleman’s partner J. Marshall Hughes.
“Financial abuse of the elderly is often undetected until well after the crime has been committed, and it is much more widespread than many people believe because many thefts go unreported,” Hughes said.
“Certain types of fraud perpetrated against the elderly can be complicated and hard to expose without knowledge of various programs for the elderly, such as Medicare and Medicaid,” Hughes said. “We take seriously the duty society has to protect our elderly from those who would neglect or abuse them.”
