raised in the appeal of i would like focus my time on those three issues and i would also like to move just to the court and state to the court that those three issues are very much interest whine because the bottom line of this case in so far as it respects mr ford is this mr ford was tried and convicted in saying in county of the crime of financial exploitation of the elderly in this case the person was his mother and in this case he and his mother had a binding legal relationship that the law recognizes and the law has over her financial matters it is i'm contradicted from the evidence in this case that mr ford had that power and that his mother gave him that power freely bolland terribly and after consultation with an attorney an attorney who testified by stipulation at the trial that at the time that the power of attorney was created the mother tricia for it seemed to be clearly capable of understanding what she was doing and wanted her son to control her financial affairs our first problem with th does not meet the constitutional requirements of due process either under the federal constitution or the illinois and that is precisely what happened in this case to mr ford the indictment in this case merely said that over a period of years he illegally used money of his money again money that he had the legal right to use and to and to deal with under the power of attorney the evidence in this case when this case came to trial essentially was this a witness from the state department of law enforcement testified that she examined this is for checking accounts checking account that was actually a joint checking account and town for its individual accounts and from that account he would pay all of the bills of his mother as well as his own bills mr ford testified that the reason he did that was because it was for convenience and because testified very candidly that he had a period of time during his life when he was undergoing a financial distress and difficult and he was concerned for his mother but he had to take a job that required him to leave the state of there was never any designation by the state in this prosecution as to what transactions constituted illegal action by mr ford what transactions constituted financial exploitation it for which transactions were specifically indicated by the state to be illegal in the state the klein to answer his request the trial three now i recognize a fairly well after years of criminal practice that it is very and i think to some extent the reason is because the discovery rules that we now have in criminal cases are much more liberal than they were years ago we do not try people by surprise or ambush any more the state furnished a lot of financial information but the problem with the financial information in this case is it makes no distinction whatsoever between those acts that were perfectly within mr for justification and those within his rights under the law excuse me and those that were not there was never any indication here that this transaction that mr ford engaged was improper under the law now the state suggested in their brief i believe at one point well actually page five of their brief they say that the plan knowingly or pending legal used his mother's assets by comes about not in a legal document it comes from a letter that the state's attorney's office directed to mr ford at the during the great trout proceedings in this case the  knowingly obtaining an illegally used the assets of patricia ford in united states currency now even when courts are reluctant to grant bills that case is clearly on point again mr ford is not required to prove his innocence mr ford is not required to justify every legal expenditure that he further have to split because the courts would spoil the retirement income for his mother was put into his private justice turner up that he was and he did he explain the money was moved into his account because it was done for his convenience while he was traveling that was number one and number two with respect to the condominium he made a very very specific that a statement the condominium proceeds were roughly twenty thousand dollars and in fact i believe testified that the sale from the proceeds of a condominium gain much less money than they thought this the proceeds were twenty thousand dollars five thousand dollars of that money went to st joseph's home to pay for the  the bills that his mother was incurring and in fact also keep in mind that there were insurance proceeds go to the balance of his money and this just turner is where this case creates substantial diff the balance of that money was invested by mr ford with the hopes that the investment would return some additional money for his mother unfortunately it was invested in a period of time when the manner in which the state rocked this prosecution that all of this money was improperly used by him left him in the situation just turning what he had to essentially establish his innocence he had to go back and take fit every financial transaction and say this transaction went to buy my mother's prescription drugs this transaction went to pay for my mother's meal this transaction did other things for my mother they could have charged him with something of some other crime but remember they chose the financial exploitation stage they chose this very broad sphere they chose this direction which can be court the trial judge as she determined the amount of restitution noted that there were at least two years during this period of time that the indictment was that you type and covered there were at least two years during that period of perhaps worse by what happened at the time when the instructions occurred in this case for shipment before who did that there can i ask you at the time he had the proceeds from the only apply five thousand dollars expenses number one at no time did they ever submit a bill to him there were difficulties when she first came into the home because she was receiving insurance proceeds i know that there is a the record indicates at one point that there was a i believe and that's a dispute again didn't even come up but the jury i guess what i'm asking you is that the jury have information that there was this large amount of money owed to st joseph's yes they do it proceeds from the sale of the condominium again st joseph home is not even named in this indictment the first time that st joe's so home becomes involved in this case is in the opening statement of the prosecution when the after the jury has been and i don't have a problem with st joe i don't have a problem with any civil action brought in this case i don't have a problem with the guardian the new guard in this case which is to allege that perhaps mr ford may have violated  sense but when you criminalize conduct like this just this oh i think you raise some serious problems for anyone who is in a for this type of relationship this type of financial relationship w and completely instruct the jury on the island in this case and in response to the state's suggestion that well there were some simple instructions that the judge hughes that's the problem here conduct not related to the harm that the legislature was trying to protect against such as some when they perform google search something innocuous to try to find out how their neighbor did in the very image of a very fine violated statute that was  only a few days fair trial and awesome in that case not all the transactions that were involved were alleged to have been criminal what are we to make of this i'm not sure exactly about the part of the record that you just turn your preferred to my understanding was that that the reason why the trial court did not require a further reply to bill ticklers is because this and pension as well as the sale of condominiums that all those transactions constitute a breach a fiduciary duty and illegal use of assets now the defendant points to trying to justify what he describes as every particular expenditure that he made look these are expenditures that he's making out of his own personal account was to send to the ceasefire misappropriation it's already occurred the moment he's taking that money out into his own accounts so for example when he sold the condominium he signed the contract as a p r way turn he put the money in his own bank he could've put it in a joint checking account that his mother held and then paid it over to the home these five thousand dollars of illegal use of assets because his mother turned eighty the day after she entered st joseph home one of the counts of the indictment fire only five thousand dollars is the goldman amount not one hundred thousand dollars so she was going to disregard on financial security when the only thing all the evidence showed that what she really cared about was being able to stay in st joseph home so why would she then let her son in acting on his own money to his mother statue meant for his own that is a crime according to the legislature and the legislature can constitutionally make that a criminal offense because it involves the legislature  crime for someone who is either elderly or disabled who is the victim of this so it's not necessarily the case that he moved this money just because he was traveling to this arrangement i'm not sure exactly the date but there wasn't timing issue in terms of when this arrangement withdrawing the money every month happened first when he got to the surface job and became to travel out of state and what i believe this initial explanation was that his son was insurance proceeds in a situation where the same choice of phones was not in fact satisfied with receiving just insurance money and was not even necessarily told that she had these other resources available to  in for her expenses then she had received well that does not include the amounts of receipt that she had with c n n he was paying it ninety two dollars and fifty cents a day and the states create them page twenty seven the state argues that the defendant would have planted at least sixty nine thousand dollars in these periodic payments before the home insisted that the insurance money go directly to the home w because the sure insurance company was paying the defendant defend it was not necessarily paying everything and timely over to the home so the insurance co money was not the certainly going to be the home and case is is that all that retirement money effectively plus some of the human insurance money was going from from his mother to his own pocket to pay off his own doubts and that there is a more than enough evidence to sell a condominium as part of turning this i mean that she cannot be helped criminally to account for what he did with that money so it was not so just keep that money to not go to something that was necessarily in his mother's past in may have some significance but the legislature cannot and cannot criminalize that which has been recognized by the law for hundreds of years as civil actions i don't believe that when the legislature enacted the financial exploitation statute that it was there i tend to undo centuries of probate law centuries centuries of guardianship law centuries of financial relationships that people often undertake because you mental difficulty or other physical problems they cannot exercise their own  fair amount of money and on the first day of the action trust meant he had taken fifteen thousand dollars from out of her money and invested it in apple stock thinking that apple would be a wonderful investment and would make money for his three days later four days later apple makes an announcement that sales of their newest the computer i have are off and the apple stock because it was invested fifteen thousand dollars of apple stock is now worth five thousand dollars is merrill lynch subject to criminal prosecution by the state of illinois under this statute i don't believe so i don't believe that was what the legislature intended  penalties and criminal law a person can make an innocent remark to another person who might be insulted but doesn't have the right to then sue for criminal defamation