U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

49–533 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022

S. HRG. 114–870

BROKEN TRUST: COMBATING FINANCIAL

EXPLOITATION OF VULNERABLE SENIORS

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

WASHINGTON, DC

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Serial No. 114–01

Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
(II) 

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah

MARK KIRK, Illinois

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina

BOB CORKER, Tennessee

DEAN HELLER, Nevada

TOM COTTON, Arkansas

DAVID PERDUE, Georgia

THOM TILLIS, North Carolina

BEN SASSE, Nebraska

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri

BILL NELSON, Florida

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts

TIM KAINE, Virginia

PRISCILLA HANLEY, Majority Staff Director
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Opening Statement of Senator Susan M. Collins, Chairman .............................. 1 

Opening Statement of Senator Claire McCaskill, Ranking Member ................... 3 

PANEL OF WITNESSES

Philip C. Marshall, Grandson of Brooke Astor ...................................................... 5 

Judith Shaw, Securities Administrator of Maine, Co-Chair, Maine Council

for Elder Abuse Prevention, and President-Elect of The North American

Securities Administrators Association ................................................................ 7 

Kathleen M. Quinn, Executive Director, National Adult Protective Services

Association ............................................................................................................ 9 

Page Ulrey, Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Elder Abuse Team, King

County Prosecutor’s Office .................................................................................. 11 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED WITNESS STATEMENTS

Philip C. Marshall, Grandson of Brooke Astor ...................................................... 33 

Judith Shaw, Securities Administrator of Maine, Co-Chair, Maine Council

for Elder Abuse Prevention, and President-Elect of The North American

Securities Administrators Association ................................................................ 36 

Kathleen M. Quinn, Executive Director, National Adult Protective Services

Association ............................................................................................................ 43 

Page Ulrey, Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Elder Abuse Team, King

County Prosecutor’s Office .................................................................................. 56 

(1) 

BROKEN TRUST: COMBATING FINANCIAL

EXPLOITATION OF VULNERABLE SENIORS

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2015

U.S. SENATE,

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING, 

Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:28 p.m., Room 562,

Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M. Collins, Chairman

of the Committee, presiding.

Present: Senators Collins, Scott, Tillis, Sasse, McCaskill, Nelson,

Casey, Gillibrand, Blumenthal, Donnelly, Warren, and Kaine.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR

SUSAN M. COLLINS, CHAIRMAN

The CHAIRMAN. It is my great pleasure to call to order the very

first hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging in the

114th Congress.

I have had the honor of being a member of this Committee since

my very first days in the U.S. Senate and I am delighted to now

assume the Chairmanship. This is the first time that a Maine Senator has chaired the Committee since the mid–1990’s, when my

predecessor and good friend, Senator Bill Cohen, for whom I

worked for 12 years, served as the Committee’s chair.

I am also pleased to welcome both new and returning members

to this Committee, and I am delighted that my good friend and colleague, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, will serve as the

Committee’s Ranking Member. Senator Bill Nelson, the former

Committee chairman, has also chosen to remain a member of this

Committee and he will continue to share his expertise with us.

Throughout its history, the Aging Committee has spurred Congress to take action on issues important to older Americans

through our hearings, investigations, and reports, and it has done

so in a bipartisan manner. I will continue that fine tradition, working closely with Senator McCaskill and all of our members.

This year, the Committee will focus on three major issues: Retirement security, biomedical research investment for diseases like

Alzheimer’s and diabetes that disproportionately affect our seniors,

and financial schemes and other scams targeting older Americans.

Today, we will examine financial exploitation that harms far too

many of our Nation’s most vulnerable seniors. This Committee has

brought to light many schemes that have defrauded seniors out of

their hard-earned retirement savings. It is deeply troubling when

a senior falls victim to one of these schemes, but even more egre-
2 

gious is when the perpetrator is a family member, a caregiver, or

a trusted financial advisor.

Financial exploitation of older Americans is a growing epidemic

that cost seniors an estimated $2.9 billion in 2010, according to the

GAO. In Maine alone, there are 14,000 new reports each year of

senior abuse, which includes financial exploitation, and in as many

as 90 percent of financial cases, the senior is victimized by someone

he or she knows well.

Unfortunately, the full story is even worse. Many of these cases

are never reported because the victim is too ashamed to report financial exploitation, particularly when it involves a family member. As a consequence, the true incidence of this kind of abuse is

not known.

Identifying victims of financial exploitation in my State is particularly difficult because we Mainers take a lot of pride in our selfsufficiency. It is difficult for many seniors to ask for help. In addition, since victims who have had their assets stolen by family members typically do not want their relatives to be criminally prosecuted, the stolen money is rarely recovered. This loss can undermine both the health and the financial security of older people.

Combatting financial abuse of seniors is primarily the responsibility of State and local agencies, particularly Adult Protective

Services agencies. Prevention and response to cases of abuse require coordinated efforts, including State and local agencies, law

enforcement, the social work and medical communities, and financial institutions.

The Federal Government also plays an important role in providing leadership to combat this problem. The Elder Justice Coordinating Council, led by the Department of Health and Human Services, has brought together 12 Federal agencies to coordinate efforts

to protect older individuals from abuse, including financial exploitation.

I also want to acknowledge the critical role played by State regulatory agencies, and I am particularly pleased to welcome to our

hearing Judith Shaw, who serves as the Securities Administrator

for the State of Maine. Maine, I am pleased to say, is on the cutting edge of helping to combat financial abuse of seniors through

programs like the innovative Senior$afe program, which is the first

of its kind in the Nation. I will not preempt Ms. Shaw’s testimony

by describing it, but I think it provides a model for many States.

Financial exploitation knows no socio-economic boundaries. Victims range from seniors who have very modest financial means to

those who have amassed great wealth. For example, the daughter

of a Maine senior in Androscoggin County sold her mother’s home

and moved her into a camper in her backyard. As if that were not

bad enough, the daughter and her boyfriend went on to deplete her

mother’s life savings over the course of two years, leaving her

penniless as well as homeless.

While individuals of limited means are particularly vulnerable,

even the wealthiest, the most fortunate Americans, are not immune from financial exploitation. Today, we will also hear from

Philip Marshall, who is the grandson of a well-known philanthropist and socialite, Brooke Astor, who summered in Maine for

decades and was so generous to our State. He will testify about
3 

how his father mistreated his mother and mismanaged her assets

while she suffered from Alzheimer’s.

To be clear, there are many instances in which it is vital for a

senior to have the assistance of a family member, friend, or other

trusted advisor to help manage his or her finances wisely and prudently, particularly if that senior becomes ill or loses cognitive ability. This is another factor that makes this issue so troubling and

so complicated.

I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses today—we

have a great panel—about the efforts that are underway to address

financial abuse of vulnerable seniors.

I do want to also apologize to our panel that we are going to have

a vote at 2:45. We will try to keep it going. Whoever is here will

take over the gavel. That is how trusting and bipartisan that we

are, and we will try to make the interruption as brief as possible.

Senator McCaskill.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, RANKING MEMBER

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Chairman Collins.

If a year ago I had been approached in the hallway by one of

those pesky people with a microphone and if I were asked, if the

Democrats were to lose control of the Senate and you were to take

over as a Ranking Member of the very first Committee you could

ever serve on as a Ranking Member, who would you pick for your

Chairman, I would have said without hesitation, my friend, my

mentor, and my role model, Susan Collins. She has been an example to me from the day that I arrived of courage and independence

when it is called upon, and of working across the aisle. I watched

her with Senator Lieberman in the Homeland Security Committee

when she was the Ranking Member show determination and toughness when she needed to, but always willing to listen and cooperate

when it was essential. I am very proud to serve under Chairman

Collins, and I think we will have a terrific and productive Committee looking at a very important issue in our country.

The senior financial exploitation is not new to any of us. As the

prosecutor in Kansas City, I saw firsthand both horrific and heartbreaking instances of elder abuse—physical, emotional, and, yes, financial. Roughly one in five seniors will be a target of some form

of financial exploitation, to the tune of billions of dollars of losses

each year.

This hearing will focus on those cases with an additional conflicting factor, when the perpetrator is a family member, a trusted

caretaker, or a close friend or advisor. The numbers here do not

really tell the story, and thankfully, we have several witnesses who

can share firsthand accounts of some of the truly horrible instances

of this type of abuse.

Perpetrators are constantly developing new ways to gain access

to our seniors’ life savings and have focused upon a generation that

typically has been more trusting and less able or willing to self-report. When the victim is a family member, however, these become

some of the most complex cases around. Often, a family member is

legally appointed as the guardian of assets. A victim of those

around them may suspect what is happening, but feel even more
4 

powerless or ashamed to report. Often, a victim will struggle with

filing criminal charges against a child or other family member.

Prosecution involves not only criminal action, but civil action to potentially regain access.

Today, I want to reiterate that we cannot shy away from holding

these perpetrators accountable for their actions. The fraud and

abuse perpetrated on our seniors is absolutely unconscionable. It is

really a fairly recent phenomenon that we have started discussing

these types of cases in the criminal arena, because for too long,

they were dismissed as family matters.

Today, we will hear from Page Ulrey, a Seattle prosecutor who

specializes in elder abuse criminal cases, and she will talk about

just how few of her colleagues she has in this arena. Only a handful of offices around the country have an office like the one she

works in King County, Washington, and that is troubling.

Financial exploitation cases involving the elderly are difficult to

prosecute. You need competent and trained professionals at every

level, from the detectives and mental health professionals, forensic

accountants, and, of course, trained investigators and prosecutors.

Ms. Ulrey will share how she is trying to train people in her area

and around the country. In fact, in this past year, she came to Missouri to help develop ways to protect seniors in my State who suffer from cognitive impairments from becoming victims of financial

fraud. 

We must address the desperate need for increased cooperation at

the Federal, State, and local level, and let me reiterate that, because since she is a King County prosecutor, I am sure she has her

own stories to tell about turf and about fiefdoms and about fights

and about finger pointing. It is, ‘‘I am not going to take this case.

Take it to the city prosecutor.’’ ‘‘I am not going to take this case.

Take it to the county prosecutor.’’ ‘‘I am not going to take this case.

It is too complex. Take it to the U.S. Attorney.’’ We must address

this cooperation.

There are those who say this is a State issue. Yes, it is, but it

is bigger than just a State issue. There is much that the Federal

Government can do better to assist State and local prosecution of

these cases. GAO found in its 2012 review of this issue that seven

different Federal agencies were working to solve this problem that

were consistent with their own mission, but not necessarily supportive of one another or the overall goal. Since that time, these

agencies have, in fact, begun to work together, and I want to highlight the work of one of them with material on hand today, the

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that is providing real guidance for family members and caregivers on how to responsibly take

care of someone else’s finances. My colleague who is here today,

Senator Warren, is very personally aware of the efforts of the

CFPB in this area.

There is still so much more that we could be doing and are not.

The reality is, we do not even have national data on the scope of

the problem. We do not know how many cases are reported to

Adult Protection Services, nor do we know how many elder abuse

cases are criminally prosecuted, or how many civil cases have been

filed in this area.
5 

I hope that our witnesses today can help us to examine how we

can become more creative and assertive against these perpetrators,

but firmly within our role in the Federal Government. I look forward to speaking with our witnesses about how we can start to

eliminate aging discrimination and bias in our attitudes toward

prosecution of these cases. Too often, they are dismissed because

they are difficult to prove, easier to address purely as a civil matter, or just too complex, especially when you are dealing with the

mental capacity of the victim.

My home State of Missouri passed a law in 2012 strengthening

the definition of financial exploitation of seniors. I intend to do everything I can to support that effort.

Thank you again to the Chairman and to our witnesses for taking the time to be here today and I look forward to hearing your

testimony. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator, and thank you

so much for your very generous comments.

I want to welcome to the Committee a new member of the Senate, Senator Sasse. We are very happy to have you join us on the

Committee, and welcome back to the Committee this year Senator

Warren of Massachusetts.

We are going to turn to our panel next in the interest of time.

First, we will be hearing from Philip Marshall, who is a professor

at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, but he will be

speaking today as a family member of someone, Brooke Astor, who

I mentioned in my opening statement, and we very much appreciate your willingness to come forward and share what I am sure

is a painful personal story.

Next, we will hear from Judith Shaw, who serves as the Securities Administrator in Maine and is President-Elect of the North

American Securities Administrators Association, an international

organization devoted to investor protection.

We will then hear from Kathleen Quinn, the Executive Director

of the National Adult Protective Services Association.

Finally, last but certainly not least, we will hear from Page

Ulrey, the Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in King County,

Washington, as Senator McCaskill has already explained.

Mr. Marshall, thank you for being here.

STATEMENT OF PHILIP C. MARSHALL,

GRANDSON OF BROOKE ASTOR

Mr. MARSHALL. Chairman Collins, Ranking Member McCaskill,

distinguished Committee members, thank you for inviting me to

testify today. I am so grateful for your leadership and action on

issues of elder justice.

My name is Philip Marshall. I am a professor at Roger Williams,

as you said, in Rhode Island, and a resident of Massachusetts, and

I am also the grandson of New York philanthropist Brooke Astor,

victim of elder abuse by her son, my father.

As President of the Vincent Astor Foundation, my grandmother

advanced its mission by giving millions of dollars to social and cultural causes. In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Well into her 90’s, she was at center

stage as New York’s First Lady and a humanist aristocrat with a
6 

generous heart. By 2000, when she was 100, she disappeared from

the limelight. She did not return until July 2006, when my guardianship petition, which I filed to protect my grandmother against

my father, was discovered by the press. Front page headlines displayed, ‘‘Disaster for Mrs. Astor.’’

My grandmother would never want to be known as one of America’s most famous cases of elder abuse, nor did she, while in the

throes of dementia, choose to be victimized, to be deprived, manipulated, and robbed, all as part of a calculated scheme to defraud, as

later characterized by the Manhattan District Attorney. Yet, the

sad circumstances surrounding my grandmother have informed a

timely and timeless cause in elder justice. This may be her greatest, most lasting legacy.

In my guardianship petition, I stated that my father, with reference to his mother, ‘‘has turned a blind eye to her, intentionally

and repeatedly ignoring her health, safety, personal and household

needs, while enriching himself with millions of dollars.’’ After a

three-month battle and five days before our court date, a settlement was reached with permanent guardianship awarded. We had

achieved our goal. My grandmother spent her final days in her

country house with care, in comfort, and free from fear.

A criminal investigation was launched by the Manhattan DA

when a possible forgery was referred to his Elder Abuse Unit. In

2009, after a six-month criminal trial, my father was found guilty

on thirteen of fourteen counts against him. All but one were held

up on appeal. This was a very bittersweet harvest, yet this harvest

has so nourished the cause of elder justice. Later, in probate, charities were awarded tens of millions of dollars that my father had

tried to direct to himself.

My grandmother now rests in peace, I could resume my life as

before, but I realize to be complacent about elder justice is to be

complicit in elder abuse. Since 2010, I launched my own journey for

elder justice beyond Brooke. I have been border to border, coast to

coast, face to face with elder justice practitioners. I thank them for

doing so much for so many with so little. While, with help, I successfully detected abuse and then helped my grandmother, many

elders lack vigilant oversight and remain helpless and hopeless.

Here, all those providing services to older persons under Federal

programs should be screened and trained on elder abuse detection

and resources for response. In addition, Adult Protective Services

needs Federal funding and support to respond adequately to an increasing number of cases of elder abuse.

While my grandmother’s abuse galvanized a collective and coordinated response, some elders are re-victimized by a fragmented

system. Here, much greater financial support and expansion of

multi-disciplinary teams would be so helpful.

While my grandmother lived in a jurisdiction with an elected DA

who cared and who had an Elder Abuse Unit, most people do not.

Other communities need to have law enforcement and prosecutors

who are trained in elder abuse and will respond to and prosecute

these cases.

While my grandmother’s stolen assets were reclaimed, many elders never reclaim their money or their lives. Here, financial transactions, enhanced detection, mandatory reporting, and greater re-
7 

porting of suspicious activities will so help. Financial monitoring

must be matched with physical monitoring to ensure elders’ wellbeing. 

Finally, I urge Congress to reauthorize the Elder Justice Act and

the Older Americans Act. While elder abuse is a trend, it is not our

destiny. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Marshall, for your

very compelling testimony and your advocacy. Mrs. Astor was beloved in my State, as well, and did so much good throughout her

life. 

Ms. Shaw.

STATEMENT OF JUDITH SHAW, SECURITIES ADMINISTRATOR

OF MAINE, CO-CHAIR, MAINE COUNCIL FOR ELDER ABUSE

PREVENTION, AND PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE NORTH

AMERICAN SECURITIES ADMINISTRATORS ASSOCIATION

Ms. SHAW. Thank you, Senator. Chairman Collins, Ranking

Member McCaskill, and members of the Committee, I am Judith

Shaw, Maine Securities Administrator, and Co-Chair of the Maine

Council for Elder Abuse Prevention. I am also the President-Elect

of the North American Securities Administrators Association, although I am not testifying before the Committee in that capacity

today. I am honored to be here to discuss one of the most serious

problems facing our elderly, financial exploitation, and to present

one approach currently in use in Maine.

Addressing senior financial exploitation is difficult, but critical.

Many in our elderly population are vulnerable due to social isolation and distance from family and other support networks. The

days of Americans growing old in communities surrounded by generations of family members are fading into the past.

What do we know about this population? We know that older

adults are often targets of financial fraud, scams, and exploitation,

in part because they own tangible assets, including homes and pension streams that are attractive to scam artists. Older adults are

often retired and no longer accumulating wealth. When a financial

fraud or exploitation occurs, even seniors with significant savings

have a limited ability to recoup their losses.

This is a community problem that requires a holistic solution. We

must all come together to weave a new safety net for our elderly,

breaking down barriers and walls that have kept us from seeking

achievable solutions. We must identify those who are best positioned to determine red flags early on and encourage reporting and

referrals to appropriate government agencies.

Where do we start? In Maine, we discovered one of the most valuable resources to be our banks and credit unions. We partnered

with Maine’s Office of Aging and Disability Services, Legal Services

for the Elderly, the Maine Bankers Association, and Maine Credit

Union League, among others, to develop Senior$afe. Senior$afe was

created to increase identification and reporting of elder financial

exploitation specifically for financial institutions.

Prior to developing Senior$afe, the Maine Council for Elder

Abuse Prevention met with representatives from the banks and

credit unions to identify barriers to reporting suspected cases of

elder financial exploitation. What we learned was that the system

lacked a feedback loop, so institutions were often left wondering
8 

whether their customer had been assisted or if there even was a

problem in the first place. We also learned that banks and credit

unions lacked direction on what to do when red flags were identified.

Senior$afe is comprised of three components: Training, a consumer brochure, and quick response cards for front-line staff and

managers of financial institutions. Front-line staff are trained to

identify red flags for elder abuse and financial exploitation, and

managers are provided with information to help them develop internal reporting protocols. Participants are advised to always contact Adult Protective Services when in doubt about a senior’s capacity, since APS is better equipped to make that assessment.

However, if there is no reason to believe a customer is incapacitated, the Maine Office of Securities has agreed to be the second

agency accepting reports and referrals under Senior$afe. As an intake agency, we receive telephone calls from banks and credit

unions and review the information to determine whether to investigate the case or refer it to another appropriate Federal or State

agency. 

The benefits of this type of reporting and referral system are farreaching. It leads to improved safety in the community for seniors

and other customers of the financial institution. Proactive measures help promote good will in the community and affirm the commitment of institutions to their customers’ well-being and financial

independence. 

All of this sounds wonderful, but has it been effective? The answer is yes. The first bank employee training occurred in February

2014, followed one month later by training for credit union personnel. To date, 210 bank and credit union employees have received training. In less than one year, the office has received a

total of 20 referrals resulting from the program.

Statistics do not tell the whole story of Senior$afe’s success. I

have described several real-life examples, including one of my own,

in my written testimony. In one, an elderly woman living in a rural

area was driven to the bank by a supposed handyman to withdraw

over $10,000 in cash to pay the man for repairing her roof. The

customer had no idea who the individual was and had not contracted with him. APS was informed and is now caring for the victim, who lost over $14,000 to the known scam artist and had no

other family member to care for her.

To summarize, the types of communities in which we, our grandparents, or our parents were raised are becoming less routine. We

must work together to create a new safety net using every valuable

resource available to us. Combatting elder abuse and financial exploitation requires consistent education, identification, reporting,

investigation, and prosecution.

Thank you for your attention and for providing me with the opportunity to testify today. I would be happy to answer any questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Shaw.

Ms. Quinn.
9 

STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN M. QUINN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

NATIONAL ADULT PROTECTIVE SERVICES ASSOCIATION

Ms. QUINN. Madam Chairman, Ranking Member McCaskill, and

Committee members, thank you for the honor of speaking to you

today about the terrible problem of elder abuse. I am Kathleen

Quinn, Director of the National Adult Protective Services Association. We represent Adult Protective Services, or APS, programs,

professionals, and, most importantly, older persons and adults with

disabilities who are mistreated in more ways than any of us can

imagine. NAPSA is a membership organization which helped found

the Elder Justice Coalition. With ACL funding, we operate the first

and only National APS Resource Center and we have crated the

first National Advisory Board on Elder Financial Exploitation, on

which I am proud to say Philip Marshall serves.

Elder abuse is a huge, expensive, deadly problem, but one that

is still largely invisible. One in ten older persons, which is about

five million people, is now treated, twice the number, the combined

number, of child abuse and domestic violence victims—twice. It

kills. Victims are three times more likely to die than non-abused

cohorts. It is expensive, costing individuals, their families, financial

institutions, and taxpayers billions of dollars annually. Over 90

percent of reported elder abuse is committed by the victims’ own

family members, which you mentioned, Senator, especially their

adult children. Finally, financial abuse very often co-occurs with

physical and emotional abuse and neglect.

Congress held the first hearings on elder abuse in the 1970’s, but

only recently, thanks to the Elder Justice Coalition, the Elder Justice Act, Assistant Secretary Greenlee’s leadership at ACL, the

Elder Justice Coordinating Council, and this Committee, has any

serious attention really begun to be paid. We hope that attention

will continue and grow as Federal investment in both child abuse

and domestic violence work has resulted in significant reductions

in the incidence rates of both problems.

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Quinn, pardon me for interrupting. There

are four minutes left in the vote, and as my colleagues know, I

have never missed one in more than eighteen years, so I am going

to excuse myself to vote.

Ms. QUINN. Sure.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Gillibrand, have you voted?

Senator GILLIBRAND. No.

The CHAIRMAN. You need to go, also. Why do we not take just

a brief break in the hearing, and if Senator McCaskill or Senator

Scott, both of whom are on their way, gets back, they will resume,

but we will return.

Ms. QUINN. Okay. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator SCOTT. Thank you for your patience.

Ms. Quinn, I think you were in the middle of your opening comments. Would you like to continue.

Ms. QUINN. I was. I thought maybe I got to start over, but no,

they froze——

Senator SCOTT. You certainly can——

Ms. QUINN. No. Thank you. I will start at the beginning of the

paragraph. 
10 

Congress first held hearings on elder abuse in the 1970’s, but

only recently, thanks to the Elder Justice Coalition, the Elder Justice Act, Assistant Secretary Greenlee’s leadership at the ACL, and

the Elder Justice Coordinating Council, and in no small part to this

Committee, has any serious attention really been paid to the issue.

We hope that attention will continue and grow as Federal investment in both child abuse and domestic violence work has resulted

in significant reductions in the incidence rates of both.

Yet, victimized adults with disabilities and older persons receive

no direct support from our national government. There is no dedicated funding for APS, the only nationally available, statutorily authorized services system for adults who cannot protect themselves.

It is APS which directly helps financial abuse victims.

The Elder Justice Act, passed in 2010, had its first appropriation

for $4 million in 2015 to support the development of desperately

needed national infrastructure, but no funding for direct victim

services. Two-thirds of the States use Social Service Block Grant

funds to support APS. Eliminating it would shut down APS in

some States. Also, SSBG funds many of the community services,

like home-delivered meals, necessary to keep victims at home.

Financial exploitation is generating an ever-increasing number of

reports. It is especially complex and difficult to investigate. It is not

only often perpetrated along with physical and emotional abuse

and neglect, but its victims frequently lack cognitive capacity and

require multiple interventions.

Federal regulatory agencies in 2013 issued a guidance to financial institutions to clarify that Federal law does not prohibit reporting elder abuse to the proper authorities, but many banks will not

provide APS with the clients’ financial records, which APS must

have to substantiate that abuse is occurring. NAPSA believes financial institutions are permitted to share such records under statutory exceptions to prevent fraud and respond to authorized investigations. A revised Federal guidance clarifying that client records

may be shared with APS in a timely manner would mean financial

abuse could be stopped much earlier. I believe financial institutions

would welcome this clarification.

Second, financial institutions should be granted the authority to

temporarily freeze accounts when there is evidence the owner is

being defrauded—for example, they are sending money to a Jamaican lottery scam—in order to provide time to contact APS or take

other measures.

I hope this Committee and Congress will look at their own decades of research into elder abuse, some of which are on evidence

here—this is a partial stack of all the many reports from the many,

many hearings that go back almost five decades now—will look at

its own decades of research into elder abuse and begin to invest in

stopping and preventing it so its incidence rates can be reduced as

they have been for other family violence victims. This not only will

protect older persons’ lives and assets over the long term, it will

also reduce demands on Medicare, Medicaid, and other publicly

funded programs.

On behalf of dedicated APS workers across this great nation, we

thank you for holding this hearing and for all of your work on behalf of older adults. We hope this will be the first of a sustained
11 

series of hearings and actions to address elder abuse, neglect, and

financial exploitation, and we stand ready to work with you to

greatly strengthen our ability to protect our parents and our grandparents. Thank you.

Senator SCOTT. Thank you, ma’am, for your testimony.

I know that Senator Collins has already introduced you, Ms.

Ulrey, but we would love to hear your opening comments.

STATEMENT OF PAGE ULREY, SENIOR DEPUTY

PROSECUTING ATTORNEY, ELDER ABUSE TEAM,

KING COUNTY PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE

Ms. ULREY. Thank you, Senator. My sincere thanks to Chair Collins, to Ranking Member McCaskill, and to the other honored

members of the Committee. I am Page Ulrey. I am a prosecutor

with the King County Prosecutor’s Office in Seattle, Washington.

Fourteen years ago, I was appointed to be my office’s first Elder

Abuse Prosecutor. Since then, with the exception of a two-year hiatus, I have been prosecuting cases of elder financial exploitation,

neglect, physical assault, sexual assault, and homicide.

A recent case that I handled involved an esteemed community

member of Kent, Washington, a town just south of Seattle. Kenneth Sharp was a Rotarian, a businessman, and running for city

council. His mother, Helen, was in her 80’s and had dementia, but

she was in good shape financially. She owned her home free and

clear and had plenty of money to cover any care needs for the rest

of her life. Ken, her son, was her Power of Attorney and handled

her finances.

In 2008, Ken Sharp began to steal from her, first by making

transfers from her bank account to his, and then by lying to get

a reverse mortgage on her house and taking those proceeds, too.

During the next four years, Ken Sharp stole over $490,000 from his

mother for a new house, a diamond ring for his fiancee, his business, and to fund his lavish lifestyle.

In 2011, Helen’s daughters figured it out and called the police,

who investigated. We then filed seven counts of felony theft and

one of mortgage fraud against Sharp. Helen was moved to a nursing home closer to one of her daughters.

What was the impact of this exploitation? After learning of it,

Helen kept opening her purse to look for her money, certain that

she had misplaced it. Helen’s daughters were robbed of their entire

inheritance. The family was torn apart. With no money left, Helen

was forced to go on Medicaid. She died just a few months ago,

heartbroken. 

That is how it is with elder financial exploitation. We all pay the

price—seniors, their families, and all levels of government, and the

price is huge. Countless victims like Helen Sharp lose their life’s

savings, their health, and their independence as a result of financial exploitation and are forced to rely on Medicaid, Medicare,

housing, and other public programs. We still do not know the overall cost of elder financial exploitation, but it is safe to say that the

cost to the government alone is astronomical.

The Federal Government can do three things to begin to address

this problem. First, create infrastructure to help the criminal justice system at the local, State, and Federal levels handle these
12 

cases. In the Sharp case, we did have some infrastructure in place,

but not enough. We had a specialized Elder Abuse Detective and

a specialized prosecutor, but we had no victim services to help

Helen Sharp and her daughters navigate the many obstacles they

faced as a result of the exploitation. Most jurisdictions do not have

any of these specialized experts, as Senator McCaskill has already

pointed out, which means that most of these cases are never pursued. We also need a National Resource Center to which criminal

justice professionals can turn for information and assistance.

Second, develop and conduct training. Justice systems professionals need training. Do those in the many other disciplines that

encounter elder abuse and could intervene if they knew what they

were seeing. I am talking about doctors, nurses, EMTs, notaries

public, caregivers, social workers, civil attorneys, accountants, and

those in the financial services industry.

Third, fund research, data collection, and pilot tests. Unnecessary ignorance is a huge chronic hurdle. We urgently need funding

to expand our knowledge about how best to reduce financial exploitation, recoup the huge losses that it causes, and screen for cognitive impairment, which dramatically increases risk.

We also need accurate calculations about the cost and dimensions of the problem so we can develop a commensurate response.

The Sharp case that I told you about concluded two weeks ago.

Ken Sharp pled guilty, as charged, and was sentenced to a highend sentence of 43 months in prison. He will be ordered to pay restitution to the family for the money he stole and to the government

for the Medicaid funds it paid for Helen’s care.

I wish I could say that this case was a complete victory, but I

cannot. While we were able to obtain some justice for the Sharp

family, it is almost certain that neither they nor the government

will ever get their money back. The emotional damage that was

done to the Sharps can never be undone.

Every day, all around us, elder financial exploitation is devastating countless elders and their families and costing the government countless dollars, but this is a problem with solutions. With

modest investment in improving infrastructure, training, and research, Congress and Federal agencies can dramatically improve

how we prevent and respond to this terrible problem.

Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for your testimony. I am

happy that I was able to hear all of two of the witnesses and part

of the other two witnesses, and, of course, I have read your written

testimonies. 

I want to thank the members of the Committee who have joined

us, Senator Scott and Senator Casey, since I last acknowledged everyone.

Ms. Shaw, I want to start with you because in your written testimony, you talked about what you described as a guardian angel,

Effie, the manager of a credit union, who alerted you to the fact

that your own mother might be a victim of abuse. Could you tell

us a little bit about that, and also, are there obstacles to financial

institutions coming forward and reporting abuse, such as privacy

laws or other regulations that might make them hesitate, even if

they have evidence of exploitation?
13 

Ms. SHAW. Yes. Thank you very much, Senator. Yes. I grew up

in a small town in Northern Maine, one of four children. Like many

children in small towns in Northern Maine, I went to college and

moved away, along with my two brothers, but my sister stayed behind to pursue her education. My mother became a legal secretary

when she graduated high school for a small law firm in our small

town and remained there for 60 years.

My father died at the age of 57 and he was sort of the socialite

in our family. My mother’s big social activity really was her regular

visits to the credit union, so she came to know the people in the

credit union very well. As my mother neared her retirement, Effie

at the credit union noticed that she was not talking about her

grandchildren quite so much. She was not caring for her hair and

her clothes the way she had before. She became a little—Effie became a little concerned, so she looked at my mother’s bank accounts and realized that there was a strange automatic withdrawal

coming out of Mom’s checking account.

My sister is on that account with my mother, and so Effie called

Cathy and said we should look into this, and found Mom was concerned about living on Social Security when she retired. Her law

firm had no retirement plan available to her, and so she had fallen

victim to one of these work-from-home scams. Fortunately, Effie

and my sister were able to identify it early on and stopped the

scam, and my sister had the good foresight to take my mother to

see her doctor and learned that my mother has early stage dementia and is now getting treated for that. We might not have identified it as early on if Effie had not come into the picture, and we

are very grateful to her.

That was before Senior$afe, but that is one of the reasons why

I spent two years helping to develop Senior$afe. It is clear to me

that people at banks and credit unions are on the front line.

I think that they sometimes are hesitant to report because they

do not have that feedback loop that I was talking about. They

make a report to Adult Protective Services, but would not hear

back about whether or not there really was a problem, whether it

was correct for them to make that referral. There are also privacy

concerns. 

I think it is very helpful in the State of Maine, now with

Senior$afe, they have that feedback loop. There is also immunity

for reporting to Adult Protective Services, which I think is very important.

I would agree with Ms. Quinn that it would be helpful to further

clarify the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to make it perfectly clear that

it is not a violation of Gramm-Leach-Bliley to make these reports

to Adult Protective Services or other appropriate State or Federal

agencies or law enforcement. The guidance that the eight Federal

regulators put out in September 2013 was helpful, but I do think

that further clarification may provide additional comfort to financial institutions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Marshall, how difficult was it for you to figure out what was

happening to your mother, particularly since she, in her very last

years, was suffering, from dementia?
14 

Mr. MARSHALL. At first, quite frankly, my stepfather had passed

away in 2002 and I was working toward settling his eState, and

he had total recall on a good day but played too much Mr. Lawyer,

and I learned a little—enough to then look south from Vermont,

and in that case to New York, and I realized instead of my grandmother being cared for, she was being compromised, and I did not

know what to do. Luckily, there were some caretakers and staff of

my grandmother’s and we had mutual trust and I could find out.

Having those first line of defense and those who were interested in

my grandmother so helped.

What happens is the greatest concern that we had was her psychological abuse and her manipulation. Quite frankly, I went to a

friend and I asked him—and he had been through similar circumstances—he said, ‘‘Philip, follow your heart first, then follow

the money.’’ I was able to obtain enough documentation on financials, which, coupled with other components of my guardianship,

allowed us to get immediate temporary guardianship and then permanent guardianship. These other aspects of elder abuse are so difficult to really document, in my case, certainly, the financials so

helped. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator McCaskill.

Senator MCCASKILL. First, Mr. Marshall, how quickly did law enforcement get involved in your grandmother’s case?

Mr. MARSHALL. Law enforcement actually got involved—I had

filed a petition for guardianship in July 2006 and law enforcement

got involved in October 2006, after this, at that point, alleged forgery was brought before the District Attorney.

Senator MCCASKILL. Let me turn to Ms. Ulrey. You know, I

know—I do not know how you managed to get the police in King

County and in metropolitan Seattle and how you got the King

County DA Office—I think your boss or maybe your previous boss,

I do not know who started this, has done a great thing. I think it

is important for us to understand the barriers around ‘‘it is not big

enough,’’ and this is the constant refrain that families hear from

law enforcement.

There is not a gun. There is not blood on the street. It is—there

is not pressure from the sergeant or the head of detectives to close

the cases because this is not a statistic that is generally tracked.

There is very little to get the law enforcement community engaged

other than a prosecutor who feels pressure from either their own

compass or from some outward source.

What would be the thing that we could do that would most light

a fire under local law enforcement and State DAs?

Ms. ULREY. Senator, I think that is an excellent question because

I think that—basically, many of these cases stop when that message is heard in the community that prosecutors are not going to

prosecute the case. APS does not bother referring to law enforcement. Law enforcement does not bother investigating. The public

does not bother reporting. Having a prosecutor who is stepping up

and saying, ‘‘we will take on this issue,’’ is crucial to its being addressed properly.
15 

I was lucky enough to have a boss who keyed into that very

early, and that was thanks to Paul Greenwood, who is a wonderful

elder abuse prosecutor in San Diego. There is also a grant right

now going on by the Office of Violence Against Women that funds

training across the spectrum of the criminal justice system so that

it gets law enforcement, prosecutors, Adult Protective Services, and

victim advocates together at the table to be trained on how to respond to these cases. The communities that have gotten that grant

have really begun to take on this issue in a very dramatically different way. That is one potential solution, is to expand that program. Right now, I think it is the smallest program that OVW

funds. 

The other thing is I think that more prosecutors would take this

on if they had training, and so going back to my point about the

need for infrastructure, I do think prosecutors would care and

would be willing to take on these cases if they understood how to

prove them, but there are huge knowledge issues here. We do not

know how to deal with capacity issues, which are so common in

these cases. We do not know how to handle the analysis of the financial documents, which are also crucial to prosecuting these

cases. We do not have doctors to talk to. We are really lacking the

tools that we need to start responding properly.

I think it goes back to training, to encouraging prosecutors to

create dedicated prosecutor positions, and then encouraging multidisciplinary teams, as well.

Senator MCCASKILL. In your world, who are—let us assume that

the police department gets a report or the DA’s Office gets one directly. Who are the capacity evaluators that you call on? Are they

through the probate court or are they through Adult Protective

Services? 

Ms. ULREY. There are some that we call on through the probate

court who are experts who simply do most of the probate court

evaluations. There are also some that APS uses. I do quite a few

trainings of law enforcement officers in different parts of the country and that is the one refrain that I keep hearing from them. Actually, there are two refrains I hear. One is the prosecutors are not

prosecuting these cases, even if we investigate them, and two is,

we have no one to do these capacity evaluations. That is another

very important need that we need to develop.

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, the prosecutors are going to be in

town in the next week, two weeks. Many of you may have been

contacted by them to come to your office and visit. This is a great

time for us to bring up with them how many elder abuse cases they

have filed in the last year, and I intend to do that.

Ms. ULREY. Wonderful.

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator.

We are going to recognize Senators to do questions in the orders

of their arrival.

Senator Warren.

Senator WARREN. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. You

know, I just want to say congratulations on your new Chairmanship, and it was a great honor to work with you in the past two
16 

years on the Aging Committee and I very much look forward to

your leadership in this Committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator WARREN. Thank you. I am also looking forward to serving with Ranking Member McCaskill. I know the leadership of both

of you will be wonderful here.

We are discussing the financial exploitation of our seniors, and

on that topic, I am particularly concerned about helping seniors

protect their retirement savings, particularly the money in their

401(k)’s and their IRAs. I would like to focus for just a minute on

the financial advisors who take advantage of people who rely on

them. 

In a recent study, Harvard researchers sent actors disguised as

customers to banks and brokerages to get advice on their retirement portfolios and they found that the advisors consistently

steered customers to the highest fee products. A 2013 GAO study

found the same thing. In other words, the bankers and advisors

gave themselves a great deal while they gave their customers a

lousy deal, and this can cost customers a lot. Even a one-percent

increase in fees could cost a retiree $100,000 in savings over their

career. 

What I wanted to ask about, Ms. Shaw, is what can we do to

make sure that our seniors do not end up investing their retirement savings in funds that benefit the brokers more than they benefit the customers.

Ms. SHAW. Thank you, Senator. Certainly, I have supported the

position of NASAA, the North American Securities Administrators

Association, to encourage the Securities and Exchange Commission

to adopt a Uniform Fiduciary Standard. I would also say that disclosure is very key, as well, disclosure of the fees, disclosure of the

information. An informed investor is an investor who is going to be

better protected. Certainly, working toward including a more robust disclosure of fees, of the product components—products are

very complex—to make sure that all of that is made perfectly clear

to investors before they invest, and to make sure that any product,

retirement product or otherwise, that any investor is put in is suitable for that investor.

We do want advisors who should be working—we hope that they

are working in the best interests of the investor. I would be naive

to say that every advisor is operating in the best interest of their

client. 

Senator WARREN. Well, I appreciate your raising that, Ms. Shaw,

because I think it is a very important point. Russel Kinnel, the Director of Research at Morningstar, which is a leading investment

research company, made this remark about high fees. Quote, ‘‘If

there is anything in the whole world of mutual funds that you can

take to the bank, it is that the expense ratios help you make a better decision.’’ In every single time period and data point tested,

low-cost funds beat high-cost funds.

Now, high-fee products may result in less money for our seniors,

but, of course, they do mean more money, as you point out, for

banks and other investment advisors. To make matters worse, according to a study by AARP, more than three-quarters of individuals do not even know that most of these salespeople do not actu-
17 

ally have to offer investment advice that is in the customer’s best

financial interest.

Ms. Shaw, are you worried that because investment advisors do

not have to advise in the customers’ best interest, that this might

give an unfair advantage to bad actors who push products that

benefit themselves over good actors who are doing everything they

can to help their clients reach a secure retirement and protect that

retirement? 

Ms. SHAW. It is certainly a concern, and it is part of the strong

investor and consumer protection that has been a part of my agency since the days of Senator Collins running our department in

Maine. It is an area that we look at in Maine and that we are looking at through NASAA through many different lenses, including

you may be aware NASAA did a fee study not long ago. We are

working very closely with industry to improve fee disclosure. They

are at the table working with us to improve fee disclosure and to

provide ways in which consumers and customers can, hopefully,

make better comparisons before they make decisions.

There is a long way to go, and it takes only a few minutes to look

at our office’s website to see some of the enforcement actions we

have taken against advisors to see that there are, indeed, bad actors out there. We plan on staying the cop on the beat.

Senator WARREN. Well, good. I want to thank you very much for

your work. I want to thank all of you for being here today.

You know, we need to do more to protect our seniors, but also

particularly to make sure that financial advisors do not steer their

clients into retirement products that maximize the advisors’ profits

while they drain away the clients’ savings. That is particularly important for our seniors who just do not have the ability to recover

from this. Thank you very much. Thank you, particularly, Ms.

Shaw, on this, and thank you all.

Thank you, Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Tillis.

Senator TILLIS. Thank you, Madam Chair, and ladies and gentlemen of the panel, thank you for being here. I am sorry I am late.

I had a vote and two other Committee meetings, so it is not for a

lack of interest in this.

Ms. Shaw, I had a question for you. Prior to coming here, I was

Speaker of the House in North Carolina and I am interested in the

Senior$afe program and appreciate Maine’s leadership in that. Can

you tell me a little bit about any challenges that you all had in the

process of implementing that program and the benefits.

Ms. SHAW. I think that the first challenge that we experienced

was really getting to the point where the banks and credit unions

were comfortable making the referrals to the Office of Securities.

The other key component of the program is to make sure that there

is this partnership and collaboration. We say this is a ‘‘no wrong

door’’ approach. In other words, a report could be made to any of

the partners. If the report is made to Adult Protective Services and

they determine that they do not have jurisdiction, a bank or credit

union need not be concerned that that is going to be the end of the

story. APS has committed that they will then make that referral

to our office so that we can assess it and either refer it to another
18 

agency, or if the senior needs other community-based resources,

perhaps a referral to a domestic violence program, we will make

sure that that happens.

I would say that the key components are to make sure that there

are two points of entry in State government, not just Adult Protective Services, and that there is a very strong partnership with all

available community-based resources. It has to be a public-private

partnership. Multi-disciplinary is the only way to go.

Senator TILLIS. Thank you for that. Is there any focus on expanding the scope, using this as a platform for kind of using big data

in other areas to potentially extend out to providers or just other

areas that would be outside of the net that banks and credit unions

may be able to provide, like a phase two or phase three of

Senior$afe? 

Ms. SHAW. Yes. Thank you for that question. We have taken the

concept of Senior$afe and we have now modified it for use by law

enforcement. Law enforcement very soon will have something

called a RADAR card that is the size of a summons book that they

will all carry with them with red flags and reporting options available to them. We are doing the same for first responders, emergency medical services, and we have just been approached by direct

care workers and in-home support workers to modify Senior$afe for

their purposes. I am pleased to say in March, we will be providing

a version of Senior$afe to one of the national broker-dealers, their

local reps.

Senator TILLIS. Well, coming from a State that has one of the

fastest growing senior populations in the Nation and someone who

knows a few of the House legislators there, do not be surprised if

we do not invite you to come down and share your story, because

I think it is a great story. It needs to be replicated and we need

your leadership.

Ms. SHAW. Thank you.

Senator TILLIS. I had another question for whoever would be appropriate on the panel and it has to do with Medicare scams and

something as simple—maybe not so simple-—as the Social Security

numbers still being printed on the cards. I know that there have

been bills introduced to see that through. CMS has said it is very

expensive. In the order of priorities if you were spending money,

give me some sense of where something as straightforward as that

fits and things that you would like to see us allocate resources to,

anyone on the panel that would have an opinion on it.

Ms. SHAW. I do not know that I could speak specifically to that

issue, but I will tell you that I think one of the largest barriers that

remains is the prosecution area. We have lots of programs that

educate. We are including training programs. Actually identifying

elder financial exploitation and getting that investigation and prosecution, to me and the State of Maine, is one of the key components

that we need to be able to address.

Senator TILLIS. Thank you all. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Quinn, did you want to add to that?

Ms. QUINN. Well, just that having Social Security numbers readily available is clearly—opens a huge door for scams of all kinds.

We do not—you know, APS deals mostly with family abuse and
19 

family exploitation, so we do not deal directly with Medicare fraud,

but just as a citizen, it seems obvious that that leads to problems.

Senator TILLIS. The reason for my question, I think there are a

variety of areas where we probably need to find ways to free up resources to make progress here. You hear about this one and try to

get some sense in an area of scarce resources, does it rise to that

top priority or somewhere in between in the face of all the things

that we should probably be considering trying to find a way to

fund. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Casey.

Senator CASEY. Madam Chair, thanks very much. Congratulations on your Chairmanship, and Ranking Member McCaskill, the

same, as well.

I am glad that you focused on this topic for what I guess is the

first hearing, and we are grateful for that. I want to thank the

panel. I know, like many of us, we were in and out with votes and

other activity, but we are grateful you are here. I did not hear all

of the testimony. I heard close to half, probably, but we are grateful

that you are here.

We are especially grateful that you are bringing to this hearing

and to these issues not only your experience and your expertise,

but also in many cases your own personal stories and that of your

families, and that is both illuminating for us in terms of the stories

you can tell, but also I know that is not easy all the time to talk

about your own families.

I wanted to focus just for a moment, Ms. Shaw, on Senior$afe,

and a couple of questions. One is the elements of it, or the component parts of it, meaning the agencies that comprise it. I am looking at page three of your testimony. If my count is right, you have,

I guess, about six or seven—I am not sure—different entities that

are part of it.

I guess the first question I would ask is that there is an obvious

multi-disciplinary approach that you bring to it, and that is something you have all spoken to in one way or another. I guess the

basic question is, how difficult was it to pull all of those entities

together, and is there something about Senior$afe that is particularly suited to or more appropriate for the State of Maine, or do

you think it could be a model for other States around the country?

Ms. SHAW. I strongly believe that it can be a model for other

States. In fact, we have turned Senior$afe over to NASAA, to the

North American Securities Administrators Association, to be modified for use by all of NASAA’s members, which include all of the

States as well as the Canadian provinces and territories. The Province of New Brunswick is very interested in Senior$afe and we

hope will be attending a training that we will be doing in Northern

Maine. 

I think that the time has come and that everyone recognizes that

it is time to address this issue. It was not difficult to get these

partners to come to the table, to put everyone’s resources. I was

once asked if this was funded by a grant, and the answer is no,

that we all agreed to commit our own resources to make Senior$afe

work. 
20 

I think that everyone understands and appreciates that we must,

and we are, all responsible for addressing elder abuse and financial

exploitation. It is not hard to get players to the table.

Senator CASEY. In Pennsylvania, we have one of the oldest

States by demographics of any. I think we are, depending on what

year you look at, third or fourth. We have not only a substantial

challenge just because of the numbers, but also a challenge because

we are a State that is fairly decentralized, 67 counties, and people

tend to identify more with their local community than any kind of

statewide sense of where they live and how they focus on their

lives. 

We have a whole range of good programs in this area that sometimes emanate from or are partnered with prosecutors’ offices, like

the State Attorney General, a lot of great efforts at the local level,

as well. We may be calling upon you for other advice as I try to

give advice to folks at the State level. I did a lot of auditing, or the

head of the State Auditor General’s Office years ago, and that work

got us into those issues and examining those agencies.

I wanted to, just for the panel, as well, to ask if you are designing, certainly at the State level, but more broadly, if you are designing any program to combat this kind of abuse, what are the

basic elements of it? I mean, I know from some of the testimony

it obviously has to be interdisciplinary. You have to have a lot of

research. You have to have a coordinated strategic approach, but

maybe if we can just—and I know we have about 40 seconds, but

Ms. Ulrey, can you start with just what you would hope would be

the component parts of a strategy.

Ms. ULREY. I think I laid them out in my report, as well, if you

want to look at that at some point, Senator. I think, having, again,

specialized, dedicated law enforcement, prosecutors, and victim advocates is absolutely crucial. In my State right now, we have legislation pending that just creates authority for information sharing

between all the different agencies that would participate in a

multi-disciplinary team, because these teams are happening all

over the country in different versions, and if we can create that

ability to share information more easily, I think we will encourage

their growth.

I also just wanted to point out how important this is simply as

far as the scale of elder financial exploitation is concerned. In a

fairly recent study that came out of New York, we found out that

for every one case that comes to light, another 44 are never reported. Your question about multi-disciplinary teams and how we

deal with this as a system, I think, is crucial, because I think this

problem is only going to get worse and we are going to be looking

at a real crisis very soon. Thank you.

Senator CASEY. Thank you.

Ms. Quinn.

Ms. QUINN. I completely agree that a multi-disciplinary approach

is ideal. I also think that a strong, well-trained Adult Protective

Services system is the necessary, but not sufficient, response to

this problem. It is APS that gets the reports, by and large. It is

APS that goes out to the victims’ homes. It is APS that is totally

victim-centered, to see what it is the victim needs, how can we

make that victim safe.
21 

Many, many reports of elder abuse are not criminal, to be honest,

or they will never rise to that level. It may be an inadequate—you

know, it may be a developmentally disabled adult child living at

home who is now paying the bills and they are not getting paid.

I mean, it can look like financial exploitation, or there are problems

as a result of that.

I think then, absolutely, APS should operate in a multi-disciplinary field, where it has law enforcement, where it has prosecutors,

where it has medical advice, where it has legal advice. I do think

that the basic premise is that we have a system in every community where a well-trained social worker can go out and see what

that victim needs, what kind of, you know, abuse is occurring to

them, and how can that be resolved.

Senator CASEY. Thank you. I am way over, so Ms. Shaw, I will

skip you, and Mr. Marshall, if you do not mind submitting it in

writing, that would be great.

Senator NELSON. Madam Chairman, may I take a point of personal privilege——

The CHAIRMAN. Absolutely——

Senator NELSON [continuing]. to congratulate you and to congratulate Senator McCaskill and to tell you that the participation

and the interest of the members is quite significant. Thank you for

your leadership.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, Senator Nelson, I was about to acknowledge you because we had such a great partnership when you were

Chair of this Committee and I was thrilled that you decided to stay

on the Committee and continue to share your insights and expertise with us, so thank you for that, too.

Senator Gillibrand.

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and congratulations to you and Senator McCaskill for chairing this Committee. I think it is an amazing agenda that you have put together

for this Committee. I think the issues that you are shining a spotlight on are exactly the ones that need our efforts, so thank you

both for your leadership.

I am going to continue the line of questioning about law enforcement, specifically to Mr. Marshall. From what we have read and

heard, your grandmother was subjected to a horrible set of circumstances perpetrated by close family members and predicated on

Alzheimer’s. We have an Alzheimer’s crisis in this country that is

very real. The unfortunate truth is that she was not alone. Millions

of New York seniors fall victim to the same kinds of circumstances,

to consumer fraud, resulting in about $180 million worth of economic loss.

With your grandmother’s case, the majority of seniors are victimized by family members, most often an adult child. As with the majority of the abuse cases, your grandmother’s case was within the

jurisdiction of a District Attorney’s Office, in particular, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Now, in Manhattan, we have an

Elder Abuse Unit, one that is led by Prosecutor Elizabeth Loewy,

a well-known expert on elder exploitation issues. Can you share for

us how the structure of the Elder Abuse Unit and having an advocate like Elizabeth Loewy helped you and your family?
22 

Mr. MARSHALL. What happened is after we went through the ordeal of guardianship, where we did not know if we were going to

go to court—we basically had about a three-month battle there—

at that very moment after we settled the guardianship, it was, as

I mentioned before, the time when Liz Loewy as the lead, eventually the lead prosecutor, came in with the Elder Abuse Unit. What

was—I really have to appreciate how respectful her office was to

those who could have walked away from my grandmother, caregivers who could have walked away and gotten a better job, who

stood out, and staff and other friends, but in particular, so many

people in other completely different circumstances are actually revictimized by the system. The District Attorney’s Office and Liz

Loewy’s Elder Abuse Unit was so considerate of where we had been

and what the ordeal as we began, as an investigation was begun

that fall.

Senator GILLIBRAND. To Ms. Ulrey, how would having dedicated

Elder Abuse Units be able to help DA’s Offices and law enforcement catch predators, particularly recidivists, who are targeting

our seniors very methodically? Do you have additional testimony

you would like to give in terms of why having a specific structure

might be useful?

Ms. ULREY. I will tell you that from my own experience, when

I started my job, there were no elder abuse cases coming into our

office at all. Part of my job as a prosecutor of elder abuse cases was

to go out and do trainings and create a multi-disciplinary response,

and as I did that and trained law enforcement on how to recognize

and investigate these cases and created a multi-disciplinary response, the cases started flowing in.

I think, when you have those dedicated positions and have an actual Elder Abuse Unit, then law enforcement will get the training

they need and they will bother doing these investigations. Without

that, they are not going to bother, because these cases are complicated. They require a forensic accounting of financial documents.

They require capacity evaluations, as we have talked about. They

are very complex. Unless we have dedicated prosecutors who have

been trained and have the support that they need, the cases will

never actually get filed.

Senator GILLIBRAND. One of you mentioned that one funding

stream that you have been able to use is through the Violence

Against Women Act. There is a small, the smallest grant program

that is accessible. What recommendations do any of you have for

this panel about how, on the Federal level, we could help you reconstruct that kind of training prosecutor’s office by prosecutor’s office? What kind of funding streams or incentives do you think we

could create federally that would make this more probable in more

District Attorneys’ Offices around the country?

Ms. ULREY. I mean, I think expanding the OVW grant would be

a huge step forward. I think creating more nationally sponsored

trainings for prosecutors would be very, very important. I also

think we need to have some kind of resource center so that prosecutors and detectives can turn to a group with experienced people

involved who know how to advise them on cases and can give them

the information they need. I think all of that development of infrastructure would make a huge difference for us. I also think that we
23 

need victim advocates who are trained in this area and can help

these victims. I think the combination of those things would take

us much further than we are now.

Senator GILLIBRAND. Other panelists, do you have any thoughts

on ways we can help you do your jobs better?

Ms. QUINN. APS needs a lot of similar resources. We need to

really—we are very grateful that we have funding from ACL to

have a modest APS resource center, the first ever. We could use a

much stronger resource center so we could provide training across

the country. There are some States where people go out and make

decisions about vulnerable people’s lives with no training, or some

on-the-job training or shadowing somebody who has been there a

while. I think we need the same kind of infrastructure.

There is an APS data system underway which will tell all of us

enormously more than we know, not just about APS, but about

elder abuse in general. That needs to be fully developed and implemented across the country. We need the training. We need research, as Page mentioned. We need a lot more research, what

works, what does not work, what works in these type of cases, not

other type of cases. It is really—Secretary Greenlee says we never

built the system and we need to build the system. Also, encouraging and supporting multi-disciplinary teams.

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you to each of you for your testimony. It has been very helpful. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator.

Before we turn to Senator Kaine, I just want to acknowledge that

Senator Tim Scott and Senator Donnelly were both here earlier.

They each have been called to other appointments, but both of

them, I know, are very interested in this issue, and I appreciated

Senator Scott helping to provide coverage while we were all going

to vote.

Senator Kaine.

Senator KAINE. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for joining the Committee. We are

very delighted to have you as a new member.

Senator KAINE. I am thrilled to be on it. The powers that be

noted that this Committee was entirely too youthful and vigorous

and they wanted to add somebody with graying hair and receding

hair to it, and that is why I am here.

It is great to be with you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member

McCaskill, and this has been important testimony.

A lot of your testimony has focused on multi-disciplinary approach in Maine, the pulling together the stakeholders. Mr. Marshall’s testimony, that was tragic in the personal instance, at least

eventually there was a well coordinated response, but you do have

in your testimony an indication that sometimes a fragmented system kind of re-victimizes people who have been through this. I am

kind of interested in you giving us a report card about our Federal

efforts. 

A GAO report in 2012 indicated that the seven Federal agencies

that work on the problem of financial fraud being perpetrated

against seniors, which would include the National Center for Elder

Abuse at HHS, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office for

Older Americans, Federal Trade Commission, Department of Jus-
24 

tice, Postal Inspection Service, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Treasury Department Financial Crimes Enforcement,

there is a recommendation that they should work together in a

more coordinated way so that they are not duplicating, but also not

leaving gaps.

What is your sense, as folks who are active and expert in this

world, to the degree to which the Federal agencies that each have

part of this in their jurisdiction really work in a coordinated way

or what more work could be done to improve that?

Ms. QUINN. Well, I think that the Elder Justice Coordinating

Council that was formed, created in the Elder Justice Act, and

which has been implemented, I think that has made tremendous

progress, because quarterly, all those major agencies come together, and I suspect some of them had never thought about elder

abuse before having to come to those meetings and give a report

on what their agency is doing. I know my organization has worked

very closely, for example, with the Social Security Administration

to address problems with representative payees who are exploiting

victims and how Social Security can work more effectively with

APS. There is a pilot project underway, and I think that is being

replicated across the board, where there is really much more activity and awareness of this issue.

Senator KAINE. Other thoughts?

Ms. SHAW. I think one thing I would say is that State Securities

Regulators certainly work well together and work well with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In my role as Co-Chair of the

Maine Council for Elder Abuse Prevention, one initiative that we

are undertaking is we have formed a working group to try to look

at multi-jurisdictional scams, things like Jamaican lottery scams

and the like, and we have asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office and

other Federal agencies to come to the table to see if we can think

about a program where the States can identify these problems and

serve as a theater, if you will, for the Federal agencies to try to

develop that critical mass, if you will, to try to find a way. Can we

be the eyes and ears that can then feed cases up to the Feds? It

is in its very early stages, but those types of initiatives, perhaps,

will help.

Senator KAINE. One of the areas—I am sorry, Ms. Ulrey. Were

you going to——

Ms. ULREY. I was just going to briefly say, Senator, that I know

the Department of Justice is building an elder abuse website right

now that has the potential to really help and reach a lot of different people. The OVW is also doing a lot of excellent work. There

are a lot of different agencies that are doing this work. My perception is that they are all severely underfunded, and so they have one

or two people working on these elder abuse issues that are gargantuan. I think increased funding—I know that is the refrain, but

I think, again, it is really needed here.

Senator KAINE. There are some members of the Budget Committee here and we are starting to work on that right now, so I appreciate that comment.

The one—you know, for every one reported case, there are 44

that go unreported. That is a pretty sobering statistic. One of the

things we ought to be thinking about together with you is how to
25 

increase the amount of reporting. In my limited experience in this

area as a lawyer in private practice, often, people who are subject

to some kind of financial abuse, there was a professional in their

life, whether it was an accountant or somebody who was aware

what was going on. Sometimes that professional would report it

and help and sometimes they would not. ‘‘I do not want to get involved in a family thing,’’ or whatever. Do you have suggestions for

us about ways in which we could increase the amount of reporting,

especially by professionals who work with senior citizens who become aware that there may be warning signs?

Ms. ULREY. One thing I wanted to let you all know about was

a program, actually, that is happening in Missouri right now. Ron

Long with Wells Fargo has created a unit of elderly—it is called

the Department of Elderly Client Initiatives, and it is a number of

different professionals within Wells Fargo’s brokerage firm who are

dedicated to advising all of their employees on concerning cases of

elder financial exploitation. I think those kinds of models for training are absolutely essential in the financial services industry.

We also get a lot of our referrals from Adult Protective Services.

In our State, the mandatory reporting laws require that elder financial exploitation be reported only to APS and not to law enforcement. APS does not have adequate tools and the research is

not adequate to screen for capacity, they end up missing out on a

lot of the cases and they decide the person is choosing to be exploited or to give their money away. They close their case. The referral never makes it to law enforcement. Also focusing on research

and training, both for APS and law enforcement with regard to this

capacity issue, would be a very large step forward.

Senator KAINE. Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate your

answers. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Blumenthal, welcome back to the Committee.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Chair Collins, and thanks to

you and Senator McCaskill for having this hearing and beginning

on such a profoundly important note.

I saw this problem for many years when I was the State Attorney General in Connecticut, sought to stop it, and while here continued to encounter it in cases of constituents who were affected by

it. One very notably, Robert Matava, a Marine, World War II veteran, who was brutally abused financially by his children, in a

sense, not unlike your situation, Mr. Marshall, and as a result of

his experience, I sponsored in the 112th Congress the Robert

Matava Exploitation Protection for Elder Adults Act, which increases the Federal penalties for fraud directed at senior citizens

as well as exploitation—Federal penalties, because I believe there

is Federal jurisdiction, improved ability for the government to collect statistical data, because I agree with many of you that there

is too little factual and evidence-based information about it, and

provided resources for the Federal Government to give to the

States for training, technical assistance, pilot grant programs in

developing best practices, the kind of support that a number of our

colleagues have referred to here. I am pleased to be working with

Senator Ayotte on that legislation and hoping to reintroduce it

soon. 
26 

The area that I would like to focus on, which, in a sense, is the

elephant in the room, is under-reporting, the shame and stigma

that causes so many of these cases to be unreported, the feelings

of embarrassment and excuses and sometimes love for relatives,

children, or others who are actually exploiting them, and dependence and fear. There is a combination of feelings that result in this

under-reporting, and I want to thank you, Ms. Quinn, for including

in your citation some of the numbers here, which are really staggering.

Elder abuse is vastly under-reported. Only one in 23.5 cases is

reported to any agency. For financial abuse, it is one in 44—one in

44 financial abuse cases is reported, which makes it very difficult,

if not impossible, for the best prosecutors in the world—and I have

been a prosecutor, not one of the best in the world—to take this

kind of action, and for neglect, it is one in 57.

I am looking at some of the State laws that apply to reporting,

and looking at who the mandated reporters are, rarely are they financial institutions under State law, which is the primary basis for

requiring reporting. I am wondering whether you would endorse

more States adopting laws that require reporting. You know, certain people are mandated reporters, for example, for child abuse,

schools and others. For financial abuse, the same concept applies.

Should financial institutions, and you have mentioned—one of

you mentioned accountants who knew about it, or maybe Senator—

I think Senator Kaine actually did, quite appropriately—should

they be required to report? If they are put under the legal onus,

they cannot say, you know, ‘‘I am worried about my client,’’ ‘‘I do

not want to lose my client,’’ ‘‘This is a family matter,’’ much as it

now is in schools for children or in other situations. Doctors, for example, are mandated reporters for abuse, elder abuse, too. Should

this not be a requirement for financial institutions? Some States

do, but it is only a minority.

Ms. ULREY. I would be delighted if that were made the law.

Washington State a few years ago passed a permissive reporting

statute that simply gives financial institutions protection if they do

report in good faith, and it has helped tremendously in our getting

the cases on our desks. I think it would be, obviously, a huge, very

powerful message to send if we were to make it a mandated situation.

I think we also, though, if we do that, have to include training

in that reporting law. We have a lot of mandatory reporters in

Washington of elder abuse and many of them, even though they

are mandated to report, do not even know that they are mandated

to report because there is no training of them. As long as we include that training component, I think that would be a wonderful

idea. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Ms. Quinn.

Ms. QUINN. I agree, and I would just add, as I said, that part

of the reporting should be providing APS with the records, client

records. APS cannot prove abuse if they cannot see the records, and

a lot of cases go unsubstantiated. The money continues to drain

away. Thank you.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you. Well, I will say just by way

of full disclosure, my own State of Connecticut does not have this
27 

requirement. The Chairwoman’s State of Maine does not have it.

My colleague, Tim Kaine’s State of Virginia has no mandate, and

the same is true of Senator McCaskill’s State. We have four States

where this kind of requirement is not attributable to them. I do not

mean in any way to cast aspersions on them, but there is a lot of

potential here for making a difference by mandating reporting, not

just permissively, giving them the cover, in a sense, the relief from

any liability, but making it their burden, legal burden. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. You

can see by the turnout we have of Senators on both sides of the

aisle who came by that there is tremendous concern about elder

abuse, and Ms. Quinn, your testimony, your written testimony had

some statistics which I want to close the hearing with, because

they are truly extraordinary and show us that we have just begun

to scratch the surface of the scope of this problem.

In your testimony, there was a chart that indicates that there

are approximately five million victims of elder abuse annually. In

contrast, there are 1.25 million victims of child abuse and 2.3 million domestic violence victims. We abhor crime whether it is toward

a child, in particular, or domestic abuse, but there is much greater

awareness of child abuse and domestic violence, and yet the incidence of elder abuse is far higher. Perhaps one of the benefits of

this hearing is it has put a spotlight on an issue that people are

not talking enough about, are not enough aware of, and where

State, private agencies, Federal efforts really need to be ramped

up, particularly since we know in our country that the population

that is 85 and older is the fastest growing part of our population.

It is just exploding, and thus, this problem is only going to get

worse. 

I, too, am interested and will ask for the record your recommendations on what we can do at the Federal level, whether it

is the reauthorization of the Elder Justice Abuse Act or the Older

Americans Act, which we are about to do, by the way, and have reported it from the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee just last week, or whether it is modifying Gramm-Leach-Bliley to make sure that financial institutions report legitimate concerns to Adult Protective Services or State Securities Administrators without fear that they are going to be violating privacy laws.

Whatever your recommendations are, we would really welcome

them, and I very much appreciate your coming forward, talking

about personal experiences as well as your professional experiences. I think this was an excellent first hearing, as is shown by

the great participation that we have.

The Committee members will all have until Friday, February

13—I think we should have chosen a different day, but it is Friday

the 13th—to submit questions for the record.

Before I close the hearing completely, I want to yield to my

Ranking Member for any closing comments that she might have.

Senator McCaskill.

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, I think there are things we can do

from the bully pulpit of our offices that can help make a difference.

I want to thank all of you.
28 

I particularly want to recognize you, Mr. Marshall. I cannot

imagine the emotional trauma and roller coaster that you must

have been on, and I think all of us who try to put ourselves in your

position, which was exacerbated by the profile of your grandmother

and what she represented to a much larger community than your

family, and knowing that you were going to become the victim of

prurient news interests about this very impressive and elite woman

in New York. I particularly—I want to thank you and I want to

thank the prosecutor’s doggedness, because I love prosecutors who

are dogged.

Thank you all very much.

The CHAIRMAN. You love all prosecutors.

Senator MCCASKILL. I love all prosecutors, but especially ones

that are dogged.

The CHAIRMAN. Again, my thanks to all our witnesses. I want to

thank each of you for the important role that you have played in

increasing our understanding of this truly devastating problem.

That concludes our hearing. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 4:06 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX 

Prepared Witness Statements

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