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NEW YORK– Marian Kornicki turned to the state after her brother or sister took $3.5 million from her mother and fathers, Manny and Bertha Kornicki. She hoped state authorities would stop the theft, perhaps even get a few of the money back.
More than 6 years after her mother and fathers died and her brother or sister pled guilty to misdemeanor theft as part of a plea agreement, Kornicki is combating to keep what’s left of her home’s estate.
Kornicki and others state court-appointed guardians, who are recommended to care for people thought about by a court as incapacitated, have really utilized homes in turmoil, separated the incapacitated, and drained their ownerships, leaving little or definitely nothing for their followers.
Kornicki specified she and her daddy prosecuted, hoping their rights would be protected, nevertheless that didn’t happen.
“That was the beginning of what’s been a terrible, terrible nightmare,” Kornicki notified The Epoch Times.
Supporters of court-ordered guardianship acknowledge there are bad stars nevertheless specify they are the exception, not the standard. They specify the majority of guardianships protected vulnerable individuals from exploitation by those who would gain from them.
Kornicki specified her mother’s estate– from which Kornicki’s brother or sister as quickly as took $3.5 million– is now so reduced that an individual of her mother’s last legal guardians is petitioning the court for grant use the family home.
Deborah Rosenthal is a Great Neck, New York legal agent who was designated guardian over Bertha Kornicki’s home. The court has really purchased your home to be dedicated Kornicki. Years of claims, medical expenses, taxes, and other expenses, including guardians’ charges, have really drained pipelines the estate, Kornicki specified.
Rosenthal appeared to confirm the estate’s financial issues in court records used to The Epoch Times by Kornicki.

Marian Kornicki at her home in Roslyn Heights, N.Y., on Dec. 6, 2024. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
“The assets that I am holding for Bertha Kornicki are not adequate to pay her debts,” checks out a March 2, 2018, letter from Rosenthal to Judge Arthur Diamond of the Supreme Court of Nassau County, New York.
Kornicki’s mother and fathers, Manny and Bertha Kornicki, were Holocaust survivors who wed in a displaced people camp in Germany after World War II. They emigrated to the United States in 1950, settling at first in the Bronx and after that in Flushing, New York.
They purchased and opened a reliable bakeshop home.
In the 1970s, their earliest kid, Marian Kornicki, transferred to California to pursue an occupation in the taping market. Her mother and fathers didn’t understand her departure from home custom-made.
“They were just so upset, so upset that I didn’t stay in New York and get married,” Kornicki specified.
While she was away, her brother or sister, Terri Kornicki Kaminer, went to work for her daddy as an accounting expert. Kornicki specified that in 2003, her daddy asked her to come back to New York due to the truth that he had really found evidence that Kaminer was drawing from him.
According to court files, in 1998, Kaminer convinced Bertha, who had Alzheimer’s disease, to authorize her a power of attorney. Kaminer then moved many dollars of her mother and fathers’ cash and ownerships into her name and the names of her family and friends.
In 2005, Kornicki and her daddy prepared to send criminal charges, nevertheless an estate attorney recommended that they get guardianship over Bertha. The Kornickis thought they would be designated Bertha’s guardians. That was not to be.
Instead, the court designated a legal representative as Bertha’s guardian. Kornicki specified her daddy wound up being dissatisfied by the legal treatment that eliminated his life partner’s rights rather of offering the needs of those who enjoyed her.
“He told me he would never go back [to court],” Kornicki specified. “And he never did.”
According to Kornicki, in between 2005 and 2018, her mother’s estate paid $1.8 million to legal agents, accounting experts, courts, others, and guardians connected with her case.

A picture of Manny and Bertha Kornicki, Marian Kornicki’s mother and fathers, at her home in Roslyn Heights, N.Y., on Dec. 6, 2024. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
She specified the guardians took control of every aspect of her mother’s life. Kornicki was eventually designated guardian over her mother’s person, nevertheless the court remained safely in control of whatever else, she specified. Kornicki’s every action was examined by the guardian over her estate.
She specified her mother’s estate was charged up to $400 per hour for a guardian to assess telephone, grocery, and other routine expenses before accrediting Kornicki to pay the bill.
“All of these people took control of everything,” Kornicki specified. “They did exactly what my sister did.”
Sandra Bussel is a legal representative and CPA who was amongst Bertha’s extremely first court-appointed guardians.
According to an online bio, she concentrates on trusts, estates, guardianships, Medicaid preparation, and home.
At the time of her assessment, she stayed in individual practice in Great Neck, New York. Bussel reduced to comment for this story. In a Nov. 11, 2011 letter to Kornicki, Bussell pointed out that Kornicki may not have really understood a guardian’s function or how guardians are compensated.
“It appears to me that you are laboring under the misconception that this Guardianship action focuses only in the recovery of assets [stolen by Kaminer],” the letter states. “Note that this action also focuses in the management of your mother’s assets, and it is my duty and responsibility to make sure that [Bertha’s] assets are well administered and that all expenses are made for the benefit of [Bertha] only.”

Marian Kornicki searches old home images at her home in Roslyn Heights, N.Y., on Dec. 6, 2024. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

Marian Kornicki has a look at a picture of herself and her mother Bertha Kornicki, at her home in Roslyn Heights, N.Y., on Dec. 6, 2024. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
In a June 2015 filing, Bussell notified the court that her focus was on “managing [Bertha’s] assets and marshaling those assets missing, meeting regularly with investment advisors, preparing annual accounting and keeping track of expenses, review and question her tax returns and make corrections with her accountant as needed.”
Rick Black is co-director of the Center for Estate Administration Reform. He and his spouse, Terri, developed the business in 2014 after a neighbor obviously took $220,000 from Terri’s disabled daddy.
Black specified that when the home discovered the theft, the neighbor stated guardianship of his father-in-law and practically won. It was then that Black learnt that anyone can get guardianship over an individual. A neighbor, a relative, or possibly a total stranger can wind up being a guardian by convincing a judge that the potential ward is handicapped and the specific asking to be guardian is the absolute best alternative to care for them.
He specified the extremely first home court hearing was an astonishing experience. Black specified he acknowledged early while doing so that his father-in-law was losing his rights.
“It took 10 minutes to realize something’s amiss here,” Black notified The Epoch Times. “It was very obvious this was organized.”
The particular range of Americans placed under guardianship each year doubts. Each state runs its own court of probate. There is no standard technique of tracking cases. Each state court of probate runs in a various method.
Some states collect details nevertheless have no techniques of tracking it. Other states collect no information at all. What is specific is that as quickly as a person is specified a ward of the state, they lose most, if not all, of their rights.
Black specified his father-in-law had and had a will and advanced guidelines talked to his home about his dreams, nevertheless it was all to no get. The probate judge is completely complimentary to overlook all of it, accept the assistance of the guardian, or make his/her independent judgment.
The conservatorship for Bertha Bernal of Orange County, California, was similarly illustrative of the authority a conservator has more than the conservatee.
According to files from the Orange County Superior Court, Bernal’s conservator handled whatever from her health care to whether she got any visitors, “regardless of whether the conservatee consents.”

Superior Court of California of the County of Orange, in Santa Ana, Calif., on Oct. 22, 2020. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times
The order similarly withdrawed all powers of attorney for funds that Bernal had really offered.
In some cases, guardianship jobs are divided in between a “guardian over the person,” who handles the ward’s physical requirements, including diet strategy, health care, exercise, and other specific matters, and a “guardian over the property,” who handles the ward’s ownerships.
The guardian’s charges, medical expenses, and other expenditures are drawn from the ward’s ownerships. A guardian can acquire, use, or purchase the ward’s name. This includes providing a ward’s home to cover expenses, as Bertha Kornicki’s guardian has really recommended she wants to do.
According to Black, court of probate is not like criminal or civil courts. Probate is an “equity court” that deals mainly with domestic issues such as divorce, estate settlements, adoptions, and other home issues.
Judges in these courts have greater latitude in their decision-making, due to the truth that they often deal with issues such as department of home that may not be clearly defined in the law. And thinking about that they are local courts, federal courts have no jurisdiction to hear appeals.
This suggests less possibilities of a judge’s judgment being reversed.
Detractors of guardianship state this has really established a best environment for those trying to find to improve themselves.
“Because [probate court] has no oversight, because there [are] no penalties for this function, it becomes an environment that serves insiders at the expense of the law and the public,” Black specified.
However, representatives of the guardian market state that cases such as those of Kornicki and Black are anecdotal.

Marian Kornicki has a look at old home images in what made use of to be her mother and fathers’ bed space, at her home in Roslyn Heights, N.Y., on Dec. 6, 2024. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
“We’re not here to defend bad guardians,” Butler notified The Epoch Times.
Since then, the NGA has really made up concepts policies and requirements of care for its members. The CGC establishes and administers the accreditation treatment for professional guardians. Butler specified NGA is working to get its policies and accreditation treatments carried out nationally.
According to Butler, most of states require a minimum of a background search for a private to be designated a guardian. 4 states– Washington, Florida, California, and Texas– require accreditation.
Butler, a certified guardian herself, specified the alternative to violent guardianships is openness.
“I guess I try to be as transparent as possible,” Butler specified.
She specified it’s challenging to find wards who more than pleased with their guardianship experiences. Some wards concern value their guardians.
Visitors to the rural Minnesota group home where Kerry Gerber lives are invited by chickens and a Beagle who will drop a toy at the visitors’ feet and look for expectantly.
“She’s really friendly,” Gerber talks about.

Kerry Gerber with her family pet Riley at her home in Buffalo, Minn., on Nov. 25, 2024. Tim Gruber for The Epoch Times
Gerber is amongst Butler’s previous wards. She’s a bespectacled lady who enjoys her job, her family pet, and having the capability to endure on her own after an in many cases disorderly and violent youth.
Gerber wound up being a ward of the state at 8 years of ages. She and 4 bro or sis were born to mother and fathers having issue with alcohol and drug issues. By the time she aged out of the system in 2013, she had really stayed in 24 numerous foster homes and various quit working efforts to reunite with her mother and fathers. If she misbehaved,
She specified one foster home made her sleep in a tub without any linens or pillows.
Gerber blames the state for the abuse she and her bro or sis suffered.
“We did go through some hard patches,” Gerber specified.“She became like a mother figure to me because my mom wasn’t there.”

Butler specified that when she was designated Gerber’s guardian, she satisfied a strengthened lady who count on no one and didn’t want to be notified what to do. By being open and business with her new ward, Butler specified she had the ability to make her trust and teach her how to her make her own options.
National Guardianship Summit
“There’s a lot of great success stories out there, but those are not the ones that are seen in the media,” in May 2021 and pushing states to pass the Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Other Protective Arrangements
Act
Both treatments need greater duty and oversight of guardians and set out the ward’s rights, including decision-making, getting adequate honestly funded legal counsel if they can’t handle to pay and the adoption of personalized guardianships to ensure wards preserve as great deals of rights as possible.
Under a personalized guardianship, the guardian’s authority is limited to specific requirements such as funds or health care.
“Why hasn’t it changed? Because of the lobby groups … it’s the lawyers, it’s the guardianship associations in every state,” Butler specified.“They love guardianships.”
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Diane Dimond, a self-employed press reporter and author who analyzed the guardianship system for 8 years, accepts Black that guardianship is made use of far often in the United States. Dimond discusses that the issues handling the court of probate and guardianship have really existed for many years. For several years, great deals of laws have really been made up, and political leaders have really needed reform, nevertheless Dimond specified definitely nothing has really been done.
She blamed lobbyists for those with advantageous interests in the guardianship system for blocking reforms. Dimond specified that as long as there’s money to be made, there will be no reform.(*) Dimond specified. (*) Source link (*).(*)