Elder Abuse

In an elder abuse case described by one investigator as the most outrageous he has ever seen, three former top managers at a Kern County nursing home have been arrested in the deaths of three residents who allegedly were given needless doses of psychotropic medications. The state attorney general's office contended in a criminal complaint that more than 20 residents at a skilled nursing center run by the Kern Valley Healthcare District were drugged "for staff convenience."

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office has filed torture and elder abuse charges against a former employee of an upscale assisted-living facility in Calabasas. Cesar Ulloa, 20, of Reseda was charged Monday after an investigation into the suspicious death of an 80-year-old resident of the facility. Elmore Kittower's body was exhumed last year after a whistle-blower said he had been the victim of foul play. After a nearly yearlong investigation, Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide detectives arrested Ulloa on suspicion of beating Kittower shortly before he died.

One of California's most prominent professional conservators has been denied a license by the state and is the focus of a grand jury investigation. The decision to deny Melodie Jo Scott a license marks a significant shift in the oversight of professional conservators, who answered only to probate judges until a 2005 Times series highlighted abuse in the field and prompted a licensing requirement that took effect in January.

The live-in caretaker of an 84-year-old Huntington Beach woman allegedly took out fraudulent loans in her name, bilking the older woman out of about $200,000 and putting the woman's home in danger of foreclosure, authorities said Tuesday. Cindi Dee Powell, 54, has been charged with financial elder abuse, grand theft, identity theft, vehicle theft, fraud and forgery. She remains in custody.

Two-lane Deer Creek Road is full of tortuous twists and turns as it meanders across the canyons and ridgelines above Malibu's last three-mile stretch of undeveloped coastline. And the fight over ownership of 1,291 acres of rugged oceanfront mountain land west of the Los Angeles-Ventura county line has seen plenty of its own ups and downs and sharply narrow interpretations of motive.

Shortly after moving into a group home here six months ago, Trevor Castro said, he began to feel less like a paying tenant and more like a prisoner. The bleak compound was surrounded by a cinder-block wall topped with coils of jagged razor wire. He lived in a converted chicken coop with no plumbing and a bucket for a toilet. He said he was kicked, had a glass broken on his face by a staff member and had cans of cigarette butts dumped on him. On Friday, police came looking for 23-year-old Castro for an outstanding DUI warrant and saw a bucket of urine outside his door.

Investigators looking into charges of abuse at a collection of San Bernardino-area group homes arrested the director of one of the homes after discovering he was on probation for elder abuse and had been ordered to stay away from such facilities, officials said Tuesday. Tony Dalton, 40, was taken into custody Friday for violating his probation after initially refusing entry to investigators checking on conditions at the house, said San Bernardino City Atty. James Penman. Dalton is the son of Pensri Sophar Dalton, 61, who was arrested Sept.

Authorities arrested a woman Friday who they say boarded 22 mentally ill, elderly and other people in prison-like conditions, housing some in converted chicken coops behind razor-wire fences. Pensri Sophar Dalton, 61, was arrested on 16 counts of suspected elder abuse, according to City Atty. James F. Penman. Some of the people appeared to have mental health issues, he said. "The stench was pretty horrific," Penman said. "These were very squalid conditions." The people were being held in dilapidated buildings, some without running water or toilets.

Re "Brooke Astor's son guilty of looting the socialite's estate," Oct. 9 Now that the elder-abuse trial of society grand dame Brooke Astor's son is over, I am left contemplating the lessons demonstrated by her sad and sordid story: Being rich won't protect you from elder abuse; being famous won't protect you from elder abuse; having famous friends won't protect you from elder abuse. In America, the country that loves youth and beauty, it is not surprising, but still lamentable, that we don't have any comprehensive federal legislation focused on elder abuse.

The 53-year-old son of an elderly woman whose filthy Villa Park home was overrun with cats -- both living and dead -- is under investigation for elder abuse, Orange County sheriff's officials said Thursday. Paramedics called to the home this month found Mary Maloney, 76, lying outside on a blanket; she was covered with sores and skin rashes, authorities said. When deputies investigated, they found cat feces 2 feet high in places, urine-soaked walls and carpets, and trash everywhere.