|
Elder Abuse - Preface
I started to interview and write profiles about Council House tenants during 1999. Their diversity indicated an interesting project covering personal backgrounds and experience among the approximately 150 tenants. This ranged from life in Adolph Hitler’s concentration camps to construction work under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.
My individual case studies resulted from research and investigation using government and other documents, resident interviews, and personal observations. What portended a pleasant project interviewing people from age 62 through 102 to listen to their stories became a nightmare when administrators heard about it.
Directors and administrators started to harass me to try to silence me. Council House used thugs to start a vicious campaign of character assassination and vilification. They suborned testimony, verbally and physically assaulted me, filed false criminal and civil complaints with both state and federal agencies, and have issued death threats. Then they locked me out of my apartment and sent me to jail with solitary confinement using the perjured testimony. [Metamorphosis]
Council House evicted and jailed me on trumped-up charges for writing reports about abuse and incarcerated several other tenants for speaking their mind - all constitutionally protected speech. Those tenants suffered egregious consequences that I will chronicle in the linked essays. [Prologue]
I continue to write although still homeless after five years of elder abuse. My personal possessions, documents, and academic library, remain in storage. I am restrained from interviewing thousands of people or visiting a large area of Seattle due to unlawful court orders.
Council House, a federal financially-assisted facility for independent living does not classify as an adult family home, boarding home, or nursing home and must not rent apartments to vulnerable adults. However, administrators have granted leases to people in that category for personal and corporate gain then abused several of them. This resulted in alleged homicide by abuse and the appointment of other vulnerable adults as Kapos (thugs). [Homicide by Abuse] [Vulnerable Adults] [RCW 74.34]
During my interviews with tenants, I discovered untold abuse caused by administrators and condoned by directors. My reports result from investigations into mistreatment of elders over a five-year period. Administrators and directors actively support or condone domestic elder abuse - neglect and exploitation of persons over 60. Many victims remain unable or unwilling to seek assistance for themselves in fear of retaliation.
Elder abuse existed under Mark T. Mullen long before I started my investigation. According to people at Council House, tenants submitted this petition to the directors but to no avail:
October 13, 1998
To the President & Members of the Board of Council House Seattle, WA
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We, the undersigned residents of Council House, write this letter to you to request your attention to and consideration of our grievances.
We invite you to a meeting at a date, time and place mutually agreed upon in order to let us speak our hearts and minds to you. We have found no other recourse that we feel has as much merit as dealing with you directly, for we prefer that necessary changes be made as a result of our direct involvement/intervention. There are other methods we could use that would involve legal means and negative publicity via the media, but we will use those only as a last resort.
We would prefer not to have to obtain legal redress or retaliation by just any means available to us. We are sensible, reasonable, God-fearing people, many of your same faith. We are perhaps extra-sensitive to your continued ignorance of and/or indifference to our plights, but the fact remains that the abuses go on and on with no recourse or redress, and that you all seem completely comfortable in your physical, emotional, and intellectual distance from us, as though, having moved to this building, we are now beneath your humanity, simply slaves to your profits.
Yours respectfully,
My interviews started a year later without knowledge of the letter which surfaced during my investigation. They revealed not only suffering from the past but current elder abuse by Council House administrators and their thugs much of which I personally witnessed and experienced. The abuse ranged from verbal abuse, personal humiliation, ostracism, and malicious harassment to physical assault and death. [Five Kapos] [RCW 9A.36]
It included incarceration of at least four tenants on trumped-up charges (to punish them for expressing their views), unlawful evictions, and at least two deaths. Those people spoke out against racial and religious bigots who denied them their human and civil rights.
I encouraged voluntary reporting by senior citizens who had the ability to self report in order not to compromise their right to self-determination. However, those who used their constitutional right to speak out suffered retaliation. I will describe the abuse in detail in approximately twenty case studies that will eventually link to this preface. Meanwhile, I have written abstracts for ten of them and published the first exposé. The abstracts linked to this preface cover the ten most egregious cases.
A high percentage of tenants said that they did not report abuse for fear of threatened retaliation or did not know how to report it. Some suffered disabilities or dysfunction that precluded them from acting but provided valuable information. Many supplied me with information and documentation in confidence knowing that I would publish it without using their names. I have respected all requests for anonymity.
I have also used my discretion and withheld names of some outspoken people to hold them harmless and to avoid retaliation against them by administrators. Others, some represented by attorneys, have given permission or requested publication of their names to reassert their dignity.
About forty-five Council House tenants approached me for help at one time or another. I told each of them that as a journalist I could not act as an advocate and could only report what they told me in the hope that someone would do something to effect change. In the most serious and urgent cases I supplied them with copies of relevant regulations and referred them to counselors, lawyers, or agencies where they could obtain help.
I provided pro bono fax and typing services to help people with medical or pension documentation problems. Several of them had communication disabilities and needed help on other matters. Others would not use Council House office facilities to avoid misuse of private information, intimidation, or exorbitant charges. I also attended to some of their personal needs and gave rides to hospitals or other facilities when requested by them or referred to me for help.
Mitchell repeatedly threatened tenants with eviction and legal action by falsely claiming that the unlawful restraining order that he obtained against me also applied to them. Before he obtained that order, he banned tenants from speaking to me or about me without an administrator present. He retaliated against anyone seen with me. As a result of his restraint, tenants who wished to speak with me asked to meet me in restaurants or coffee houses a distance from Council House. I agreed so that I could hold them harmless although they lived only a few feet from me.
Mitchell does not allow rational discussion, instead, he quashes complaints. This gives him and his lieutenants absolute power to terrorize residents with whom they disagree. From fear, they decide to cooperate despite inherent ethics or morals. [Rational Discussion]
Mitchell increased the coercion when he learned that a tenant had spoken about me to other residents. At that time, I had no contact with Pola Doenyas who apparently discussed articles on this web site with other tenants. They reported her to Mitchell. He had previously harassed and tampered with her as a witness in a court case and even tried to bribe her to stand down. She refused the bribe. Since, his Kapos have assaulted her and publicly humiliated her. She now has pro bono legal representation as a result of Contra Cabal exposure. [Five Kapos]
This excerpt from a Council House eviction warning notice to Pola Doenyas - one of many similar warnings sent by Mitchell to tenants who disagree with him - illustrates the coercion:
I have been informed by our attorneys that your continued attempt to carry Mr. Trummel's messages to this community is a perpetuation of this ongoing harassment by yourself and by Mr. Trummel. This is a violation of that order and not only is Mr. Trummel in danger of being found in contempt, you may be as well.
This is also a warning that your residency at Council House is in jeopardy. The house rules signed by you clearly states that rude or abusive behavior directed toward staff or residents may result in eviction. This letter is a warning that continuing this behavior may result in Council House pursuing eviction proceedings.
Some tenants visited me in jail despite Mitchell’s orders not to contact me. Others suffered unlawful eviction as a result of speaking their minds. Several relocated with help from my colleagues or other contacts. Others probably recovered some of their dignity by speaking out despite the risk of eviction. Some now communicate with friends and relatives using email as a result of gifts of computer equipment and time that I spent educating them about its use.
These basic communication tools overcame the censorship and unlawful restrictions placed upon use of Council House computers. It also allowed tenants to keep me informed of matters that concerned them without surveillance or invasion of their privacy by administrators.
Management has unlawfully restricted personal computer connections to a sycophantic elite who conform to management ideologies and help disseminate propaganda. That elite, backed by thugs, has indulged in a campaign of public castigation and character assassination of particular tenants nominated by administrators.
I made it very clear to all tenants with whom I came in contact that I could not give them legal advice. However, I referred several of the most egregious or urgent cases to pro bono lawyers. I found that as soon as a tenant obtained legal representation the abuse changed from overt humiliation and verbal or physical harassment to covert character assassination and blackmail. Administrators now concentrate their abuse upon people unrepresented by lawyers which emphasizes their cowardice.
Federal, state, and municipal authorities have done nothing to relieve the suffering despite repeated reports, telephone calls, and personal visits, in attempts to persuade them to address the issues within their own mandates. Instead, they have condoned, and in several cases supported, elder abuse, religious and ethnic obscenity, and unlawful evictions. [Judicial Misconduct and the Law]
As a survivor of the European holocaust, I know first-hand the human devastation caused by bigots and warmongers inspired by racist ideology and supported by the indifference of appeasers. Each morning showed me the devastation with its loss of life and all services - food, gas, water, electricity, and transport. [Apologia]
I also survived almost two years combat duty despite the murder of my countrymen five years earlier by American-financed Zionist terrorists led by Menachem Begin. British troops served at that time with the misguided intent to protect a democratic Israel from its neighbors. [Institutionalized Racism]
Betrayal of that trust has continued for more than half a century and now manifests in racist and nationalistic behavior in Seattle. Prejudice, misuse of power, and greed, promotes a philosophy that entails abuse of others now as the directors perceive that others abused their forebears - a role reversal of abuser and abused. [Role Reversal?]
I describe how administrators have arbitrarily sent tenants to mental hospitals. All returned to Council House with a clean bill of mental health. Interviewed before and after the event, they signed releases for me to obtain their mental and medical health records. Those records show nothing unusual for people in their seventies and eighties. They certainly do not show any mental health condition that would allow an administrator to confine them even if he had that authority. One cannot say the same about the mental condition of Mitchell and the five Kapos whom he employs to harass tenants. [List of names and addresses of Council House directors]
Council House directors have maintained anonymity and essentially stopped publication of this series through prior restraint and frivolous law suits for more than three years. They continue to use antiharassment orders to restrain publication of their names although they classify as public information protected by the Fist Amendment. This has allowed abuse by their administrators to continue unabated. [Court-Facilitated Terror] [Prior Restraint]
Historically, appeasement has never worked yet many Council House tenants, in fear, continue to try to appease the administrator and his thugs. I repeatedly informed the directors and their attorneys about the abuse but they remained indifferent and even condoned it. They spent thousands of dollars in legal fees and court costs to try to cover up the situation by silencing me.
They continue to support their administrators and have perjured themselves to that end. Laissez faire policies, and a lack of competent oversight by officials at both US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the federal oversight authority, and City of Seattle (CoS), have allowed the abuse to continue. HUD officials continue to turn a blind eye to mismanagement and resident complaints although they have received many over a four-year period.
My reports describe management abuse and HUD and CoS neglect. Those agencies repeatedly failed to investigate reports of resident abuse and misappropriation of government funds. With prior knowledge, HUD and CoS, acquiesced to my eviction and incarceration instead of addressing the issues that I brought to their attention. [Agency Accountability]
With Doerty, they continue to conceal public records available under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Washington State Public Disclosure Act to thwart inquiries and cover up their alleged criminal activity. Moreover, investigators and auditors from HUD Office of the Inspector General (HUD-OIG) have colluded with HUD officials to cover up neglect and wrongdoing by their employees. [RCW 42.17]
I have divided the case studies into two approximate categories - criminal and civil. Ten tenants suffered egregious abuse by Council House administrators and ten suffered humiliation, degradation, and denial of constitutional rights by administrative actions and attitudes.
At least thirty tenants suffered abuse at a serious level counting only those that I know about. I have only reported those cases that I could verify and validate with documents. The reports cover death, incarceration, unlawful eviction, humiliation, and ostracism. The directors have supported neo-fascist administrators and thugs for more than two decades.
The profiles generally describe the pattern or practice of elder abuse. Much of that abuse derives from misappropriation of funds allocated by Congress for counseling. The stories apply only to current and former tenants some of whom have passed on but who gave me particulars before they died. [Elder Abuse - Introduction]
On publication of each case study, the officials responsible for oversight - John W. Meyers, Regional Director, HUD; Thomas A. Carr, Seattle City Attorney; and, Norm Maleng, King County Prosecuting Attorney; will receive a copy. I will request them to investigate then take appropriate action to abate the abuse of senior citizens and to relieve the suffering of Council House tenants. Then they must prosecute the directors and administrators for the crimes that they have already committed in equal proportion to the suffering that they have inflicted upon their victims.
Despite setbacks, I intend to continue to report senior citizen abuse at Council House until oversight authorities demand change. In all life, one must comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, especially when they rest comfortably, contentedly, even happily corrupt. [01]
Prosecutors must indict Council House administrators and take them into custody after charging them with the heinous crimes that they have committed. They must also bring charges for neglect and complicity against the directors. Nothing less will suffice. I look forward to spending a day in court before an ethical judge (if one exists in Seattle).
Paul Trummel [Nmesis]
|
