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‘Someone Kidnapped My Parents’: Nevada Was Sheltering ‘Elder Abuse’

October 24, 2017
 Staff

WRITER

Around 10 percent of people over 65 are believed to be victims of “elder abuse,” or the exploitation of seniors. In some cases, elder abuse is state-sanctioned, allowing supposed guardians to siphon away elderly people’s life savings and keep them from their own family members. How is such a widespread problem flying under the radar?

Julie Belshe, an advocate for guardianship reform, experienced this nightmare firsthand when her parents disappeared. She eventually learned that they had been taken as wards of the state by “guardian” April Parks, who was indicted on more than 200 felony charges in March.

The New Yorker reported:

The Norths’ daughter, Julie Belshe, came to visit later that afternoon. …

She knocked on the front door several times and then tried to push the door open, but it was locked. She was surprised to see the kitchen window closed; her parents always left it slightly open. She drove to the Sun City Aliante clubhouse, where her parents sometimes drank coffee. When she couldn’t find them there, she thought that perhaps they had gone on an errand together—the farthest they usually drove was to Costco. But, when she returned to the house, it was still empty.

That weekend, she called her parents several times. She also called two hospitals to see if they had been in an accident. She called their landlord, too, and he agreed to visit the house. He reported that there were no signs of them. She told her husband, “I think someone kidnapped my parents.”

Listen to Belshe’s interview on today’s show (above) for the full story.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: We are going to tell you a story that is truly hard to believe. And it could happen to you. It could happen to your parents.

I want to introduce you to Julie Lynn Belshe. She is a woman whose parents, Rudy and Rennie North, were legally kidnapped. This happened in the state of Nevada. And this is not the only case. It is -- it all stems from these guardians, strangers can become the garden of your parents. It doesn't matter if you're there. They can go to court and become a guardian for your parent. And when that happens, they just disappear.

Julie, welcome to the program.

JULIE: Thank you, Glenn, for having me.

GLENN: I'm reading this story from the New Yorker, and it is hard to believe at first. This sounds like something that would have happened in Nazi Germany.

JULIE: Well, that's pretty much what I've compared it to, because I didn't know anything about guardianship. And when I started looking on the computer and finding the first video I came across was Dorothy Wilson. Diane Wilson was interviewing her mother in an assisted living facility. And her mom was devastated. She was like, "Get me out of here. I'm not going to eat. I'm not going to read. I want to go home." And I didn't know what I stepped into. And the more I started investigating on the computer -- social media helped me tremendously -- I knew I had to do something for my parents, because they're confident there was nothing wrong with them. They needed a little bit of help. They lived on a golf course. Had somebody come in and help them. Take care of them.

I assisted them. My mom had suffered for years and years from CLL. And -- but we had it all under control. And the minute anybody finds out that you have any assets, money, stocks, bonds -- that your worse value, you no longer are a human being. Once the guardian takes you, you are now a ward, and you have less rights than a prisoner.

GLENN: This is truly shocking, and I want to set this up right, so people can understand it. Your folks lived in Las Vegas, so people understand.

JULIE: Right.

GLENN: You would go over and see your mom and dad. They lived on this golf course. You would go and see your mom and dad. Once a day you would stop in, is that correct?

JULIE: I would stop in once a day, and then the last couple of months, before they got taken, we would call each other. And my husband and I have a business. So I was pretty busy. I have three young boys. But I would talk to them every day, if not three or four times a day, make sure they're okay, see them once a week. At first, I was helping them for six months just run errands, take them to the doctor.

GLENN: Right, but it's not that your folks were confused. Your father was reading -- I'm trying to remember here. He was reading Freud. Plato. Nietzsche.

JULIE: Oh, yeah. He's a very intelligent man. He's very articulate.

GLENN: Right.

JULIE: This is collusion, okay? This doesn't start with just the guardian, okay? The guardian is that now we have finally gotten entitled with her --

GLENN: Wait. Wait. Before you go into this, I have to explain to people, what happened.

JULIE: Okay.

GLENN: Your folks, your folks are living on the golf course.

JULIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: They've lived a good life. They've put their money away. They've saved for their requirement. Your mom is getting ill, but your dad is taking care of her. She's fine. He's fine. Both mentally there.

You're in the area. So if there's any problems -- it's not like these people were just left alone. And one day, somebody comes to the door and claims to be their guardian. Is that right?

JULIE: You pretty much have it right. What happened was, it was on Memorial Day of 2013. And I had plans to go see my parents on that Friday. And in walks hospice care, a worker. The owners actually from hospice care, my parents were drinking coffee and having breakfast.

Pretty much to condense, there was another knock on the door about 20 minutes later. And it was April Parks, the private professional guardian. I like to call them the private for-profit guardian. Because that's all they're in it for. And she walked in and presented herself. And my parents had six people in their home. And told them, they had three choices: One, they could go to -- go with them willingly and go to an assisted living facility. Two, they could call the fire department and the police. They had a chance to go to jail. Or they could be taken out of the home in a gurney. Or, three, they could go to a psych ward.

GLENN: Your parents chose option number one, because they were confused. And a neighbor came out and said, "What's going on?" And they said, "We're just going to look at this like a vacation. Nothing to worry about."

JULIE: Well, that's not correct. What really happened was, all of these -- April Parks, first of all, presented herself as an officer of the court, which she's not. And one of her coworkers told my mom and dad, just look at this as a mini vacation, as a respite. You'll be coming back home.

GLENN: Okay.

JULIE: And my mom was crying and crying, saying, this is my home. Get out of my home. Leave us alone.

GLENN: They were told to pack a suitcase.

JULIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And pretty much, whatever they put in the suitcase is all that was left in the end. They got a few items back. But this guardian, then took them across the state, up -- way up north, if I'm not mistaken.

JULIE: Well, she took them by Lake Mead, which from our house is about 45 minutes. It's right close to the border of Arizona.

GLENN: Okay. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I was thinking that this was Sun City, Arizona. This was actually in Nevada, wasn't it?

JULIE: Correct.

GLENN: And so they take them there. This is a retirement community. When you finally get in touch with your parents, how many days have gone by?

JULIE: Four days.

GLENN: And no one --

JULIE: Four days. There was no sign. Nothing on the door, until the fourth day, until after the Memorial Day weekend, until she got temporary guardianship of them. And she was now their temporary guardianship because it was deemed an emergency situation.

If something is such an emergency, she was handed the papers two weeks prior, then why didn't she go and get them there? And it's a law that if your parents or your loved one is going to be taken, by law, the court is supposed to notify you so that you can step in and say, "What's going on?" And you can file the proper paperwork.

STU: The law here is just incredible. We can probably spend an hour just on that. But what about the moment when you just go -- because you went to visit, your normal visit, and they were gone.

GLENN: This is Friday.

STU: Were you panicked? What did you go through, as that happened?

JULIE: I was mortified. I mean, the newspaper was in the front. The windows in their kitchen are usually open a little bit. The blinds are open a certain way. The house was just closed down.

I just knew right there and then, something was terribly wrong. I went to Sun City, the country club, the little house there, where they would go and have coffee. And I looked around for them. And then I pulled myself together, and I drove home and told my husband, "My parents have been kidnapped." That was just my gut reaction. Something is terribly wrong here.

GLENN: And you called police?

JULIE: You know, hindsight is always 20/20. I called hospitals first. And the emotions that run with this, are so high and low. The gamut of emotions, that my thing was, I wanted to get an attorney. I wanted to know what was going on. How people can walk in your home and take you and not notify your relative that lives 15 minutes away from you.

GLENN: So your parents, you see them -- and your dad is in the fetal position on the couch. And your mom is crying. And how long does it take you to fight to get your parents out?

JULIE: Well, let me put it this way, it took me approximately two years. And that only came after speaking out publicly to the commissioners, to speaking out publicly and getting two new legislative laws passed here. One is that, if you have a loved one, that you can't -- and you live out of state, you can now become their guardian before that was not legal.

GLENN: Yes.

JULIE: And the other one is that, if you are going to be a private guardian, you have to be licensed, insured, and bonded, and you can only have so many wards. This woman that took my parents was spiraling out of control. It's not enough for them to be greedy about it. But they are sociopaths. They hurt people. They isolate. They trespass the family away from their loved ones on purpose. Because they're getting bedsores, bruises, broken limbs. They're getting inserted feeding tubes. It's cheaper to, you know -- they save money that way. They're accelerating the death, in my opinion, of the elderly because they want their full estate.

GLENN: So when they become a guardian, it's just somebody -- this is a business, really?

JULIE: Oh --

GLENN: In Nevada.

JULIE: This is a business all over the nation. And they're making billions of dollars. And right now, the statistics say they have 1.5 million people under guardianship. No matter how perfect your family is or your estate documents were prepared, anyone can be involuntarily placed in guardianship. This happens all the time, nationwide.

GLENN: Okay. I'm going to take a break. And then when I come back, I want to explain, who are these people? How do they become a guardian?

JULIE: Okay.

GLENN: And how does this happen? When we come back.

STU: If you go to @GlennBeck or @worldofStu, we're going to tweet this story from the New Yorker. It's lengthy, but it goes through all of it. It's one of the most insane stories I've ever heard.

GLENN: You will not believe it's happening. You just won't believe it.

GLENN: Bill O'Reilly joins us in about 40 -- 40 to 45 minutes, to answer the, you know, 32 million-dollar question. You don't want to miss that.

We have to be able to have something we believe in. We have to know what the truth is. Otherwise, things that happen to our guest now -- Julie Belshe, and her parents, will happen to you or your parents. There is a guardian system that is happening all around the country. And her experience was happening in Nevada. She says that it happens all over the country. Who -- who are these guardians that can, you know, all of a sudden claim -- lay claim to your parents, or to you?

JULIE: These guardians are people that don't have to have any formal education. They can take a course that I believe is just maybe a week long. And then they become a guardian.

These people are trained by the masterminds behind this. Like I said before, this is collusion. We have somebody here that's a mastermind, his name is Jared Shaffer. He is the head of it.

So they take them under their wings, and they train them, how to go in and open all the drawers and take everything, and deem these people -- these elderly people disabled people, or whoever they want, incompetent.

STU: The concept here -- looking at it in a theoretical concept, are they basically saying the elderly people can't take care of themselves, so we're going to go in, we're going to take their stuff. We're going to use that stuff to pay for their care, because they're being neglected. Is that essentially what they're trying to say they're doing?

JULIE: That's what they are trying to say they're doing, but they're failing. They keep saying it's in the best interest of the ward. Nothing is in the best interest of the ward. We have a private guardian. We've gone from having several private guardians, since I've gotten into this four years ago, to now there's only two private guardians, I believe. And the public guardian. So we've essentially gone full circle and given the power back to the government, which they love. So it's gone full circle.

GLENN: So what happens is, these people come in, and with your parents, they had a house on the golf course. They had a car. They had their money. And in a two-year period, this woman came in, claimed to be their guardian, because she just went to court. And claimed to be the guardian. And then she liquidated all those assets. Within two years, your parents had nothing?

JULIE: Correct. The thing is, it's so easy for the private guardians -- it was so easy. But now I believe, in my opinion, that they've revered back to doing it again. The family courts. Okay? They're all working together. The guardians --

GLENN: Okay. So I want to go there, when we come back. I want to go there and I want to talk about the court. Because the court seemed to be, I think -- from the way the story reads at least -- knowingly colluding. But that's quite a charge to make. And I'd like to get your opinion on that and see where the court stood, at least in Nevada.

LIVE NOW: Battleground Georgia: The Radical Democrats Who Will TRANSFORM America

Everything comes down to the two Senate runoffs in Georgia. If we lose both races, we lose the country. Democrats know this and are pouring in millions to usher in a Marxist agenda.

As the Left tries to hide how radical the two candidates really are, Glenn takes us inside the Democrat war room to expose the wolf in pastor's clothing, Raphael Warnock, and America's Justin Trudeau, Jon Ossoff. Socialism, the Green New Deal, and "defund the police" are all on the table. And Glenn warns of what's to come if conservatives don't activate: Chuck Schumer will weaponize the Senate, and the radical Left will launch an all-out assault to ravage the Constitution.

Watch the full special below:

The election and its aftermath are the most important stories in America. That's why we're offering our most timely discount ever: $30 off a one-year subscription to BlazeTV with code "GLENN." With BlazeTV, you get the unvarnished truth from the most pro-America network in the country, free from Big Tech and MSM censors.

Sen. Ted Cruz explains the 'good news' in Trump's election battle

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) joined the "Glenn Beck Radio Program" to explain how mail-in ballots are typically disqualified during recounts at a far higher rate than in-person, Election Day ballots, and why this is "good news" for President Donald Trump's legal battle over the election.

"One of the things that gives the greatest cause for optimism is, this election ... there's a pretty marked disparity in terms of how the votes were distributed. On Election Day, with in-person voting, Donald Trump won a significant majority of the votes cast on in-person voting on Election Day. Of mail-in voting, Joe Biden won a significant majority of the votes cast early on mail-in voting," Cruz explained.

"Now, here's the good news: If you look historically to recounts, if you look historically to election litigation, the votes cast in person on Election Day tend to stand. It's sort of hard to screw that up. Those votes are generally legal, and they're not set aside. Mail-in votes historically have a much higher rate of rejection … when they're examined, there are a whole series of legal requirements that vary state by state, but mail-in votes consistently have a higher rate of rejection, which suggests that as these votes begin being examined and subjected to scrutiny, that you're going to see Joe Biden's vote tallies go down. That's a good thing," he added. "The challenge is, for President Trump to prevail, he's got to run the table. He's got to win, not just in one state but in several states. That makes it a lot harder to prevail in the litigation. I hope that he does so, but it is a real challenge and we shouldn't try to convince ourselves otherwise."

Watch the video clip below to catch more of the conversation:

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

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'He's profiting off the over 30,000 New Yorkers, including my in-laws, that died': Janice Dean calls out Cuomo's COVID hypocrisy

Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean is perhaps even more disgusted with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for his coronavirus response than BlazeTV's Stu Burguiere (read what Stu has to say on the subject here), and for a good reason.

She lost both of her in-laws to COVID-19 in New York's nursing homes after Gov. Cuomo's infamous nursing home mandate, which Cuomo has since had scrubbed from the state's website and blamed everyone from the New York Post to nursing care workers to (every leftist's favorite scapegoat) President Donald Trump.

Janice joined Glenn and Stu on the "Glenn Beck Radio Program" Tuesday to ask why mainstream media is not holding Gov. Cuomo — who recently published a book about his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic — accountable?

"I'm vocal because I have not seen the mainstream media ask these questions or demand accountability of their leaders. [Cuomo] really has been ruling with an iron fist, and every time he does get asked a question, he blames everybody else except the person that signed that order," Janice said.

"In my mind, he's profiting off the over 30 thousand New Yorkers, including my in-laws, that died by publishing a book on 'leadership' of New York," she added. "His order has helped kill thousands of relatives of New York state. And this is not political, Glenn. This is not about Republican or Democrat. My in-laws were registered Democrats. This is not about politics. This is about accountability for something that went wrong, and it's because of your [Cuomo's] leadership that we're put into this situation."

Watch the video excerpt from the show below:

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

Megyn Kelly on what's happening to Fox News

As America grows divided and afraid to disagree with the Democrats' woke plan for America, Megyn Kelly is ready to fight back for the truth. For nearly two decades, she navigated the volatile and broken world of the media. But as America leans on independent voices more than ever, she's breaking new ground with "The Megyn Kelly Show."

She joined the latest Glenn Beck Podcast to break down what's coming next after the election: Black Lives Matter is mainstream, leftists are making lists of Trump supporters, and the Hunter Biden scandal is on the back burner.

Megyn and Glenn reminisce about their cable news days (including her infamous run-in with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump) and to look into the chaotic and shady world of journalism and the growing entitlement it's bred. For example, many conservatives have been shocked by how Fox News handled the election.

Megyn defended Fox News, saying she believes Fox News' mission "is a good one," but also didn't hold back on hosts like Neil Cavuto, who cut off a White House briefing to fact check it — something she never would have done, even while covering President Obama.

Megyn also shared this insightful takeaway from her time at NBC: "Jane Fonda was an ass."

Watch the full podcast here:

Want to listen to more Glenn Beck podcasts?

Subscribe to Glenn Beck's channel on YouTube for FREE access to more of his masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, or subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.