your seniors and other scams targeting older americans. today, we will examine the harm of some of our most vulnerable seniors. this committee has come 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. even more egregious is when the perpetrator is a family member, care giver or trusted financial advisor. financial exploitation of older americans is a growing skpedand

costing us. there are 14,000 new reports each year of senior abuse which includes financial exploitation. in as many as 90% of financial cases, the senior is victimized by someone he or she knows well w. unfortunately the real case is even worse. many of the cases are never reported because they are not going to report financial exploitation, particularly when it involves a family member. as a consequence the true incidence of this abuse is not known. >> identifying victims is particularly difficult because we maners take a look.

in addition since victims who have had their assets stolen by family members to be criminally prosecuted, the stolen money is rarely recovered. this loss can undermine the health and financial security of older people. combating 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 plead provide providing leadership. the counsel led by the department of human services has brought together 12 agencies to coordinate efforts to protect older individuals from abuse including financial exploitation. i also want to acknowledge the creddic critical role played by state regulatory agencies. i'm particularly pleased to welcome to our hearing, judith shaw who serves as the securities securities administrator of maine. maine is on the cutting edge of combating the fanlinancial abuse of seniors with a program which is the first of its kind in the nation. i won't 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 whoa have amassed great health. for example, if it were not bad enough, the daughter and her boyfriend went onto 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 mr. martial and

socialite brooke aster who summered in maine for decades and who what's so generalious to our state. he will testify how his mother while she suffered from alzheimer's. many times it is vital for a senior to have the assistance of a family or friend to help manage his or her finances particularly if that senior becomes becomes a troubling and complicated issue. i look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses today. we have a great potential about the efforts that are under way

to address the abuse of vul ner vulnerable seniors. i do want to apologize that we're going to have a vote here and we will try to make the interruption as brief as possible. senator. >> thank you chairwoman collins. a year ago if i had been approached in the hallway by one of the pesky people with a micro microphone and 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 cover 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 date i arrives ofd and watched her in the homeland security meeting when she was the ranking member and was always willing to cooperate when it was essential. i am very proud to serve under chairman collins. the senior financial exploitation is not new to us. as a prosecutor in kansas state r city, i saw first hand both horrific and heart breaking instances of elder abuse. physical, roughly one in five seniors will be a target of

some. this hearing will focus on cases with an additional conflicting factor when the perpetrator is a family members, a trusted care taker or close friend or advisor. the numbers here don't really tell the story. thankfully we have self wit ps. perpetrators are constantly developing new ways to gain access and focused on a generation that's been list willing to self-purport. when a family member is around these become one of the nicest around. victims may expect what's happening but may feel powerless or ashamed to report. often a victim will start by filing criminal charges against

a child or family member. today i want to reiterate that we cannot shy away interest. it is really a recent phenomenon because for too long they were dismissed as family members. today we will hear from a seattle prosecutor who specializes in elder abuse criminal cases. she will talk about -- >> only an hand. you need competent and trained professionals amount.

with detectives florencic accountants and of course trained investigators and prosecutors prosecutors prosecutors. this hear she came to missouri to help develop interest. we maust dress the need for a prosecute can nltdot this. 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. the federal government can do better to assist local local and not necessarily supportive of one another or the overall goal. since that time these agencies have begun to work together. the consumer financial protection bureau that is providing real guidance for them. there's still so much more we on doing and no. we don't know how many cases and i hope our

witness twrz today can help and stay in our role in the federal government. i look forward to speaking with our witnesses about how we can start eliminating zrimdiscrimination discrimination. too often they are dismissed because they are especially with mental capacity of a victim. my time is here. >> thank you senator. thank you so much tore your very generous comments. i want to welcome to the committee, a new member of the senate, senator sass, we're 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 first we will be hearing from philip martial but he'll be speaking today as a family member of someone who i mentioned in my opening statement and we very much appreciate your willing tons and then we will hear from judith shaw and the president elect of the north american securities

association, an internally association devoted to investor protection. we will then hear from kathleen quinn, the executive director of the adult services association. finally last but certainly not east. we will hear from the single deputy deputy. mr. martial, thank you for being here. >> chairman collins ranking member and distinguished committee members. thank you for inviting me to testify today. i am i am so grateful for your leadership and action on issues of elder justice, my name is philip martial i am a resident of massachusetts. i'm also the grandson, my

father. as president of the foundation my grandmother advanced its mission by giving millions of dollars to social and cultural causes. in 1998 president bill clinton and well into her 90s. by 200 when she was 100, she disappeared from the lime light. she didn't return till july 2006 when my guardianship petition which i filed to protect my grand grandmother against my grandfather was discovered by the press. front page headlines displayed disaster for mrs. hafter. my grandfather nor did she.

well in the throws of dementia chose, manipulated and robbed yet the circumstances have formed a timely cause in elder justice. this may be and enriching himself with millions of dollars. after three months battle and five days before our court date a settlement was reached with permanent guardianship awarded. we'd achieved our goal. my grandmother sent her final

days in her country house with care in comfort. a a criminal investigation was zbnl investigated. in 2009, my father was foun guilty of 15 counts against him. all but one were held up on appeal. this was a very bitter/sweet harvest but this harvest has no 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. because my grandmother now rests in peace, i could resume my life was before but i realize, to be

complacent by elder justice is to be complicit in elder aabuse. >> in this2010 i have been coast to coast, border to border with elder practitioners. i thank them for doing so much. many elders lack vigilant oversight and remain helpless and hopeless. all of those providing. these services need federal funding and support to respond adequately to an increasing number of elder abuse.

while my grandmother's abuse and clek iveive collective. here much greater financial support and multidisciplinary teams would be so helpful. while mythis and will respond to and prosecute these cases. while my grandmother's stolen assets were reclaimed, many elled elders never reclaim their money or their lives. here, financial transactions enhanced detection mandatory reporting or greater reporting of suspicious activities will so

help. financial monitors must be matched by physical monitors to insure elders well being. finally, i urge congress to reauthorize the elder justice act and the older americans is a trend, it's not our destiny. thank you. >> thank you very much mr. marshall for your very compelling testimony and your advocacy. ms. disaster was beloved in my state as well and did so much good throughout her life. >> thanks. >> ms. shaw. thank you senator, ranking member and also president elect of the north american security's 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 in maine. addressing this is difficult but critical. many in our elderly population are there with other support networks. the days of americans 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 exploitation in part because they own assets and pension schemes that are attractive to exam artists. when a fraud occurs even seniors with a limit d limited.

we must all come together to weave a new safety net that can kept us from achieving solutions. we must identify those who are in the best position to determine red flags early on and encourage reporting to other governmental agencies. in maine we discovered one of the most valuable rediscourse among others to develop senior life. senior life was created to increase identification and report reporting it. prior to this, we met with representatives from the banks and credit unions to identify barriers to reporting abuse and

financial exploitation. what we learned is the system lacked a feed back laup so often. training is involved of three components. frontline staff are trained to identify red flags for elder abuse and financial exploitation and manage. participations are and aps is better but the main office of

securities has agree and determine whether to investigate the case or refer it to another federal or state agency. the benefits of this reporting or referral system are far reaching. it leads to improved safety and other customers of the financial institution. proactive measures help promote good willing in the community and has it been active? . the answer is yes joomtand training one month later for credit fern

el and driven to the bank by a supposed handyman to withdraw over $10,000 in cash for repairing the man for 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 tlrp and we must work together to create a new safety need to use this.

thank you for your opportunity to let me testify today. i'd be happy to answer any questions. thank you ms. shaw. ms. quinn. madam chairman, ranking member and other committee members, thank you for allowing me to speak be this. 'represent asp tlrk r and is created the financial advisory board on exploitation. elder abuse is a huge expensive

doedly problem. the people are treated, twice the number the combine, twice. victims victims and it is expensive costing tax payers, institutions billions of dollars anyway. it often cooccurred with physical and emotional abuse. con con con. we have any serious attention

really begun to be paid and resulted in significant reductions in the incidence rates of both problems. >> ms. quinn. pardon me for interrupting. there are foreminutes left in the vote and as my colleagues know, i've never missed one in more than 18 years so i am going to excuse myself to vote. senator, have you voted? and why don't we tack a take a break but we will resume when i return. thank you.

thank you for your comments. would you like to continue? >> i was but i think i only recently thanks to the elder justice coalition, the elder justice act, leadership at the acl and coordinating counsel and in no small part to this committee has any serious attention be paid to the issue. we hope it will grow as both child reduce hasb it.

and it is aps who directly helps victims. the elder justice act passed in 2010 had its first appropriation for 4 million to support the desperate need for infrastructure but no funding for direct victim servicesment 2/3rds used it to block aps and eliminating it would shut down it in some states. many of the services, home delivered needs would help to keep victims at home. it is it is not only there but

do require the client's financial records which aps must have to substantiate the abuse is occurring. they are permitted to share such records to prevent fraud. a advised record. i believe financial institutions financial financial and i hope this committee and congress will look

at thoses sfwrjt. with this and this not only protect their assets over the long term but will reduce demands on medicaid and other publically funded programs. across this great nation, we thank you for holding this hearing and for the work on behalf of older adults. we hope this will be a sustain's and protect our parents and grand parents, i know senator collins has br induced you but

are dealing with nekt,glect, sexual assault, homicide. a recent case was in washington, kenneth sharp was a rotary an businessman and running for city council. his mother helen was in her 80's and had dimensioned. ken her son was there. in 2008 he began to steel from

her. thins by taking the proceeds too. over the next four years kenneth stole money from his mother 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 fallony theft. call must of them were robbed of their entire inheritance. with no money left helen was forced to go on medicaid. she died a few months ago. heartbroken. that's how it is with financial

skploetation. we all pay the price. those are forced to rely on headichead medicaid, medic care and other programs. we still don't know the cost of financial exploitation but it's safe to say that the there. in the sharp case we did have

some ina/*something. i'm talking about care givers, accountants, attorneys and those in the civil service indut ri. ingnat we also intoed this.

the sharp case that i told you about concluded two weeks ago. sharp pled guilty as charged and was sentenced to a high end sintence of 43 months in prison. he will be ordered to pay restitution to the money he. whale we were abl to contain some on that. the emotional damage that was dong fong and we need to if out how to respond to this terrible

problem. thank you very much skroo thank you very much for your testimony. i am happy that i was able to hear all of two of the witnesses. part of the other two witnesses and of course, i have read your written testimonies. b i want to thank the others who have joined us. senator scott and senator casey since i last acknowledged everyone. i want to start with you because in in what we call and who alerted you to the fact that your own mother might be a vikt inl of abuse. could you tell us a blil that and also are other regulations that

might make them hez indicate even if they have evidence of exploitation exploitation. i grew up in a small town in northern maine. like many mourn. >> want to thankdo this. 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. he was sort of the socialite in our family. my mother's big social circles.

she had lookinged at the bank accounts and realized there was a strange withdrawal coming out of the bank account. my sister is on there with my mother and so she called kathy and said we should look into this. my mom was afraid it all. fortunately, learning my mother was early stage dementia. we might have identified it

early on early on developing senior safe. it's clear to me that people at banks and credit unions are doing this in the state of maine. they have that feedback loop. there's also immunity for reporting to adult protective services which i think is very important. i would agree with ms. sfljz but

i tell be what with a sfwrnlz settling his estate but he

sflrnld snrnld but had r having is zbrrnld quite frankly iand he had been through different circumstances. philip, follow the sfrnlt all of

this stuff and the financial services so helped. >> thank you senator mcaskle. how quickly did law enforcement get involved in your grandmother grandmother's case, i filed for a petition of guardianship in july of 2006 and law enforcement got involved in october of 2006 after this -- at that point alleged forthgery was brought forth by the district attorney. >> and let me turn, you know, i don't know how you manage to get the police in king county and metro political seattle and how you got the king's -- the i

don't know who started this -- has done a great thing. i think it's important for us to understand the barriers around it's not big enough. and this is the constant refrain that families here from this, there's no blood on the street there's in pressure from detectives to close the cases because this is not a statistic that's generally tracked. so there's very little to get the law enforcement community engaged other than a prosecutor who feels pressure from this so what would be the thing that we could do to light a fire under local law enforcement and state

das? >> senator i think that's 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 didn't bother referring to everyen everything done and saying we take on this issue this but there's training across the spectrum of the criminal justice system so it gets law enforcement, prosecutors, child protective services and victim advocates together at the time to train on how to respond to these cases. the community that's have gotten this grant have really begun to take on this issue in a very dramatically different way.

so that's one potential solution to expand that program. that's one that obw responds. i think more prosecutors would take this on, going back to the point point. i think prosecutors knew how to deal with them. there's capacity issues which are so common in these cases. we don't know how to handle the analysis of the financial areas and encouraging multidisciplinary teams as well. >> in your world. let's assume the police department gets a report or the

d.a. as office gets one directly, who are the capacity evaluateors that you call on. are they there but there are some that aps interests. >> well the prosecutors are going to be in town in the next week, two weeks. many of whom have been contacted by them to come to their office and visit. this is a great time to bring up with them how many elder abuse cases they have filed in the last year? and i intend to do that. >> wonderful. >> thank you senate. senator warren.

>> thank you very much dad i very much look forward to your plea pleas but i am concerned with protecting the money in their 401(k)s so i would like to focus on for 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 advisors consistently stirred customers

to the highest feed products. a 2013 goa 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. even a one% one of these things that i want to ask is what can we do to make sure that our seniors don't end up investing in their retirement savings and funds that benefit the brokers more than they benefit the customers? >> thank you senator. certainly i have supported the idea ofs in a s in as in a nasa to adopt a feudish yary standard. i would also say that disclosure

is key as well. disclosures of the fees and information. an informed vaetinvestor is one who will be more proterktcted so we're looking fordsward to making 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 investors put in, is suitable for that investor. but we do want advisors who should be -- we hope that they are working in the best interest of the investor. i would be naïve to say that every advisor is operating in the best interest of their client. >> well, i appreciate you're raising that ms. shaw because i think it's a very important point. the director of research at morning star which is the leading invest research company made this remark about high fees, quote, if there's anything

in the fee of mutual funds that you can take to the bank it's 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 for banks and other investment advisors. according to a study by a.a.r.p. most don't even know it amost of these salespeople don't have to offer advise that's in the customers best interest. so ms. shaw are you worried that because investment advisors don't have to advise in the customers interest that this may give unfair advantages to bad actors who push products that benefit themselves over

good actor who's are doing everything they can to help their clients reach a secure retirement and protect that retirement? >> it's 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 cohen's running our department in maine. it's an area that we look at in maine and that we're looking at through nasa through many different lens include, you may be aware that nasa did a field study not too long ago. we're looking with the industry to include fee disclosure. they are worningat the table to improve disclosure and the ways in which consumers and customers can hopefully make better comparisons before they make decisions. there's a long way to go and it takes only a few minutes to see that there are indeed, bad actors oweactors out there.

>> 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 don't steer their clients in to retirement products that maximize the advisor's profits while they drain away the client's savings. that's particularly important for our seniors who just don't have the ability tohis and thank you all. thank you chairman. >> thank you. senator tillas. thank you madam chair and laysieslaysdies and gentlemen of the panel thank you for being here. i'm sorry for being late. it's 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'm interested in the senior safe program and i would appreciate maine's leadership in that. can you tell me a little bit about any challenges that you all had in the process of

implea. ing that program and the benefits? >> i think that the first challenge that we experienced was really getting to the point where the banks and credit un yors unions and the other part is we say this is a no wrong door approach. in other words a report can be made to any of the partners. if a report is made and they determine they do not have jurisdiction, a bank or credit need not be concerned that this is the end of the story. aps has committed that they will then make that referral to our office and either referral it to another agency. if the community we would say that the key components are to make sure that there are two key points of entry in the state

government not just adult protective services and that there's very strong partnership it has to be a public/private partnership partnership. multidisciplinary is the only way to go. >> 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 financially expend out to providers or just other areas that would be outside the net that banks and credit unions may be able to provide like a phase ii or phase ii of seeni of senior safe. >> we have taken the concept of senior safe and modified it for law enforcement. they will soon have a radar card the size of a summons book that they will carry with them about red flags,ed and we have just

been approached by direct care workers and other things. in march we will be providing it with their local things there. we reshappreciate your leadership. i had another question for whoever would be appropriate on the panel. 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 had been bills inpro

inpro introduced cms is very expensive. give me something in the order of spending money where something like that fits. where would you like to see us allocate resources to. anyone on the panel that would have an opinion on it -- >> i don't know that i can speak specifically to that issue but i will tell you that one of the largest barriers that main programs. we have lots of programs and getting that to prosecution and important points that we need to address. >> did you want to add to that. >> doing that clearly opens the doors for scams of all kinds.

aps deals mostly with family abuse and exploitation. we don't care with medicare fraud. >> i think there's a variety of this and does it rise to the top priority or somewhere and one of the things that we ought to be trying to learn how to fund. >> thank you so much. congratulations on your chairmanship. i'm glad you focused on this topic for i guess the first hearing. we're very grateful for that. he want to thank the panel. i know many of us were in and out with votes and other activity but we're grateful you're here. i didn't hear all of the testimony. i heard close to half, probably.

we're grateful that you're here, you're bringing not only your skpeer experience and not only that but personal experience of that and that of your families. that's booming for us and i focus for a moment ms. shaw on seenor safe. a couple of questions are the elements of it or the component parts of it meaning the agencies that comprise it. i'm looking at page three of your testimony. if my count is right, you have i guess about six or seven different entities that are part of it. i guess the first question that

there's an obvious multidisciplinary approach that my question is how difficult was it to pull all of the entities together and is there something about senior safe that's more 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?