What powers does adult protective serrvices have?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I don’t really know how to ask this question without exposing the fact my mom is embarrassing, so I’ll just come right out and say my elderly mother lies to people to get sympathy or money or free stuff.

With that out of the way she wanted a pharmacist who had in the past bought her a pack of meal shakes to do so again, so she lied and told her me and my sister are beating her. I’m not at all worried about the legal aspects, since I have a wife and child I am with 24/7 am thousands of miles away in another country.

The pharmacist told her she was a mandatory reporter and would be required to report this. and she did. My mom has ignored all phone calls and she doesn’t live at the house on file at the pharmacy so if police ever came out she never saw them.

She said she has started getting letters from adult protective services though asking her for info, she does not want to give any statement or admit she was spinning lies.

Ok all issues of disgust aside, what is her position here? I advised her not to bother contacting anyone, and not to contact or talk to police if they come to her door. My sister is in another city a few hundred miles away so she is understandably more worried about the legal aspects, to the point she will no longer speak to or interact with her mom.

What can adult protective services do? Break down the door of the house she has on file at the pharmacy? Compel her to admit she was making up lies?

EDIT:Forgot to mention this is in the USA in the state of Texas.

2

Ok to add the questions are:

1.Can she get into legal trouble for making up these lies? What if anything should she say to law enforcement?

2.She would prefer not to have a large investigation and drag me and my sister into it. We both would also prefer this, I’m pretty apathetic but my sister is more concerned.

3.Can law enforcement get warrants and break into her living place etc?

3

Legal advice is best suited to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

4

I should think the pharmacy may not wish to fill her prescriptions once they find out she lied about her address.

If she continues to avoid any contact, they will only double down on trying to see her. Should she choose to double down on the lies she could face some kind of push back, I expect. Either when she owns up that it wasn’t true, or when they discover (from you and sis pointing out she was lying, as is her habit, to get some benefit or other) and that she has caused all this work for people who have actual people, who need services, to look after.

Jerking around overworked protection personnel is never likely to end well, in my opinion.

I don’t think you or sis need worry. But some consequences are probably, and deservedly coming her way. I don’t think they’ll break down the door, although if she tries to just ignore them, and they know she’s home, I suppose it could happen. I mean she’s elderly and has reported she’s being abused. They may be within their rights, if they take her at her word. I’s their job, after all. And even if she doesn’t, they take that shit seriously.

She’s been playing these kind of games for a long time, from the stories you share. Sooner or later y’all had to know some shit was gonna fly. Maybe it’s her time and karma is coming for her?

Regardless you have my best wishes, this kind of drama is crap to deal with.

5

My mother accidentally dialed 911 a few years ago and then hung up. A police officer showed up at their house and insisted that she come out of the house by herself so that he could determine if she was being coerced. In your mother’s case, the authorities might think that you and your sister are preventing her from speaking to them. So I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to continue to avoid contact with them, as they don’t know that she isn’t being coerced.

6

The reason I advised her not to speak to anyone was because I did not want her to blunder into a felony charge for false statements or something, you know that whole “don’t talk to cops” thing. And remember why Martha Stewart went to the barred hotel. I didn’t want to give her wrong advice, but honestly if this incident would get her put into a home I would be cool but not legal charges.

:smack:This is just the last thing she, or me and my sis need. When my mom called me all concerned about this I asked WTF was she thinking making this up, she said since she had told that pharmacist her husband(my father) had died which is the truth to gain sympathy, she couldn’t claim he was beating her so had to say we were. I was kind of blown away she has been lieing about being beaten by my father who never laid a hand on her.

My sister just went through a divorce and is not in good financial condition so she is terrified of courts and lawyers and wasting money on pointless crap. I just find it kind of laughable because it is pretty obvious I am not sneaking away from my wife and taking 12 hour flights to go beat up my mom and then sneaking back.

I don’t know what if any info she has given the pharmacist or authorities on me and my sister, our names or whatever.

And yes she has been pulling shit like this for my whole life, at least three decades.

7

EDIT:I guess the real question is what way could my mom deal with APS and make this whole thing go away? Surely the fact I haven’t been in the USA is years should blow her whole story to bits?

Without bringing legal charges on herself, or costing any of us money.

8

IANAL but as far as I know, she’s in the clear for making false statements. I think it’s perfectly legal to lie to someone except if you are 1. Under oath; or 2. Making false statement to law enforcement or obstructing justice.

I think there’s also something like theft by making false statements. Like when folks set up funds for their kid who “has cancer” (not really). You don’t say whether or not she actually got the supplements she enters. But even if she did, I can’t imagine the DA wanting the terrible press of prosecuting a senior for that. Too easy to have a doctor testify that she wasn’t thinking clearly.

I don’t know what kind of advice to give you about what to do, tho.

Best wishes.

(Again, I’m not a lawyer, and not your lawyer. This info is based on life experience in my state, which is not your state)

9

If your mother is using a fake address, how is she getting letters from the authorities?

She’s either lying again, or they’ve caught up with her.

10

If you’re the one telling her to not speak to them or avoid them, you should rethink that advice I think.

It seems like she can either tell the truth, (highly unlikely) or get caught lying and deal with whatever consequences come for her. Either way your attempts to advice her seem I’ll advised, and your tactic could land her in much deeper trouble than otherwise.

Maybe it’s time for you to stop attempting to fish her out of the messes she makes. It would appear as though she has finally created one where any attempt by anyone other than her, to sort it out, is very likely to make things much worse. Especially if it’s you or your sister.

I doubt your mother is able to learn anything from any of this, and is highly unlikely to change her stripes. But it’s an important opportunity for you and sis to finally learn to step off and let her deal with her own mess. A lesson you both should have taken years ago based on the ongoing, unending, Mama drama she produces, and you complain of.

Attempts by you both to fix this are likely to make things much worse. She likely doesn’t answer the door because She’s afraid of someone seeing the deplorable condition of her home, as she’s a hoarder, as you’ve previously mentioned.

Service agencies who handle elder abuse take that shit really serious, as they should. They may demand to see both her and her home, if she refuses to own up to her lying. Should that occur, your Mom will be unable to decide or affect what happens next, very likely.

It’s clear she needed help long ago. And it’s clear, for all your efforts, your family has been unable to make that happen. Maybe it’s time to let someone else do what y’all have been unable to. She should not be living in a home filled with bottles of urine and garbage as you’ve previously described.

Own your inability to change these circumstances and let people with the drive and power to do so, do their job. And stop giving her advice to ignore or avoid them, it’s the exactly the wrong approach, I believe.

Sorry it’s ending this way, but you had to know it was coming, sooner or later, right?

11

Why can’t she just tell them, “We’ve handled the issue and I have no complaints at this time”?

12

I dont know anything about the legal issues here.
I dont have any experience with this type of situation.

But I watch cheap TV shows sometimes. And that’s why I’m going to offer some ideas.*
There are lots of horror stories about an overeager social worker at child protective services ruining an honest family’s life, especially if there is a hint of sexual abuse involved.
I have no idea if adult protective services are as strict, but in today’s legal world, it may well be possible.
It seems wise to me that you protect yourselves from whatever crazy stories that may come from your mother’s imagination.

Since you live overseas, you should be free of legal problems.
But your sister is close enough to have legitimate worries. She should document everything—dates when she visits your mother, every phone call, etc. Maybe call your mother and record the conversation, telling her straight out the she has lied, and get her to admit it. A secretly recorded phone call may not be fully legal in a court of law, but it should be acceptable evidence for a social worker.

  • I say “ideas” , not “advice” because I have zero practical experience to offer, and I don’t know how relevant (or alarmist?)my ideas are.
13

Hmmm. My only experience with APS was when my brother and I were trying to get some intervention in the case of my sister stealing from my mother, taking her car for days, and moving meth heads into her house. It went on for years, and we certainly tried to get them involved, but my mother wasn’t willing to implicate my sister, so they were powerless.

From that, I would think that APS isn’t going to bother you or your sister unless your mother is confronted by them and perpetuates the lie, for whatever reason.

I can’t speak on what may happen to her if she decides to tell them that she was conning the pharmacist.

14

I guess I won’t be making anymore threads on this, my mom is most likely brain dead in a hospital on life support.

My sister had to go to the city she lives in and felt fuck it I’ll grab mom for thanksgiving instead of leaving her alone in one more attempt to reach out. She got to the house to find a twenty something woman fleeing, doors open, my mom naked from the waist down unconscious and in a pile of urine and feces.

She called me in tears because the neighbors gawking outside called her a monster, said if they saw me they would beat me up since I beat up a elderly women.:smack:

I said enough is enough with my sisters help I got into my moms credit cards and bank account online, outrageous anomalous charges. $50 USD to a restaurant called lubys’s where the average dinner plate(meat plus two sides and drink is 8 bucks) for 30-50 dollars. A two hundred USD dollar charge to a grocery store my mom NEVER shopped at, cash withdrawals of 200-300 USD every WEEK! Cash advances on credit cards of hundreds of dollars.

My sister is destroyed emotionally, she said the house needs to be bulldozed human feces and urine on everything, she asked me where to buy a bunny suit and then cried.

And at the fucking hospital when my sister said can this be the end of this, the doctors still told her my mom has rights that can’t violated W T F!

I can share more but I am too drained right now.

15

To preempt someone asking my sister did not mean can this be the end as killing my mom, she meant can this be the end of her being allowed to make her own decisions in her life.

In the past we have tried in our financially constrained way to get my mom ruled incompetent and the social worker my sis talked to was just focused on my mom’s ridiculous delusional wishes, she told my sister to stop and break off contact and leave my mom alone apparently to be feasted on by vultures.

Her fucking doctors talked about her charming and enjoyable she was, we told them that is with you you don’t see when she is hoarding a bucket of feces!

16

Wanted to add I have seen photos of my mom that prove she had black girlfriends in her youth, photos of them doing laugh worthy nonsense.

But my wife and her grandson? NAH she wanted to make sure they did not get a CENT of her inheritance according to her.

WTF

EDIT:My wife has said she won’t touch a cent of this bitches non-existant inheritance, my son doesn’t understand the concept of money or its source though so he has no opinion.

17

It seems to me that your sister might be at risk of being investigated. If the neighbours insulted her and you, it means the pharmacist wasn’t the only person to whom she served the “my children beat me” sob story.
Good luck for yourself, your sister and your mom.

18

I’m sorry to hear about your Mom. Wishing you Godspeed!

19

It should be pretty easy to prove they were hundreds/thousands of miles away at the time, if it comes to that. But I doubt it will come to that.

Sorry to hear about your mom, grude. I hope in some way it’s a relief for you and your sister.

20

These two sentences are completely contradictory. I don’t think the phrase “brain dead” means what you think.