with the client's financial records which aps must have to substantiate substantiate. are permed under statutory acceptance to prevent fraud and authorized investigation. a revised federal guidance clarifying the client records may be shared with aps in a timely manner would mean financial abuse could be stopped much earlier. i believe financial snugs would welcome this clarification. secondly, financial institutions should be granted authority to temporarily freeze accounts when there's evidence the owner is being defrauded, for example, sending money to a jamaican lottery scam in time to contact affirm ps or take other measures. i hope this committee and congress will look at their own decades of research into elder abuse, some of which are on evidence here. this is a partial stack of all the many reports from the many, many hearings that go back almost five decades now, will would at own research in elder abuse to stop and prevent incidents can be reduced as they have for other victims. this will not only protect elder assets in the long-term but reduce demands on medicare medicaid and other medically funded programs. on behalf of aps dedicated workers across the nation we a thank you for holding this hearing and all your work on behalf of elder adults. we hope this will be the first of sustained theories and action toss address elder abuse neglect and financial exploitation. we stand ready to work with you to greatly strengthen ability to protect our parents and grandparents. thank you. >> thank you, ma'am for your testimony. i know that senator collins has already introduced you. we'd love to hear your opening comments. >> thank you, senator. my sincere check to chair collins, ranking member mccaskill and other ranking members of the committee. i'm a prosecutor with king county prosecutor's office in seattle, washington. fourteen years ago i was aappointeded to be my office's first elder abuse prosecutor. since then with the exception of a two-year hiatus i have been prosecuting case of elder financial exploitation, neglect physical assault sexual assault and homicide. a recent case that i handled involved an esteemed community member of kent washington a town just south of seattle. kenneth sharp was a rotarian, businessman and running for city council. his mother, helen was in her 80s and had dementia but she was in good shape financially. she owned her home free and clear and had plenty of money to handle needs for her life. her son was her attorney and handle her finances. in 2008 ken sharp started to steal from her first making transfers from her account to his. then by lying to get a reverse mortgage on her house and taking those proceeds, too. during the next four years ken sharp stole over $490,000 from his mother for a new house, a diamond ring for his fiancee his business and to fund his lavish lifestyle. in 2011, helen's daughters figured it out and called police who investigated. we then filed seven counts of felony theft and one of mortgage fraud against sharp. helen was moved to a nursing home closer to one of her daughters. what was the impact of this exploitation? after learning of it helen kept opening her purse to look for her money, certain said misplaced it. helen's daughters were robbed of their entire inheritance. the family was torn apart. with no money left, helen was forced to go on medicaid. she died just a few months ago heart broken. that's how it is with elder financial exploitation. we all pay the price. seniors, their families and all levels of government and the price is huge. countless victims like helen sharp lose their life savings health and financial independence as a result of financial exploitation and are forced to rely on medicaid medicare housing and other public programs. we still don't know the cost of elder financial exploitation but it's safe to say the cost of the government alone is astronomical. the federal government can do three things to address this problem. first, infrastructure to help at local, federal and state level handle these cases. in the sharp case we did have some infrastructure in place but not enough. a specialized elder abuse detective and prosecutor. but we had no victims services to help helen sharp and her daughters navigate the many obstacles they faced as a result of the exploitation. most jurisdictions don't have any of these specialized experts as senator mccaskill has already pointed out, which means most of these cases are never pursued. we also need national resource center criminal justice professionals can turn for information and assistance. second, develop and conduct training. justice systems professionals need training, so do those in the many other disciplines that encounter elder abuse and could intervene if they knew what they were seeing. i'm talking about doctors nurses, emts, notary public, caregivers, social workers, civil attorneys, accountants and those in the financial services industry. third, fund research data collection and pilot tests. unnecessary ignorance is a huge chronic hurdle. we urgently need funding to expand our knowledge about how best to reduce financial exploitation, recoup the huge losses that it causes and screen for cognitive impairment which dramatically increases risk. we also need accurate calculations about the cost and dimensions of the problem so we can develop a commensurate response. the sharp case that i told you about concluded two weeks ago. ken sharp pled guilty as charged and was sentenced to a high-end sentence. he'll be ordered to pay restitution to the family for the money he school and the government for medicaid funds they paid for helen's care. i wish i could say this case is a complete victory but i can't. while we were able to obtain some justice for the sharp family it is almost certain that neither they nor the government will ever get their money back. the emotional damage that was done to the sharps can never be undone. every day all around us elder financial exploitation is devastating countless elders and their families and costing the government countless dollars but this is a problem with solutions. with modest investment and improving infrastructure, training and research congress and federal agencies can dramatically improve how we prevent and respond to this terrible problem. thank you very much. >> thank you very much for your testimony testimony. i'm happy i was able to hear all of two of the witnesses and part of the other two witnesses. of course i've read your written testimony. i want to thank the members of the committee who have joined us, senator scott and senator casey, since i last acknowledged everyone. miss shaw, i want to start with you, because in your written testimony testimony, you talked about what you described as the guardian angel, effie credit union, who alerted you to the fact your own mother might be the victim of abuse. could you tell us a little bit about that. and also are their obstacles to financial institutions coming forward and reporting abuse such as privacy laws or other regulations that might make them hesitate even if they have the evidence of exploitation? >> yes. thank you very much, senator. yes. i grew up in a small town in northern maine, one of four children. like many children in small towns in northern maine, i went to college and moved away along with my two brothers but my sister stayed behind to pursue her education. my mother became a legal secretary when she graduated high school for a small law firm in a small town and remained there for 60 years. my father died at the age of 57, and he was sort of the socialite in our family. my mother's big social activity really was her regular visits to the credit union, so she came to know the people in the credit union very well. as my mother neared her retirement effie at the credit union realized she wasn't talking about her grandchildren quite as much. she was not caring for her hair and clothes the way she had before. and she became a little -- effie became a little concerned so she looked at mother's bank accounts and realized there was a strange automatic withdrawal coming out of mom's checking account. my sister is on that account with my mother so effie called kathy and said we should look into this and found mom was concerned about living on social security when she retired. her law firm had no retirement plan available to her, so she had fallen victim to one of these work from home scams. fortunately effie and my sister were able to identify it early on and stop the scam and my sister had the good foresight to take my mother to see her doctor and learn my mother has early stage dementia and is getting treated for that. we might not have identified it as early on if effie hadn't come into the picture and we are very grateful to her. that was before senior safe but that is one of the reasons i spent two years working to develop senior safe. it's clear to me people at banks and credit unions are on the frontline. i think that they sometimes are rece tant to report because they don't have that feedback loop i was talking about. they make a report to adult protective services but would not hear back about whether or not there really was a problem, whether it was correct for them to make that referral. there are also privacy concerns. i think it's very helpful in the state of maine now with senior safe they have that feedback loop. there is also immunity for reporting to adult protective services, which i think is very important. but i would agree with miss quinn that it would be helpful to further clarify the act to make it perfectly clear that it is not a violation to make these reports to protective services or other appropriate state or federal agencies or law enforcement. the guidance that the eight federal regulators put out in 2013 was helpful but i do think that further clarification may provide additional comfort to financial institutions. >> thank you very much. mr. marshall, how difficult was it to figure out what was happening to your mother? particularly since she was in her very last years was suffering from dementia? >> at first quite frankly, my stepfather passed away in 2002. i was working towards sellinging his estate. he had total recall on a good day but played too much mr. lawyer. i learned enough to look south from vermont and in that case to norm. i realized instead of my grandmother being cared for she was being compromised. i didn't know what to do. luckily there was some caretakers and staff with my grandmother and we had mutual trust so we could find out. having the first line of defense and those interested in my grandmother so helped. what happens is the greatest concern that we had was her psychological abuse and manipulation. but quite frankly i went to a friend and i asked him. he had been through similar circumstances. he said philip, follow your heart first, then follow the money. i was able to obtain enough documentation on financials which coupled with other components of guardianship allowed us to get immediate temporary guardship and permanent guardship. because these other aspects of elder abuse are so difficult to document, in my case, certainly, the financials so helped. >> thank you. senator mccaskill. >> mr. marshall how quickly did law enforcement get involved in your grandmother's case? >> law enforcement got involved, i filed a petition for guardship in july '06 and law enforcement got involved in october '06 after at that point the alleged forgery was brought before the district attorney. >> and let me turn to miss ulrey. i don't know how you managed to get the police in king county and metropolitan seattle and how you got the king county d.a. office, i think your boss or maybe previous boss, 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. this is the constant refrain that families hear from law enforcement. there's not a gun. there's not blood on the street. it is -- there's not pressure from the sergeant or the head of detectives to close the cases, because this is not a statistic that's generally tracked. so there is very little to get the law enforcement community engaged other than a prosecutor who feels pressure either from their own compass or outward source. so what would be the thing that we could do that would most light a fire under local law enforcement and state d.a.s? >> senator, i think that's an excellent question, because i think basically many of these cases stop when that message is heard in the community, that prosecutors are not going to prosecute the case. aps doesn't bother referring to law enforcement, law enforcement doesn't bother investigating and the public doesn't bother reporting. so having a prosecutor who is stepping up and saying we will take on this issue is crucial to is being addressed properly. i was lucky enough to have a boss that keyed in early thanks to paul greenwood, wonderful elder abuse prosecutor in san diego. there's also a grant right now going on by the office of violence against women that funds training across the spectrum of the criminal justice system so that it gets law enforcement, prosecutors, adult protective services and victims advocates together at the table to be trained on how to respond to these cases. the communities that have gotten that grant have really begun to take on this issue in a very dramatically different way. that's one potential solution, to expand that program. right now i think it's the smallest program that obw funds. the other thing is i think that more prosecutors would take this on if they had training. so going back to my point about the need for infrastructure, i do think prosecutors would care and be willing to take on these cases if they understood how to prove them. but there's huge knowledge issues here. we don't know how to deal with capacity issues which are so common in these cases. we don't know how to handle the analysis of the financial documents which are also crucial to prosecuting these cases. we don't have doctors to talk to. we are really lacking the tools we need to start responding problemly. i think it goes back to training, to encouraging prosecutors to create dedicated prosecutor positions and encouraging multi-disciplinary teams as well. >> in your world, who are -- let's assume the police department gets a report or the d.a.'s office gets one directly, who are the capacity evaluators that you call on. are they through the probate court or adult protective services? >> there are some we call on through the probate court who are experts, who do most of the evaluations, also some aps uses. i do quite a few trainings of law enforcement officers in different parts of the country. that is the one refrain i keep hearing from them. actually there's two refrans i hear. one is prosecutors aren't prosecuting cases even if we investigate them and, two, no one to do capacity evaluations. it's another important need we need to develop. >> prosecutors are going to be in town in the next week, two weeks. many of you may have been contacted by them to come to the office and visit. this is a great time to bring up with them how many elder abuse cases they filed in the last year and i intend to do that. >> wonderful. >> thank you, senator. we're going to recognize senators to do questions in the order of their arrival. senator warren. >> that you very much madam chairman. i just want to say congratulations on your new chairmanship and it was a great honor to work with you in the past two years on the aging committee and i very much look forward to your leadership in this committee. >> thank you. >> i'm also looking forward to working with ranking member mccaskill. i know leadership will be wonderful here. we're discussing exploitation of our seniors. on that topic i am particularly concerned about helping seniors protect their retirement savings. it's usually the money in their 401(k)s and i.r.a.s. i'm going to focus on financial advisers 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 portfolio. they found advisers consistently steered customers to the highest fee products. 2013 gao study found the same thing. in other words, the bankers and advisers gave themselves a great deal, while they gave their customers a lousy deal. this can cost customers a lot. even a 1% increase in fees could cost a retiree $100,000 in savings over their career. so what i wanted to ask about, miss shaw, is what can we do to make sure our seniors don't end up investing in retirement -- their retirement savings in funds that benefit the brokers more than they benefit the customers. >> thank you senator. certainly i have supported the position of nasa, north american security administration to encourage securities & exchange commission to adopt uniform fiduciary standard. i would also say disclosure is key as well. disclosure of the fee, disclosure of the information. an informed investor is going to be an investor better protected. certainly working toward including a more robust disclosure of fees, of the product components, products are very complex to make 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 investor has put in is suitable for that investor. but we do want advisers who should be -- we hope they are working in the best interest of the investor. i would be naive to say every adviser is operating in the best interest of their clients. >> well, i appreciate your raising that miss shaw because i think it's a very important point. russell, director of research at morningstar, leading investment research company, made this remark about high fees. quote, if there's anything in the whole world mutual funds 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. products may mean less money for seniors but they do mean more money for banks and other investment advisers. to make matters worse according to a study by aarp, more than three-quarters of individuals don't even know that most of these sales people don't actually have to offer investment advice that is in the customer's best financial interest. so miss shaw, are you worried that because investment advisers don't have to advise in the customer's best interest that this might give an unfair advantage to bad actors who push products that benefit themselves over good actors who are doing everything they can to help their clients reach a secure retirement and protect that retirement? >> it's certainly a concern. it is part of the strong investor and consumer protection that has been a part of my agency since the days of senator collins 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 lenses, including you may be aware nasa did a fee study not long ago. we are working very closely with industry to improve fee disclosure. they are at the table working with us to improve fee disclosure and provide ways consumers and customers can hopefully make better comparisons before they make decisions. there is a long way to go and it takes only a few minutes to look at our office of website to see some of the enforcement actions we've taken against advisers to see there are, indeed bad actors out there. but we plan on staying the cop on the beat. >> good. i want to thank you very much for your work. i want to thank all of you for being here today. we need to do more to protect our seniors, but also particularly to make sure financial advisers don't steer their clients into retirement products that maximize the advisers' profits while they drain away the clients' savings. that's particularly important for our seniors who just don't have the ability to recover from this. thank you very much. thank you, miss shaw, on this. thank you all. thank you, chairman. >> thank you. senator tillis. >> thank you madam chair. ladies and gentlemen of the panel, i thank you for being here. i'm sorry i was late. i had a vote and two other committee meetings, it's not for lack of an interest in this. miss 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 appreciate maine's leadership in that. can you tell me a little about any challenges you all had in the process of implementing that program and the benefits? >> i think that the first challenge we experienced was really ge to the point where the banks and credit unions were comfortable making the referrals to the office of securities. the other key component of the program is to make sure that there is this partnership and collaboration. we say this is a no wrong door approach. in other words, a report could be made to any of the partners. if the report is made to adult protective services and they determine they do not have injuries addition bank or credit union need not be concerned that that is going to be the end of the story. aps has admitted they would make that report to our office so we can assess it and either refer it to another agency. or if the senior needs other community-based resources perhaps a referral to a domestic violence program, we will make sure that that happens. i would say that the key component are to make sure there are two points of entry in state government, not just adult protective services and that there's a very strong partnership with all available community-based resources. it has to be a public-private partnership, multi-disciplinary 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 and other areas to potentially extend out to providers or just other areas that would be outside of the net, the banks and credit unions, maybe provide phase 2 or phase 3 of senior safe? >> yes thank you for that question. we have taken the concept of senior safe and we have now modified it for use by law enforcement. law enforcement very soon will have something called a radar card that is the size of a summons book they will all carry with them with red flags and reporting options available to them. we are doing the same for first responders emergency medical services, and we have just been approached by direct care workers and home support workers to modify senior safe for their purposes. i'm pleased to say in march, we will be providing a version of senior safe to one of the national broker dealers their local reps. >> coming from a state that has one of the fastest growing senior populations in the nation, and someone who knows a few of the house legislators there, don't be surprised we don't invite to you come down and share your story because i think it's a great story. it needs to be replicated and we appreciate your leadership. >> thank you. >> i had another question for whoever would be appropriate on the panel, and 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 have been bills introduced to's that through cms said it's very expensive. where in the order of priorities, if you were spending money, give me some sense of where something as straightforward as that fits in things you would like to see us allocate resources to. anyone on the panel that would have an opinion on it. >> i don't know that i could speak specifically to that issue, but i will tell you that i think one of the largest barriers that remains is the prosecution area. we have lots of programs that educate. we are including training program. but actually identifying elder financial exploitation and getting that investigation and prosecution to me in the state of maine is one of the key components that we need to be able to address. >> thank you all. thank you, madam chair. >> miss quinn, did you want to add to that? >> well, just that having social security numbers readily available is clearly opens a huge door for scams of all kinds. aps deals mostly with family abuse and family exploitation, so we don't deal directly with medicare fraud. just as a citizen it seems obvious. >> the reason for my question, i think there's a variety of areas where we probably need to find ways to free up resources to make progress here. so you hear about this one and try to get some sense in an area of scarce resources does it rise to that top priority and everything in between we should be considering trying to fend a way to fund. thank you. >> thank you. senator casey. >> madam chair, thanks very much. congratulations on your chairmanship, ranking member mccaskill as well. i'm glad you focused on this topic for what is the first hearing. we're grateful for that. i want to thank the panel. like many of us we were in and out with votes and other activities but we're grateful you're here. i didn't hear all the testimony. i heard close to half probably. we're grateful you're here and we're especially grateful you're bringing to this hearing and to these issues not only your experience and your expertise but also in many cases your own personal stories and that of your families. that's both illuminating for us in terms of the story you can tell. also i know it's not easy all the time to talk about your own families. i wanted to focus just for a moment miss shaw, on senior safe. a couple of questions. one is the elements of it or component parts of it meaning the agencies that comprise. i'm looking at page three of your testimony, if my count is right, you have i guess about six or seven, i'm not sure different entities that are part of it. i guess the first question i would ask is that there's an obvious multi-disciplinary approach that you bring to it and that's something you've all spoken to in one way or another. the basic question is how difficult was it to pull all those entities together and is there something about senior safe that is 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? >> i strongly believe that it can be a model for other states. in fact, we have turned senior safe over to nasa, to the north american securities administrators association to be modified for use by all of members, which includes all of the states as well as canadian provinces and territories. the province of new brunswick is interested in senior safe and we hope will be attending a training we'll be doing in northern maine. i think the time has come and that everyone recognizes it is time to address this issue. it was not difficult to get these partners to come to the table to put everyone's resources. i was once asked if this was funded by a grant, and the answer is no that we all agreed to commit our own resources to make senior safe work. so i think that everyone understands and appreciates that we must and we are all responsible for addressing elder abuse and financial exploitation. it is not hard to get players to the table. >> in pennsylvania we have one of the oldest states by demographics of any. i think depending what year you look at third or fourth. so we have not only a substantial challenge just because of the numbers but also a challenge because we're a state that's fairly decentralized. 67 counties and people tend to identify more at the local community than any kind of statewide sense of where they live and how they focus on their lives. we have a whole range of good programs in this area that sometimes emanate from or or partnered with prosecutor's offices like state attorney general. a lot of efforts at the local level as well. i may be calling upon you for other advice as i try to give advice to folks at the state level. i did a lot of auditing or the head of the state auditor general's office years ago. that work got us into those issues and examining those agencies. i wanted just for the panel as well to ask if you're designing certainly at the state level but more broadly, if you're designing any program to combat this kind of abuse, what are the basic elements of it? i know from some of the testimony it obviously has to be interdisciplinary. you have to have research a coordinated strategic approach. maybe if we can just -- i know we have about 40 seconds but miss ulrey can you start with what you hope would be the component parts of the strategy. >> i think i laid them out in my report as well, if you want to look at that senator. i think having specialized dedicated law enforcement prosecutors and victim advocates is absolutely crucial. in my state right now we have legislation pending that just creates authority for information sharing between all the different agencies that would participate in multi-disciplinary team. these teams are happening all over the country in different versions. if we can create that ability to share information more easily, i think we'll encourage their growth. i also just wanted to point out how important this is simply as far as the scale of elder financial exploitation is concerned. in a fairly recent study that came out of new york, we found out that for every one case that comes to light, another 44 aren't reported. your question about multi-disciplinary teams and how we deal with it as a system is crucial. this problem is only going to get worse and we are going to be looking at a real crisis very soon. >> thank you. miss quinn. >> i completely agree a multi-disciplinary approach is ideal. i also think a strong well protected system is necessary but not sufficient response to the country. it's aps that gets the reports by and large. it's aps that goes out to the victim's homes. it's aps that's totally victim centered to see what the victim needs, how can we make that victim safe. many, many reports of elder abuse are not criminal to be honest or will never rise to that level. it may be developmentally disabled adult child at home paying the bills and not getting paid. it can look like financial exploitation and there's problems as a result of that. then absolutely aps should operate in a multi-disciplinary field where it has law enforcement, where it has prosecutors, where it has medical advice, where it has legal advice. i do think the basic premise is we have a system in every community where a well trained social worker can go out and see what they need what kind of abuse is occurring to them and how can that be resolved. >> thank you, i'm way over. miss shaw, if you don't mind submitting in writing, that would be great. >> madam chairman, make i take a point of personal privilege to congratulate you and to congratulate senator mccaskill and to tell you that the participation and interest of the members is quite significant significant. thank you for your leadership. >> senator nelson, i was about to acknowledge you because we had such a great partnership when you were chair of with committee. i was thrilled you decided to stay on the committee and continue to share your insights and expertise with us. so thank you for that too. senator gillibrand. >> thank you and congratulations to you and senator mccaskill for sharing this committee. it's an amazing agenda you put together for this committee. the issues you're shining a spotlight on are exactly what need our efforts. thank you for your leadership. i'm going to continue the line of questioning about law enforcement. specifically to mr. marshall. from what we've read and heard your grandmother was subjected to a horrible set of circumstances perpetrated by close family members and predicated on alzheimer's. we have an alzheimer's crisis in this country that is very real. the unfortunate truth is she was not alone. millions of seniors fall victim to the same circumstances resulting in fraud, $180 million in economic loss. with your grandmother's case, the majority of seniors are victimized by family members, most often an adult child. and as the majority of abuse cases, your grandmother's case was within the jurisdiction of a district attorney's office particularly manhattan district's office. now in manhattan we have an elder abuse unit, one that is led by prosecutor, a well-known expert on elder exploitation issues. can you share for us how the structure of the elder abuse unit and having an advocate like elizabeth helped your family. >> what happened after we went guardianship guardianship, we didn't know if we would go to court. we had a three and a half month battle there. as i mentioned before the time when liz lowe as lead prosecutor came in with elder abuse unit. what i really have to appreciate how respectful her office was to those who could have walked away from my grandmother caregivers who could have walked away and got an better job, who stood out and staff and other friends. in particular, so many people in other completely different circumstances are actually revictimized by the system. the district attorney's office and liz lowe with elder abuse unit was so considerate of where we had been and what the ordeal as we began -- as the investigation was done that fall fall. >> how would having a dedicated elder abuse unit help d.a.'s office and law enforcement to capture recidivists targeting seniors very methodically? do you have additional it will you'd like to give why having a specific structure might be useful. >> i will tell you from my own experience when i started my job, there were no elder abuse cases coming into our office as all. part of my job as prosecutor of elder abuse was to do trains and elicit a response. as i did that, created a multi-disciplinary response, the cases started flowing in. i think when you have those dedicated positions and have an actual elder abuse unit then law enforcement will get the training they need and will bother doing these investigations. without that they won't bother. they are complicated, require forensic analysis of finances. unless we have prosecutors trained in the cases we need, the cases won't be filed. >> one funding stream, violence against women, small grant program, what recommendations do any of you have on this panel about how on the federal level we could help you reconstruct that kind of training prosecutor's office by prosecutor's office, what type of funding streams or incentive do you think we could create federally that would make this more probable in more district attorney's offices around the country country. >> i think creating more nationally sponsored trainees for prosecutors would be very, very important. i also think we need to have some kind of resource center so prosecutors and detectives can turn to a group with experienced people involved who can advise them on cases and give them information they they'd. i think all of that development and infrastructure would make a huge difference for us. i also think that we need victim advocates who are trained in these areas and can help these victims. i think the combination of those things would take us much further than we are now. >> other panelists, do you thoughts on ways we could help you do your job better? >> aps needs a lot of similar resources. we are very grateful we have funding from apl modest resource summer,ervice. there are some states where people go out and make decisions about vulnerable people's lives with no training or some on-the-job training or shadowing somebody who has been there a while. so i think we need the same kind of infrastructure. there is an aps data system under way which will tell all of us enormously more than we know, not just about aps but elder abuse in general. that needs to be fully developed and implemented across the country. we need the training. we need research as page mentioned. we need a lot more research. what works what doesn't work. what works in these type of cases, not other cases. it's really secretary greenlee said we never built the system and we need to build the system also supporting and encouraging multi-disciplinary teams. >> thank you to each of you for your testimony. it's been very helpful. thank you. >> thank you, senator before we turn to senator kaine i just wan to acknowledge senator tim scott and senator donnalley were both here earlier. they each have been called to other appointments but both of them i know are interested in this issue. i appreciated senator scott helping to provide coverage while we were all going to vote. senator kaine. >> thank you madam chairwoman. >> and thank you for joining the committee. we're very delighted to have you as a new member. >> i'm thrilled to be on it. the powers that be noted this committee was too youthful and investigation reduce and they wanted to add somebody with graying hair and receding, that's why i'm here. great to be with you and senator mccaskill. this has been important testimony. a lot of your testimony has focused on multi-disciplinary in maine, pulling together stakeholders. mr. marshall's testimony that was tragic in the personal instance, at least eventually there was a well coordinated response. but you do have in your testimony an indication that sometimes a fragmented system kind of revictimizes people who have been through this. i'm kind of interested in you giving us a report card about our federal efforts. gao report in 2012 indicated that the seven federal agencies that work on the problem of financial fraud perpetrated against seniors, which would include national center for elder abuse at hhs consumer financial protection federal trade commission, department of justice, postal inspection service, securities and exchange commission and treasury department financial crimes enforcement. there was a recommendation they should work together in a more coordinated way so that they are not duplicating but also not leaving gaps. what's your sense as folks who are active and expert in this world the degree federal agencies each have part of this in their jurisdiction really work in a coordinated way or what more work could be done to improve that. >> well, i think that the elder justice coordinating council formed in the elder justice act, that has made tremendous progress, because quarterly all those major agencies come together. you know i suspect some of them had never thought about elder abuse before having to come to those meetings and give a report on what their agency is doing. i know my organization has worked very closely with social security administration to address problems with representative payees who are exploiting victims and how social security can work more effectively with aps. there's a pilot project under way. i think that's being replicated across the board where there's really much more activity and awareness of this issue. >> other thoughts? >> i think one thing i would say is state security regulators certainly work well together and work well with securities & exchange commission. my role as elder abuse prevention, one initiative we are undertaking we have formed a working group to try to look at multi-jurisdictional scams, things like jamaican lottery scams and the like, and we have asked the u.s. attorneys office and other federal agencies to come to the table to see if we can think about a program where the states can identify these problems and serve as a feeder, if you will, for federal agencies to try to develop that critical mass, if you will, to try to find a way. can we be the eyes and ears that can then feed cases up to the feds. it's in its very early stages. those types of initiatives perhaps will help. >> one of the areas -- i'm sorry? >> i was going to briefly say, senator, i know department of justice is building an elder abuse website right now that has the potential to really help and reach a lot of different people. the obw is also doing a lot of excellent work. there are a lot of different agencies doing this work. my perception is that they are all severely underfunded so they have one or two people working on elder abuse issues that are gargantuan. increased funding, i know it's the refrain but really needed here. >> there's members of budget committee starting to work on that right now. so i appreciate the comment. for every one reported case, there are 44 unreported. that's a pretty sobering statistic. so one of the things we ought to be thinking about together with you is how to increase the amount of reporting. in my limited experience in this area as a lawyer in private practice, often people who are subject to some kind of financial abuse, there was a professional in their life, whether it was an accountant, or somebody aware of what was going on, sometimes that professional would report it and help sometimes they wouldn't. i don't want to get involved in a family thing whatever. do you have suggestions for us about ways in which we could increase the amount of reporting especially by professionals who work with senior citizens who become aware there may be warning signs? >> one thing i want to let you all know about is a program happening in missouri right now. ron long with wells fargo has created a unit of elderly -- called department of elderly client initiative. it's a number of different professionals within wells fargo brokerage firm dedicated to advising all of their employees on concerned cases. those models for training are essential in the financial services industry. we also get a lot of our referrals from adult protective services. in our state the mandatory reporting laws require that elder financial exploitation be reported only to aps and not to law enforcement. because aps does not have adequate tools and the research is not adequate to screen for capacity, the person is choosing to be exploited, give money away, close their case, the referral never makes it to law enforcement. also focusing on research and training aps and law enforcement with regard to the issue would be a large step forward. >> thank you very much. i appreciate your answers. >> thank you. senator blumenthal, welcome back to the committee. >> thank you chair collins and thanks to you and senator mccaskill for having this hearing and beginning on such a profoundly important note. i saw this problem for many years when i was state attorney general in connecticut sought to stop it. and while here continued to encounter it in cases of constituents who were affected by it. one, very notably robert veteran who was brutally abused financially by his children in a sense not unlike your situation miss marshall. and as a result of his experience i sponsored in the 112th congress the robert montava exploitation protection for elder adults act which increases the federal penalties for fraud directed at senior citizens, as well as exploitation. federal penalties because i believe there is federal jurisdiction. improved ability for the government to collect statistical data because i agree with many of you that there's too little factual and evidence based information about it. and provided resources to the federal government to give to the states for training technical assistance, pilot grant programs in developing best practices, the kind of support that a number of our colleagues have referred to. i'm pleased to be working with senator ayotte on that legislation hoping to reintroduce it soon. the area that i'd like to focus on which, in a sense is the elephant in the room, is underreported. the shame and stigma that causes so many of these cases to be unreported. the feelings of embarrassment. and excuses. and sometimes love for relatives. children or others who are actually exploited. there is a combination of feelings that result in this underreporting, and i want to thank you miss quinn for including in your citation some of the numbers here, which are really staggering. elder abuse is vastly underreported. only 1 in 23.5 cases is reported to any agency for financial abuse. financial abuse it's 1 in 44. 1 in 44 financial abuse cases is reported which makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for the best prosecutors in the world, and i've been a prosecutor, not one of the best in the world. to take this kind of action. for neglect it's 1 in 57. so i am looking at some of the state laws that apply to reporting. and looking at who the mandated reporters are, rarely are think financial institutions under state law. which is the primary basis for requiring reporting. i am wondering whether you would endorse more states adopting laws that require reporting. certain people are mandated reporters, for example, for child abuse, schools and others for financial abuse, the same concept applyiesapplies. should financial institutions, and you've mentioned -- one of you mentioned accountants who knew about it. or maybe senator -- i think senator kane actually did quite appropriately, should they be required to report? if they're put under the legal onus they can't say, you know, i'm worried about my client, i don't want to lose my client, does the family matter. much as it now is in schools for children, or in other situations, doctors, for example, mandated reporters for abuse, elder abuse too, shouldn't this be a requirement for the financial institutions? and some dates do, but it's only a minority. >> i would be delighted if that were made the law. washington state a few years ago passed a permissive reporting statute that simply gives financial institutions protection if they do report in good faith. and it has helped tremendously in our getting the cases on our desks. but i think it would be obviously a very huge very powerful message to send if we were to make it a mandated situation. i think we also though if we do that, have to include training in that reporting law. we have we have a lot of mandatory reporters in washington of elder abuse, and many of them don't even know that they are mandated to report don't even know they're mandated to report because there's no training. as long as we include that training component i think that would be a wonderful idea. >> ms. quinn? >> i agree. and i would just add, as i said, that part of the reporting should be providing aps with the records, client records. aps cannot prove abuse if they can't see the records. and a lot of cases go unsubstantiated. the money continues to drain away. thank you. >> thank you. well, i will say just by way of full disclosure, my own state of connecticut doesn't have this requirement. the chairwoman's state of maine doesn't have it. my colleague tim kane state of virginia has no mandate. and the same is true of senator mccaskill's state. so we have four states where this kind of requirement isn't attributable to them. i don't mean in any way to cast aspersions on them. but there is a lot of potential here for making a difference by mandating reporting. not just permissively giving them the cover, in the sense, the relief from any liability, but making it their burden. legal burden. thank you. >> thank you very much. i want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. you can see by the turnout we have of senators on both sides of the aisle that there is tremendous concern about elder abuse, and ms. quinn, your testimony, your written testimony, had some statistics which i want to close the hearing with because they're truly extraordinary and show us that we have just begun to scratch the surface of the scope of this problem. in your testimony there was a chart that indicates that there are approximately 5 million victims of the elder abuse annually. in contrast, there are 1.25 million victims of child abuse, and 2.3 million domestic violence victims. and we abhor crime whether it's towards the child, in particular, or domestic abuse, but we -- there's much greater awareness of child abuse, and domestic violence. and yet, the incidence of elderly abuse is far higher, and perhaps this -- one of the benefits of this hearing is it has put a spotlight on an issue that people are not talking enough about, are not enough aware of and where state, private agencies, federal efforts really need to be ramped up. particularly since we know in our country that the population that is 85 and older is the fastest growing part of our population. it is just exploding. this problem is only going to get worse. so i too am interested and will ask for the -- your recommendations on what we can do at the federal level whether it's the reauthorization of the elder justice abuse act, or the older americans act, which we're about to do, by the way, and have reported from the health education, labor and pensions committee just last week, or whether it's modifying graham leech blighly to make sure that financial institutions report legitimate concerns to adult protective services or state securities administrators without fear that they're going to be violating privacy law ss. whatever your recommendations are, we would really welcome them. and i very much appreciate your coming forward talking about personal experiences, as well as your professional experiences. i think this was an excellent first hearing as is shown by the great participation that we have. the committee members will all have until friday february 13. i think we should have chosen a different day, but it is friday the 13th, to submit questions for the record. before i close the hearing completely i want to yield to my ranking member for any closing comments that we might have. senator mccass kel? >> well, i think there's things we can do from the bully pulpit of our offices that can help make a difference. i want to thank all of you. i particularly want to recognize you, mr. marshall. i can't imagine the emotional trauma and roller coaster that you must have been on. and i think all of us who tried to put ourselves in your position, which was exacerbated by the profile of your grandmother and what she represented to a much larger community than your family, and knowing that you were going to become the victim of prurient news interests about this very impressive and elite woman in new york. and so i particularly, i want to thank you, and i want to thank the prosecutor's doggedness, because i love prosecutors who are dogged. thank you all very much. >> you love all prosecutors. >> i love all prosecutors. but especially ones that are dogged. >> again, my thanks to all our witnesses. i want to thank each of you for the important role that you played in