Gayle L. Robinson, 83, seized from home Oct. 1 against her wishes
Medicated at Botsford Hospital for eight days before return home with son
Rowan recently removed as guardian in case of Mailauni Williams
By Diane Bukowski
Mary Rowan (seated in blue), grabs Mailauni Williams’ arm (standing in blue) after being appointed guardian last May. She took Mailauni from her court-ordered placement and kept her for months away from her family, friends and attorney at undisclosed locations, also without a court order.
Oct. 18, 2014 – Shocking videos show Westland police and Katie McDonald, alleged assistant to temporary guardian/conservator Mary Rowan, seizing Gayle Robinson, 83, from her home Oct. 1 without a court order. In the videos, Mrs. Robinson says she does not want to go and does not like attorney Rowan. After two hours of debate, the officers and assistant took her to a location not disclosed to her son Randy Robinson, who lives with her, or her daughter Deborah Fox, who was present during the seizure.
Rowan is the same attorney involved as temporary guardian in the Mailauni Williams case, which VOD has been covering. She has since been removed after it came to light that she was appointed by disgraced former Macomb County Chief Probate Judge Kathryn George. At the request of Wayne County Probate Chief Judge Milton Mack, George had been serving in Wayne County on the Williams case for eight years. She is no longer there.
After an Oct. 7 probate court hearing regarding Mrs. Robinson in front of Judge Terrence Keith, VOD asked Sgt. Randall Thivierge of the Westland Police (tall bald man seen talking at length in video above) whether he had a court order to seize Mrs. Robinson. He said, “I didn’t need one. She came willingly.”
But the videos show at least two hours of discussion, with Mrs. Robinson stating clearly, “I don’t like Mary Rowan,” and that she did not want to leave. An Adult Protective Services worker and her former court-appointed attorney Ella Bully-Cummings testified during the hearing that Mrs. Robinson told them she wanted to remain in her home and that she did not have a problem with her son Randy staying there.
Attorney Ella Bully-Cummings
“What I can say is that when I talked to [Mrs. Robinson] she was calm and not agitated,” Cummings said. “She did indicate she wants to be at home, and that she doesn’t want a guardian. She said her children had stolen money from her. But she said neither Randy nor [daughter] Deborah had.”
According to testimony, Mrs. Robinson was taken to Botsford Hospital in Farmington Hills afterwards, where she was held in the psychiatric ward. She was not immediately admitted because she did not want to be, and due to alleged “paperwork” problems. In the meantime, she has since told her son Randy, she stayed overnight in a hotel.
At an earlier show cause hearing, Keith ordered that Robinson not be removed from her home without his express order. On Oct. 7, he ordered that she be returned promptly to her home after a medical evaluation was completed by Dr. Marlana Geha, a psychologist, but did not sanction Rowan or the police for earlier removing her without his order. He ordered that a home health care nurse visit Mrs. Robinson at her home, and that Geha see her in her office, subsequent to her return home.
He denied requests by other siblings present to evict Randy Robinson from the home.
Wayne County Probate Court Judge Terrance Keith and his book “Sunrise on the Detroit River”
“I stand firm that she is not to be placed in a nursing home or other facility without the court’s prior written order,” Keith said. In response to references to a dispute over a home equity loan taken out by another sibling on Mrs. Robinson’s house, he ordered that any funds taken involuntarily from Mrs. Robinson by her children be returned at once.
Randy Robinson, who has petitioned the court numerous times to remove Rowan as guardian, told VOD later, “They brought my mother home Oct. 9 without any notice; they didn’t even know if I was home. She didn’t have her keys and wouldn’t have been able to get in. Just luckily I was there.”
He said that his mother appeared to have been drugged at the hospital, although she prefers natural remedies, and is suffering from the trauma of her removal. Westland police had assured her she was only going for a check-up and would be back shortly. He also told VOD that the home’s electricity was recently shut off for non-payment of its DTE bill by Rowan and that other bills remain unpaid.
Normally, according to several probate attorneys, a family member is the first choice for guardianship for an individual deemed to be legally incapacitated and a “protected person.”
At the Oct. 7 hearing, Keith said he had ordered an “Independent Medical Evaluation” (IME) of Mrs. Robinson and was angry that it had not been carried out. However, he reviewed medical documentation of an evaluation from Henry Ford Hospital physicians, where her son Randy had taken her at the recommendation of his mother’s family doctor.
Case of Robert Kilgore, Jr. posted on Stop Guardian Abuse website; photo of Dr. Marlana Geha in lower right corner.
The HFH records showed her to be competent and in good mental health. But Judge Keith ordered that another evaluation, including her past history, should be completed by Dr. Geha. There had been claims she was earlier diagnosed with dementia.
Geha was involved in an earlier questionable case listed on the STOP GUARDIAN ABUSE website at http://stopguardianabuse.org/RobertKilgoreJr.htm. In the case of Robert Kilgore, Jr., now 81, Wayne County Probate Court Chief Judge Milton Mack appointed Dr. Geha as guardian and Robert Findling as conservator.
According to a complaint filed with the Court Ombudsman’s office, Geha moved Kilgore from his home in Sumpter Township to the Belle River Pines Adult Foster Care Home in Memphis, Michigan, 77 miles away from his close friends and the VA facility where he was receiving care. The move was supposedly temporary. But Mack authorized the sale of his house for $76,000 in 2009 without Kilgore’s knowledge, and Kilgore said $162,600 in assets disappeared. He had been receiving income from Social Security, the VA, and a GM pension, but was left without money even for personal needs, according to the complaint.
Judge Keith did not rule on Randy Robinson’s most recent motion to remove Rowan as his mother’s guardian.
During the hearing, Rowan insisted several times that she would have Mrs. Robinson visit with her other children in “public places,” and would “see to it that she gets to the doctor’s office” for follow-up care. Mrs. Robinson, however, states clearly in the video above that she does not want to see her other children because they have stolen money from her.
From Rowan’s recent behavior in the case of Mailauni Williams, there is reason for alarm here.
One day after her appointment as Williams’ guardian by Judge Kathryn George, Rowan and an assistant took Mailauni from her court-ordered placement in a Detroit adult foster care home, claiming they were taking her shopping. She disappeared for months, with her mother Lennette Williams and Mailauni’s attorney Allison Folmar not informed of her whereabouts. After getting the case transferred from George to Keith, Folmar met with opposing parties and discovered that Mailauni had been staying for a while with McDonald, who is not licensed for adult foster care, then was moved to her sister’s house. There is no court order for either placement on the record. (See updated report on that case in story to follow.)
The next hearing in Gayle Robinson’s case is set for Tues. November 25.
Related stories, in case where Mary Rowan was also the guardian, appointed by disgraced former Macomb County Probate Court Chief Judge Kathryn George:
VOD update coming shortly on Mailauni Williams case.