Subject: GD cases from ETG’s
Date: 2015-07-24 12:11
From: “Rivera, Evelyn (COC)”
To: “Sam Sugar, MD”

Good afternoon Dr. Sugar,

Attached you will find the report you requested consisting of Guardianship cases that were preceded by an Order assigning an Emergency Temporary Guardian in a Mental Health case. The report includes all Guardianship cases filed during the last ten years.

If you need anything further please do hesitate to contact me.
Evelyn Rivera

Analysis: Guardianship cases of the last decade in Miami-Dade probate court

After a freedom of information request and payment of a fee we were able to obtain aggregated data concerning emergency temporary guardianships declared in Miami-Dade probate court.

The data which does contain case numbers which could be individually looked up if we had a full dedicated research team, indicates that over the ten-year period between 2005 and 2015 to date, there were about 1400 newly minted wards created in probate in Miami. The data also shows that there were about 100 petitions to reinstate capacity during that time.

Doing the math this comes to a dozen or so new wards every month. It is impossible to know without looking up each individual case, which is impossible for us to know how many of these wards were public and how many were involuntarily handed over to professional for-profit guardians.

Because there is no public data on guardianship, and it is likely there never will be, this information gives us the best peak inside the secret world of probate court. We’ll continue to work to shed light on America’s dirty little secret

Sam Sugar, MD