Probes show ex-guardian’s violations of state laws

Records detail Fierle’s use of DNRs and handling of wards’ finances

Newly released investigations into Rebecca Fierle, the former professional guardian accused of filing unauthorized “do not resuscitate” orders on her incapacitated clients, reveal new details about the ways in which an investigator says she violated state laws in her handling of vulnerable adults.

Fierle is under a criminal investigation after one of her clients, 75-year-old Steven Stryker, died at a Tampa hospital while staff were unable to perform life-saving measures due to a DNR order Fierle filed against his wishes and refused to remove.

Records from the Office of Public and Professional Guardians, released to the Orlando Sentinel late Thursday, show two investigations by the Okaloosa County Clerk of Circuit Court and Comptroller found substantiated allegations against Fierle — including one complaint that accused her of filing a DNR on another ward without legal authority or the family’s knowledge.

“Your conduct failed persons served by guardianship and the families who entrusted their loved ones to your care,” Florida Department of Elder Affairs Secretary Richard Prudom wrote to Fierle in letters informing her of the probes’ findings in late July, which indicated that Fierle had violated a slew of state statutes and guidelines.

Those letters were made public earlier this week, in response to records requests.

One of the investigations started in Orange County after a ward’s granddaughter alleged in an Oct. 2, 2018 complaint that Fierle made false reports against her, ignored the ward’s wishes, did not notify the family of the guardianship proceedings and improperly requested that the granddaughter’s accounts be frozen by the court, wrote Andrew Thurman, an auditor and investigator for the Okaloosa County Clerk of Circuit Court and Comptroller.

The Okaloosa Clerk is part of a statewide network that investigates complaints against guardians for the state’s Office of Public and Professional Guardians. Because Fierle resigned as a guardian statewide amid the scandal sparked by Stryker’s death, Thurman’s findings in the newly released investigations won’t result in discipline against her.

However, Fierle remains the subject of criminal probes by both the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Office of the Attorney General.

Thurman’s probe could not substantiate the granddaughter’s accusations that Fierle made false reports or that the request to freeze her accounts was improper. But Thurman did find Fierle failed to list the granddaughter, the only beneficiary of the ward’s will, as next-ofkin in her petition for guardianship, which is required.

Fierle was only given the legal authority by the court to make determinations about the incapacitated person’s finances and estate. All medical and personal decision were supposed to be made by the granddaughter.

Despite this, Thurman found Fierle signed a DNR for the ward in January 2019.

“Fierle had no legal authority to make medical decisions for the ward,” Thurman wrote. “The ward’s granddaughter served as guardian of the person and was the only individual authorized to make medical decisions for the ward.”

The granddaughter became aware of the DNR after the investigation into Stryker’s death became public, Thurman wrote.

In a separate investigation, the investigator found Fierle mismanaged a trust account that had been established for the benefit of one of her wards in Seminole County and also failed to provide for that ward’s basic needs — leaving a friend to pay for the woman’s meals and groceries.

That probe began after the Seminole County ward filed a complaint against Fierle Oct. 16, 2017. Fierle had been overseeing the ward’s care and assets since August 2017 and would remain her guardian until Aug. 15, 2018. The investigation was not concluded until that December.

The woman claimed Fierle had been trying to move her into a nursing home against her wishes and had replaced her broken refrigerator with one that didn’t work properly.

Thurman determined both of the allegations were unfounded: He found no evidence Fierle was trying to relocate the woman, who the guardian claimed was being paranoid. Fierle provided a receipt showing she had bought the refrigerator from a used appliance store and the ward said in an interview that she was able to use it, though it didn’t “work very well,” the investigative report shows.

However, Thurman found red flags in Fierle’s statements and handling of the ward’s finances.

Fierle claimed that every in-home care provider she had hired to help the ward had resigned due to the woman’s hostility, but court records showed no payments to caretakers.

Of greater concern was Fierle’s handling of a supplemental needs trust, which a relative had established to provide extra money on top of government assistance the ward was receiving in the form of supplemental security income.

However, while the ward was under Fierle’s care, money from the trust was being drawn into the ward’s bank account while the public assistance went unspent, investigators found. That meant the trust money was being “used to supplant rather than supplement the Ward’s public benefit payments,” Thurman wrote in his report.

According to the report, money from the trust was being used to pay attorney and guardian fees, as well as mortgage payments for the ward’s home and expenses related to the ward’s property, without being properly documented in Fierle’s annual accounting of the ward’s assets.

Among the transactions Fierle “concealed from statutorily required monitoring” were repairs to the ward’s pool and fence, Thurman wrote.

Another red flag came in Fierle’s use of gift cards to fund the ward’s needs, such as groceries. Fierle would provide the woman prepaid Visa cards and Publix gift cards to use for shopping.

A friend of the ward told investigators that Fierle initially gave the ward a gift card on the 7th and 21st of every month, before switching to every other Friday. The cards were not always on schedule and Fierle would not provide the ward money other than in the form of a gift card, the friend said.

The last time Fierle bought a gift card for the ward was June 14, 2018, at which point she was in the process of resigning from the ward’s case, Thurman found. But she remained the woman’s guardian for more than two months after that – with sole custody of the woman’s money.

No more gift cards were bought for the ward during that period, Thurman found.

The friend told investigators “it was necessary for her to pay for the Ward’s meals and groceries with her own money on several occasions,” Thurman wrote. “These facts indicate that Fierle did not fulfill her professional and legal obligation to provide for the basic needs of the Ward.”

According to Thurman’s report, Fierle defended herself against the allegations made by the ward and her friend by arguing the ward “fails to recognize her deficits.”

The investigator was not swayed.

“Despite her assertions that Ward is unable to care for herself or manage her finances, Fierle determined that the best way to provide for her needs was to give her prepaid gift cards (which are essentially cash) and let her make purchases without supervision,” he wrote. “This indicates a lack of professional care and a disregard for the best interests of the Ward…”

Thurman’s findings mirror similar complaints made to the Sentinel by another of Fierle’s Seminole County wards, James “Jack” Meagher, a 67-year-old Winter Springs man who said Fierle refused to buy him necessary supplies like air and water filters for his home or a removable net he wanted to make his wheelchair more comfortable. Meagher said Fierle’s employees gave him a $125 Publix gift card every two weeks for food, leaving him to drive his chair to the store for groceries.

“They say I don’t know how to handle money, but how do I budget myself on $62.50 a week?” Meagher asked in an interview in July.

The revelations regarding Fierle’s methods, documented in a series of special reports by the Sentinel, have sent shock waves through Florida’s guardianship program, prompting policy changes by the Department of Elder Affairs and promises of action by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Fierle has not been charged with any crime. An email seeking a response to the investigations’ findings on Thursday went unanswered by the former guardian and her attorney.