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Thank all of you for your good wishes, your suggestions and so much more.
Robert and Marceline went to court without an attorney because they have not been able to find one. This is a fairly new area and even attorneys are confused as to who best could handle this case.
Most attorneys say – “you need someone in elder law.” However, elder law is about trusts, wills, etc. We feel that this appearance proves that what they need are attorneys who are great litigators because we see medical mal practice, attorney problems, and the Donaldson/Bennett’s should have enormous damages here. We haven’t seen people so poorly treated in all of our time in this work. To have taken away Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett’s freedom the way it was done makes us want to look for another country because it says to us this country is going to put the health industry in control of the police function which will allow picking up and incarcerating people who have done nothing – no criminal activity, not even cross walking in the middle of a block; keeping them incarcerated in hospitals or other institutions; and having the general public through their health insurance pay for the incarceration. We are still trying to heal from the way their rights have been destroyed.
We made a recommendation to the Donaldson/Bennett’s which others should have made from the beginning – especially the lawyer others – however, we also asked them to not make our recommendation public so it will be a few months before that is shared.
They submitted a few documents to the court. The one we will share with you is the MOTION TO DISMISS.
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Motion to Dismiss
Just about every right guaranteed to a United States citizen, through the actions taken by SCES, have been denied to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett.
Attorney James O’Sullivan did a lot of misrepresentation and sometimes outright lies to this court. It is possible that this happened because Attorney O’Sullivan was misled by his clients who misrepresented “facts” to him which led him to believe he should file certain papers and take certain actions for the protection of an “elder”, but nevertheless the results are the same.
In the process of doing his work as an attorney, Attorney O’Sullivan should have known he was mis-speaking and misrepresenting to the Court.
It is incumbent upon an attorney who presents misrepresentations to the Court to immediately correct his presentation so that it reflects the facts. We have no knowledge of this happening with Attorney O’Sullivan. He has allowed his misrepresentations to stand.
Ms. Nora Al WetAid and Ms. Angela Clary made statements – some under oath – on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services – which could rise to the level of perjury. Instead of pursuing their job in a professional well researched way, they pursued my family and caused us much grief; large and unnecessary expenditures of money; time; reputation, and so much more.
In that pursuit, they did not have the courtesy, necessity, etc. of contacting us to make an appointment as Protective Service people with Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services to discuss their concerns – to identify the source of their concerns – and all the other things that need to be done in such circumstances. They just plowed ahead and assumed that whatever ugliness they were being told or thought they dug up and was relevant was totally appropriate considering they were “investigating (even though without cause) an African American family showing their own extreme racism and sexism in the process.
Our family has been turned into the most negative of African American stereotypes. We stopped being humans to “Protective Services” quite some time ago, if we ever were seen as such.
This started within the Court by Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services filing a section 12 against Robert Bennett causing him to be picked up by 8 white Cambridge police, along with 5 or 6 EMT’s, two ambulances, the commotion of many police cars all over the street providing the neighborhood with a very negative bit of theatre around an African American family – on very bogus charges and for reasons that were not valid with a misuse and abuse of the psychiatric areas of the Court, the Cambridge police, and the Donaldson/Bennett family.
That is proven by the fact that the section 12 was lifted immediately by MGH because it did not apply to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett.
That should have been the end of all of this, however, Attorney O’Sullivan, Ms. Nora Al-Wetaid, Ms. Angela Clary and others pushed on making a bad situation much worse.
It is also becoming clear that what has happened with Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett and his family has also happened to others in Massachusetts with their assets, families, work and more destroyed by “Protective Services” around the state and the way they have gone about their “work.”
Rev. Dr. Bennett and his family are well known in their neighborhood. It is also well known that they have recently been attacked by new neighbors who were appalled to discover they had African Americans living on their block. There are neighbors who have gone so far as to stomping on Marceline Donaldson’s toes in a fit of pique and running away when Rev. Dr. Bennett appeared from around the corner. We have wondered if this was intertwined in this action.
Who is this person being so destroyed:
Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett finished his institutional education with a PhD in Near Eastern studies. Prior to that he received a Masters of Divinity from General Theological Seminary in New York; an Undergraduate Degree from Kenyon College in Ohio with a major in philosophy – which he enhanced by spending time in Denmark where he learned the language and studied the works of the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.
He has written several books; serves the Episcopal Church as an ordained priest; taught as a full professor at Episcopal Divinity School, adjunct professor at Harvard University, Princeton University, and Atlanta University.
Rev. Dr. Bennett also served the wider Christian Church by working on Committees for the National Council of Churches – particularly the Inclusive Language Lectionary Committee which produced an Inclusive Language Lectionary still used today – whose goal was “to help shape a more inclusive church reflecting the unity and universality of God.”
Well respected by all those who know him and still today sought out for his counsel and comment and research, SCES felt free enough to portray Rev. Dr. Robert A. Bennett, Jr. as a mentally and physically incapacitated lump who you could move around, push around, treat in ways to further their individual and collective career goals instead of realizing they made a substantial mistake in all that they did against him.
Rev. Dr. Bennett very specifically said he did not want the SCES presence or attention or services all of which were forced on him. He was put in the position by SCES of being address as “hi, handsome” along with many other such “cute’ interactions which he abhorred and was forced to tolerate because he was being incarcerated in a hospital against his will and without having anything which would have had the police arrive to carry out that incarceration.
The arrogance with which SCES did this has been overwhelming to everyone who has seen some of what is happening to this family.
On information and belief, Rev. Dr. Bennett is not the only person who has been so treated byh Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services and other such groups around Massachusetts. They have been so blatant about all of what they are doing that it has become apparent that this is how and who this pseudo state organization has set itself up to destroy.
SCES and its family of “Protective Services” is beginning to look like a place where, on information and belief, words like ‘criminal conspiracy’, RICO and other such words can be used..
The first court action against Dr. Bennett was the filing of the section 12 and its immediate removal and ‘lifting’ by MGH because it did not apply to Rev. Dr. Bennett. When Rev. Dr. Bennett left MGH after being discharged from this attempt to take away his freedom, reputation, ability to function, he and his wife were warned to be careful because people were all over the hospital investigating them for reasons no one knew why.
The section 12- is used to protect the public and sometimes the person who has had a psychotic break and has had to be restrained; has had alcoholic problems which became public and negatively affected that public; had overdosed on drugs and caused a public problem and more in that vein. None of this applied to Rev. Dr. Bennett who had not even a hint of mental problems before SCES and its friends and family intervened in his life attempting to take away his freedom, does not smoke, drink, take drugs, pills or anything even remotely related.
The section 12 was signed, as it must be, by a psychiatrist who added, in writing, on the charging document, that she had never met Robert Bennett, never examined him, never visited his home, but she also felt free enough not just to send out this document to have him incarcerated but also called his home ‘unsafe”.
What the psychiatrist, who took out the papers to “section” Dr. Bennett did, was a very questionable if not outright malpractice.
SCES, by sending police out to “arrest” Rev. Dr. Bennett using the section 12 did something they have done against many others, especially many minorities whose lives and families have been destroyed by their actions misusing a part of the “health law” which is there to be used carefully and appropriately. SCES used it because it was a quick and dirty way to get someone into their custody to begin the pattern they have put down and regularly practiced against others destroying many families in the process.
Before SCES used the section 12 against Rev. Dr. Bennett, SCES called the Cambridge Police and asked that a wellness check happen. A policeman was sent to check out their claims and returned with a report which said all was well at the Bennett home and they found nothing amiss.
Dr. Bennett went to Sherrill House after he was discharged from MGH for rehab. Both Rev. Dr. Bennett and his wife, Marceline Donaldson, were very positive about this move to Sherrill House because of its Episcopal foundations and what they heard via Episcopal circles about Sherrill House. They looked at it as a time of spiritual retreat along with the rehab possibilities. Instead, they found it to be a house of horrors and even polite, culturally dictated ways to act were violated.
When he arrived – by ambulance from MGH – no one welcomed him. No one even acknowledged his human presence with a smile or a hello or any other kind of human to human greeting.
The ambulance driver deposited him to the room he was shown and left. No one sat with him to outline the program of rehab he would be experiencing. No one said – we are busy at the moment, but will orient you to our program as soon as possible. In fact, he was told to stay in bed and call the nurse if he needed to relieve himself. He was also told he should not get out of the bed under any circumstances. Since his wife was in the room with him, that was rather strange, especially since he was accustomed to going to the bathroom on his own at MGH, but they followed directions.
He did call the nurse during that evening because he needed to go to the bathroom. The nurse did not show up for some 45 minutes and by that time Dr. Bennett was quite embarrassed because he followed what he was told about not going to the bathroom, but call the nurse.
The next day there was still no program outlined with Dr. Bennett as to what his rehab would consist and in addition to that disaster of a first day and night at Sherrill House, he and his wife discovered that Sherrill House was going under quarantine because several people on his floor had the flu.
When asked if the people with the flu were moved away from the rest of the patients in the rehab he and his wife were told that was not necessary.
When asked what kind of flu because stories of CovID-19 were circulating, they were told no one knew what kind of flu.
After checking, they discovered this was not a first at Sherrill House, it had been quarantined just months earlier.
The SCES response to this was anger, arrogance and retaliation against Robert Bennett who dared put his own well being above that of the institution in question.
Given the beginnings of information circulating about COVID-19, Dr. Bennett did not want to stay at Sherrill House and after conveying that information to his wife, who was his Health Care Proxy, Marceline Donaldson took her husband home where he would not be surrounded by the flu of any kind.
Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services called the police for a wellness check. On information and belief, SCES were the people running all over MGH and the Greater Boston area “investigating” Rev. Dr. Bennett.
Before that incident, Rev. Dr. Bennett had never shown even the smallest possibility that he had mental problems. However, Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services moved ahead without any contact with Dr. Bennett, without ever having met him or talked to his family as their policies require before making such a move and sent the police to take him out of his home to be sent to Mount Auburn Hospital. Prior to that if they met Rev. Dr. Bennett on the street, no one at SCES would have even recognized him or known who he was.
It was beyond curious that having just left MGH, SCES did not send him back to MGH, but to Mount Auburn Hospital where he was not known and where he was just three days out of MGH.
He was discharged from MGH within hours with the section 12 lifted and people at MGH saying he should not have been picked up in the first place. He was discharged without medicines prescribed and with all of his vitals in the normal range including his blood pressure.
Copy of his discharge paper in attached.
This all happened on March 3rd, a voting day and he planned to vote – as he always does. He was put into MGH from the morning of March 3rd through to about 3:30am on Wednesday March 4th. Rev. Dr. Bennett said he needed to leave in time to vote, he was told that was not possible, there were many people ahead of him needing to interview with the psychiatrist – so Rev. Dr. Bennett lost his right to vote because of the irresponsible actions of SCES.
Two days later, the police arrived at Dr. Bennett’s house on Friday March 6th about 6pm. This time only two policemen, EMT’s, ambulance, etc. to once again take him to MGH – this time on a section 19.
The section 12 didn’t work so SCES with its Attorney James O’Sullivan would use the “emergency hearing” route which Attorney O’Sullivan has a reputation for using and on information and belief, abusing.
There was no reason on any level for such an emergency hearing which included substantial requests.
On information and belief the Emergency Hearing was abused and the items and actions it allowed are not legal because the hearing was not legal in its elimination of notice to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett. We ask that everything from that point on be reversed and wiped from the court record.
Clearly, the resolve of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services was not about what was needed, but what they were going to force through to keep their program going. The services of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services were available and if you didn’t use them you would be forced to. That is their reputation.
Many people in the Harvard Square area and on information and belief, in other areas also use their and their related state funded services for things like – house cleaning, baby sitting, dog walking and so much more charged under health care insurance and/or paid for by state taxes and individual contributions intended to be used for other more needed uses and for people more seriously in need of such basic health services.
These ‘extra” services are charged to the patient – or ex-patients health insurance through the Home Healthcare Service working with the patient or ex-patient, making the huge increase in the cost of health services so exorbitant and becoming even more exorbitant exponentially that all are suffering from this increase.
Also part of their(SCES) reputation is the fact that serious complaints against them are useless because the people against whom the complaints are aimed investigate themselves. If the complaints come in through the elder hotline against SCES – the people talked about do the investigation; if the complaint comes in through other areas in the state having to do with Elder Affairs the complaint is self-investigated. If it is a substantial complaint it is “lost”. If the complaint goes to the Executive office of Elder Affairs headed by Paul Hollings, Mr. Hollings simply sends any complaints to SCES and the people against whom the complaint is directed for them to investigate themselves and make their own findings.
On March 6th, since the Section 12 didn’t work to incarcerate Dr. Bennett, the Section 19 was activated and the police came to take Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett out of his house with the claim that he was the subject of “Medical Abuse” by his wife and he would suffer serious injuries and harm if he were not immediately removed.
The court hearing which produced that result was heard ex parte without Dr. Bennett being notified. It was also a hearing in which Dr. Bennett was claimed to be “indigent” and with no one to look out for him and take care of him so SCES was stepping into the breach.
The Section 19 made CLAIMS OF MEDICAL ABUSE BY MARCELINE DONALDSON OF ROBERT BENNETT – HER HUSBAND OF 37 YEARS. A man who is 87 years old and except for the recent hospital stay has been very healthy all of those 87 years, particularly the 37 he spent married to Marceline Donaldson.
Marceline Donaldson did not know until recently that this was the reason Robert Bennett was taken from his home by the police. The policeman who came refused to give her any court papers as to why they were there and why he was being removed so dramatically. She discovered this when told by a Cambridge Policeman just last week.
She knew there were charges of abuse, but thought those were part of the Protective Order.
This section 19 was backed up by an affidavit by Ms. Nora Al WetAid which is full of lies, misstatements and more. I think if it is investigated by law enforcement it will be found in many places to rise to the level of perjury.
Robert Bennett fell in February, 2020. His wife called their PCP – Dr.Kehlman to ask if they should come to his office or go to the hospital, or etc. because she was concerned.
Dr Kehlmann said neither – he was going on vacation and he would see Robert after he returned.
Ms. Donaldson asked if there was someone else in his practice they could see. He said no one was available.
She asked if she should see a neurologist and if he could recommend someone because Beth Israel suggested they see a neurologist for a cat scan in about six weeks. She said they could do both things at once when he returned. He said he was busy getting ready to leave on this vacation and had too many patients to see ahead of them.
And then Ms. Donaldson was charged by SCES for “medical abuse” with information from Rev. Dr. Bennett’s PCP added to that which Ms. Al-Wet Aid and Ms. Clary created.
Dr. Kehlman is no longer Rev. Dr. Bennett’s PCP. The letter of a new PCP arrangement is included with this package to the court.
Actually, this was said through the person on the telephone in his office who put Ms. Donaldson on hold a few times while he conveyed the messages to Dr. Kehlman.
All during the trials and tribulations that the Donaldson/Bennett’s went through, Dr. Kehlman, according to Ms. Al WetAid’s affidavit, characterized Ms. Donaldson in the most negative terms. In fact, they both did. Since none of them knew Ms. Donaldson that was an amazing piece of fiction.
Ms. Donaldson and Rev. Dr. Bennett spent a few days trying to find a doctor. Ms. Donaldson talked back and forth to several friends looking for a recommendation of a doctor who they could see.
Ms. Ivey’s statement is included on a separate page.
About February 20th Ms. Ivey called Ms. Donaldson to say her friend – Dr. David Pilgrim, chief neurologist at Brigham and Women’s had called her back and advised that Ms. Donaldson call 911 and take Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett to MGH by ambulance and Dr. Pilgrim would keep an eye out over them.
Ms. Donaldson and Rev. Dr. Bennett did not want to call 911 to go to a hospital because they knew the experience of blacks doing such a thing and it was mostly negative. Being told that Dr. Pilgrim would stay in the background they called 911 and went to MGH where Rev. Dr. Bennett had successful brain surgery.
All of the above was negatively characterized and distorted by Ms. Angela Clary, Ms. Nora Al-Wetaid and others as they misused and distorted actual facts to create a case they could work to justify their existence within SCES and the entire elder care area.
Rev. Dr. Bennett’s experience at MGH began to turn negative when Ms. Angela Clary showed up and started seriously interrogating Rev. Dr. Bennett for over an hour when he had just recovered from the surgery and was less than an hour out from under oxygen. It was a horrible thing to do and a horrendous experience for Rev. Dr. Bennett. Not something a caring person would have attempted – especially since neither Dr. Bennett nor his Health Care Proxy gave permission for this to happen, especially in the time frame ms. Clary chose.
We have received over 40 letters of support from people who know Rev. Dr. Bennett and Ms. Donaldson – some of whom have lived with them for fairly long periods of time and who can speak about the fact that they have a loving relationship and no abuse of any kind between them. We are not sending those with this document because we are not sure of their relevance, but will make them available to the court if the court wants to take these letters into consideration.
We ask that this section 19 be removed and the Donaldson/Bennett’s be left in peace. They have a large community of friends and family with whom they are very close and have no need of intervention from groups like SCES. SCES with its related organizations and supporting people – both employees, consultants and others needs to be thoroughly investigated and the state resources better used.
Rev. Dr. Bennett has said he has never been so intruded upon and certainly in his life time never sexually abused until the intervention of SCES who demanded he follow all of their “requests” or be sent to a nursing home as “incapacitated”.
Some of those constant demands were that he and his wife apply for Mass Health even though they did not qualify and had more than adequate insurance; they demanded that he would be let out of MGH only if he and his wife allowed one and only one Home Health Care Company who they wanted them to use into their home on the agencies schedule with the people they sent – the Blissful Agency; that Dr. Bennett’s son come from Washington D. C. to pick him up from MGH and bring him home to his wife even though that meant the son breaking the quarantine and having to cross state borders risking a lot because of this demand.
Rev. Dr. Bennett has friends who live across the street from him who could and would have picked him up from the hospital to bring him home. That was denied by SCES and the demand again made that only if his son from Washington D. C. come to Cambridge – which meant drive, considering other avenues were not open to them – to pick up his father from MGH to bring him home or he would be put under the guardianship of Jewish Center for Family and Children and sent to a Hebrew Nursing Home immediately.
Threats have been common with SCES people – mostly sent through Attorney O’Sullivan, other demands sent more directly.
Given the above we ask that Rev. Dr. Bennett and Marceline Donaldson be relieved from this intervention and left alone.”
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If you have comments about this document – please let us know. The case has been postponed until August 3rd so they need attorneys before then. They think they can move ahead themselves, but we convinced them they really need professional legal help. We know how disappointing it can be when those you put in place to work with don’t produce what you need and then you discover what they could have done and your stomach drops out.
We are looking for your comments, differences, enlargements, whatever you have to say about this Motion to Dismiss. Put it in a different form? More legalese conforming to what a court would expect? Your turn!
Sadly, we are finding there is a serious abuse of emergency motions in this probate and family court which has insured that the Bennett Donaldsons were not in a court of law in the United States, but the abuse of the emergency motion concept, we feel, put them in a court in a fascist country where courts are really only a window dressing to set up a window display giving the perception of something that came out of a U. S. Court of Law, but in actual fact set up the result so the person or persons on the other side would be seriously handicapped if they could ever come out of what was done to them by an emergency motion hearing about which they were not served and did not know.
At some point, there should be a review of past emergency motions in other cases to restore those who were so hurt back to some kind of making them whole.
Our number one recommendation to the Donaldson/Bennett’s is that they use Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to help others in the same place who are at the weakest point of their lives and need help from those interested in helping and not exploiting for reasons of greed, career advancement, bigotry and more. Hopefully, that will happen because Guardianship as a profit making area is moving quite fast and the elderly are being exploited in major ways.
To spend your life working and near its end all of the assets you managed to save so your last years would be comfortable and sometimes even fun and then find there are those in the weeds waiting to rip off every penny you have put aside is totally destructive of the human psyche and everything else.
We saw Health Care Proxies, so carefully and thoughtfully put in place invalidated by the court and replaced by Health Care Proxies you explicitly did not want – your rights destroyed. We saw Durable Powers of Attorney put in place with the same care, invalidated so your estate could be ripped off – and it destroyed our thoughts about planning for those end times.
The Health Industry has its enormously good side. What we are seeing here is the evil incorporated in this Health Industry which will destroy our lives and turn this republic into a Nazi-type country if we don’t deal with where it could go now.
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