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Show us the money, Michael Schiavo.
It’s time to put the money where your mouth is.
They say that money is the root of all evil.
The judicial homicide of Terri Schindler Schiavo was evil.
There’s no question that the nucleus of the acrimonious relationship between Michael Schiavo and the Schindler family, parents and siblings of Terri Schindler Schiavo, is focused on an argument in Terri’s nursing home room on Feb. 14, 1993, ironically the birthday of Schiavo’s concubine, Jodi Centonze.
But while the media has focused on the argument, they haven’t followed through to challenge Michael Schiavo to produce the evidence to document his claim that he provided the therapy, rehabilitation and care on which the jury award from the 1992 medical malpractice trial was premised.
Once again, as throughout the entire Terri Schiavo case, the mainstream media has dropped the ball and hasn’t asked the right questions.
Although he disputes Bobby Schindler’s account of the amount of money Terri received from the two medical malpractice claims, it’s Bobby whose correct and not Michael Schiavo. The gross jury award in the trial against Dr. Stephen Igel was $1.56 million, according to court records. Dr. Joel Prawer’s insurance company settled out of court in August, 1992 for another $250,000 but Prawer was later exonerated by the Florida Department of Health of any negligence.
Where’d that $250,000 go, Michael? Show us. Looks to us like there’s about $300,000 that you can’t account for in addition to the $300,000+ that you received for “loss of consortium”, consortium that you quickly replaced with Jodi Centonze although you’d smoozed the jury, telling them how you believed in your wedding vows. That’s $600,000 Michael Schiavo had in his pudgy palms.
Terri Schindler Schiavo became incapacitated on Feb. 25, 1990, as a result of a sudden and suspicious collapse at the apartment she shared with Michael Schiavo following a day of argument as witnessed by her family and friends. Michael told Matt Lauder and MSNBC on March 24 that he’d arrived home at from work, that she had woke up and gave him “a little kiss on the cheek”, said ‘Goodnight, I love you’ and we both went BACK to sleep”. Michael Schiavo supposedly hadn’t been to sleep yet. He’d just gotten home.
But yet years earlier, in testimony for the medical malpractice trial in 1992 when events were presumably fresher in his mind and the Schindlers and he on good terms, united in their efforts to help Terri towards recovery, Schiavo had testified under oath that he didn’t recall if Terri was “up or not”. Asked if he’d any conversation with her that night when he came home from work, he testified “I might have. I don’t remember the conversation”.
It would have been the last time Terri Schiavo allegedly told him that she loved him but yet in 1992 he didn’t remember her saying anything. Now, in 2006, 16 years later, he remembers it vividly, or so he’d like the public to believe, that hours before her collapse and after their argument during the day, she’d told him she loved him.
Just what can the public believe about what Michael Schiavo says?
The Schindlers say that Schiavo had assured them that the Prawer award would be added to the award from the Igel malpractice claim. He was seeking $20 million in that claim, telling the jury that Terri was “my life and I wouldn’t trade her for the world. I believe in my….I believe in my wedding vows…I believe in the vows that I took with my wife through sickness, in health, for richer or poorer. I married my wife because I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I’m going to do that”.
That was in November, 1992. The Igel jury found that Terri had been 70% at fault for her condition, awarded Terri a gross award of $1.56 million and Michael, $686,700 for loss of consortium according to court records. These awards were reduced after attorneys’ fees and costs were paid. This is in addition to the $250,000 Prawer settlement and approximately $50,000 which Michael had received through fund raisers before the malpractice awards, money for which he has never accounted.
Attorneys have made a bundle from the tragedy of the Terri Schiavo case, attorneys like Daniel Grieco, Schiavo’s employer who quickly appeared at the hospital within 48 hours of Terri’s collapse and convinced the Schindlers that Michael Schiavo should be her guardian. Let’s not forget Gary Fox, the malpractice attorney who provided the medical records used in the autopsy of the disabled woman. And then there’s Deborah Bushnell, George Felos, Gyneth Stanley, Stephen Nilsson and others.
In the spring of 1991, it was discovered the Michael had $10,000 in cash stashed in a safety deposit box at the First Union Bank in St. Petersburg but according to the Schindlers, he never accounted for how the $50,000 was spent, the source of the $10,000 in cash or how he spent it. At that time, he was supporting himself with Terri’s disability payments from her insurance.
In fact, in late 1994, Schiavo took $10,000 from Terri’s trust fund to pay her share on a bank loan they had co-signed in June, 1989 to pay off “marital debts”. Although the loan principal was $11.500, Schiavo didn’t make any payments on it after Terri’s collapse and by 1994, although Michael had some $600,000 in his fat patties, the debt had mushroomed to $18,000. Although he had received a net award of about $300,000 for “loss of consortium”, and had $10,000 cash or more stashed, he didn’t want to use his own money to pay off the loan. He petitioned Pinellas County Court Judge Thomas Penick to use Terri’s trust fund to pay off her supposed “half” of the loan and Penick complied.
In a deposition in 1999, before the trial, Michael testified under oath that he had never received any money from Terri’s trust fund since the implementation of his guardianship in 1990. He claimed he had never been reimbursed for any expenses, that he only thing he had been reimbursed for “her supplies” such as soaps and clothes.
By February, 1993, he had told the nursing home to stop aggressive treatment of Terri including withholding antibiotics and had placed a do not resuscitate order on her chart, apparently hoping that she would die naturally. As of April, 1993, the amount in Terri’s trust fund was approximately $776,000. And as her husband and guardian, he would have inherited that money.
In June, 1993, Michael Schiavo attempted to kill his wife by ordering her doctors not to treat a urinary tract infection but the nursing home administration refused to follow his order, refused to withhold antibiotics. Although Michael Schiavo claims that it was his mother’s death in July, 1997 that caused him to decide to end Terri’s life by removing her feeding tube, his actions in June, 1993----four years before his mother’s death---clearly demonstrate just one more of Michael Schiavo’s lies.
Schiavo claimed in his interview with Larry King on March 27 that “98 percent of that money went to Terri’s medical care”.
It’s way past time to make Michael Schiavo accountable, to stop allowing him to get away with unsubstantiated hearsay. The media and public should demand that the cabal of Michael Schiavo, his attorneys and Judge George Greer open those sealed financial records of Terri Schiavo’s trust fund and show us the money trail, prove to us that 98% of the money awarded for the rehabilitation and therapy of his ward was used for her care and therapy as he claims.
At this point Michael Schiavo apparently thinks he can lie with impunity because he knows the evidence which will prove he’s lying has been sealed by the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court of Pinellas County and Judge George Greer, the judge which acted as the executioner of Terri Schiavo.
Schiavo’s attorneys, Bushnell and Felos, had the court seal the financial records of Terri’s trust fund, presumably so the Schindlers and the public wouldn’t know that the money awarded for Terri’s therapy was instead being used to pay them and other attorneys to end Terri’s life rather than be utilized for the purpose it was awarded.
Michael Schiavo is making false statements, relying on the complicity of Greer, Bushnell and Felos.
In 1996, Bushnell obtained permission from Circuit Court Judge Thomas Penick to seal the annual financial reports of the guardianship. In 2000, following the trial and Greer’s death verdict, Bushnell and Felos asked Greer to seal more of the records. Schiavo’s accomplice in the Schiavo death, Greer, must approve each and every expense paid from the account, thus the highly decorated, “courageous” George Greer who presumably follows the rule of the law knows first hand that the jury award was not utilized for its legal purpose---the care and rehabilitation of Terri Schiavo. Instead, it was used to facilitate her death. Schiavo just didn’t think it would take from 1993 until 2005 to achieve that.
In fact, it took him eight years to devise the “clear and convincing” evidence that she had expressed to him in a supposed off-handed remark that she wouldn’t want to live if incapacitated and after Richard Pearse, guardian ad litem said Schiavo’s unsubstantiated hearsay was unreliable, suddenly two members of his family “remembered” and on this basis, Terri Schiavo was sentenced to death.
No credence was given to the more believable account of the Schindler family, relating that Terri supported placing her ailing grandmother on a ventilator and commented once while watching the news that someone should be kept alive as long as possible.
Schiavo claimed on the Larry King Live show on March 27, that an argument ensued because Bob Schindler, Terri’s father, “wanted to know how much money he was getting”.
“I said that the money I got to quiet things down -- I said I'm giving it all to Terri. And that's when he said he was going to get a lawyer and take over the guardianship. And then he wanted to know how much Terri was going to give him”.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Matt Lauer on “Dateline”, Schiavo again claims that Bob Schindler challenged “When am I going to get my money”.
“That’s when the money was coming down. And then he asked me, “How much am I going to get?” I said to him, “I’m giving it all to Terri.” And then with some anger in his voice, he pointed at Terri and said, “Well, how much is she going to give me?”
Schiavo says he responded, “She’s not going to give you anything. The money is in trust with a guardian for her care.” So, he then he starts getting angry. And says he’s going to take over the guardianship. He’s going to get a lawyer. I’m like, “Well, if that’s what you need to do, go do it. And Mrs. Schindler jumps in front. “You know, he’s right. This is our daughter. We deserve money.”
But the other side of the story, the Schindlers version is drastically different----and the documented events support the Schindler version, not Schiavo.
The Schindlers said that a few weeks after the malpractice award was handed down, Terri’s father reminded Michael that he had made a commitment that if money was awarded in the lawsuit that it would be used for Terri’s therapy. Michael shrugged him off, saying they’d talk about it later. Bob Schindler broached the subject again a few days hence with Michael still refusing to address the issue.
Terri had been showing improvement, albeit minor and gradual, but nevertheless steady. Although Schiavo claims that there was no improvement, medical records from MediPlex rehabilitation Center in Bradenton, Fla., where Terri was admitted in January, 1991 as part of the follow-up from the electrode treatment in California, once again disputes Michael Schiavo. Tangible medical records support the Schindler version of events, not Schiavo’s. Her admission chart for MediPlex indicates that she was saying “No”, “Stop” and “Mommy”.
It was in March, 1991 while she was at Mediplex that a bone-scan was ordered because Terri was demonstrating pain during her therapy but that bone-scan did not become known to the Schindler family until over 10 years later, proof that just 13 months after her collapse it was documented that she had suffered a broken right femur, and “unusual” amount of rib injuries and has sustained multiple other abnormalities to her skeleton. Mediplex apparently took no steps to follow up on the bone scan nor did Michael Schiavo although he had to have been aware of it. Perhaps it was because it would be in his best interest not to follow up and to make the Schindlers aware of the injuries that their daughter had sustained.
Michael Schiavo’s own diary entries, known to the Schindlers prior to their schism in 1993, contradicts his claim that Terri had not shown any signs of improvement, his entries indicating that Terri was improving and giving them all hope at that time that she would recover to some extent.
Had Michael Schiavo not stopped all therapy and rehabilitation for Terri after the jury award in November, 1992, it’s likely that Terri would have continued to improve although it is unknown to what degree.
“In 1991, it is medically documented that that was the last time Terri had any rehabilitation or therapy”, Bobby Schindler says. “….anybody who had a brain injury like Terri did….. you deny that person rehabilitation therapy, what do you think is going to happen to them over a period of years? Of course they’re going to deteriorate”.
A year after Terri’s collapse, she was showing signs of improvement and Dr. Yoshio Hosobuchi had determined that she should receive advanced rehabilitation, recommending to Michael Schiavo that Terri should be placed in the Shands facility in Gainesville.
Presumably the purpose of the malpractice lawsuits was to obtain the money needed to obtain that rehabilitation and therapy for Terri.
But it never happened.
The argument which ensued in Terri’s nursing home room on Feb. 14, 1993 was prefaced by Terri’s father again asking his son-in-law when he was going to honor his promise to give Terri rehabilitation with the money awarded for that purpose. Michael’s response, less than three months after the award had been given, was that there was no money.
Schiavo says it was Terri’s father who began screaming. Schindlers say it was Schiavo, coming at Terri’s father with fists raised, yelling that he was her husband and would make all the decisions. He told the Schindlers that they would never see their daughter again if he had anything to do with it and thereafter he tried to shut them out of their daughter’s life as much as possible.
Bob Schindler says he called Michael Schiavo a liar that day. It appears to have been justified.
Schiavo also maintains that he offered the Schindler family “three times in writing, in the media, that we would give every cent of that to charity in Terri’s name. The Schindlers were the ones that refused that.
What Schiavo forgot to tell the media and the public is that in the one written letter to the Schindlers in 1998, Schiavo and his attorney, George Felos attached a major condition to Michael’s offer-----the Schindlers had to agree to remove their daughter’s feeding tube immediately.
“Unfortunately, the fact that the law makes Mr. Schiavo the recipient of his wife’s estate, has been utilized to cast suspicion on his motives”, Felos wrote in his letter to Pamela Campbell, then Schindler’s attorney. “My client has also repeated with frequency that Terri’s well-being is his only concern” and with that, the offer was made to donate the money to charity if the Schindlers immediately agreed to willfully allow Michael Schiavo to kill their daughter.
Campbell said at the time that Schiavo’s offer was just for show and wasn’t genuine as he knew the Schindlers would reject it because they had never stumbled in their quest to keep Terri alive.
Although the jury awarded Terri money for rehabilitation based on Michael’s testimony that he wanted to care for his wife and get therapy for her, the record is indisputable that within weeks after his sworn testimony and the jury award, Michael Schiavo sought to withhold all medication from his wife and began to hope she would die naturally. When she didn’t, he began seeking assistance in getting court approval to kill her by starvation and dehydration, hoping to hasten her death while there was still money to be inherited.
Michael Schiavo says he spent 98% of money in Terri’s trust fund on her care yet the records show, before being sealed, that the majority of the money in Terri’s trust fund was used for attorney’s fees to arrange for her death. After the attorneys had virtually bled the account dry, then Schiavo, Bushnell and Felos successfully petitioned Greer for Terri to placed on Medicaid. Even after her death, Felos filed another claim against her estate for more legal fees.
In 2001, it was reported that Felos had been paid over $200,000 from the trust fund between 1997 and June, 2001 while Bushnell had raked in $27,000 from Terri between 1993 and June 2001. Last year, she admitted to having received over $80,000 from Terri’s rehabilitation fund and Felos had received over $350,000. Other attorneys had also been paid from Terri’s trust fund and Schiavo, who testified under oath that he had never been reimbursed for expenses other than soap and clothes, had been reimbursed over $6,000 for legal costs.
Michael Schiavo, in his book as well as in his recent interviews, has made a lot a raving, flaming accusations but has provided no proof to substantiate his claims. He claims he spent 98% of Terri’s trust fund on her care.
Show us the money, Michael. Open the sealed financial records and prove your statement that 98% of the $750,000 award for Terri’s rehabilitation and therapy was indeed used for that purpose. Show us the money trail.
And since you’re so intent on proving that the Schindlers are the ones who aren’t telling the truth, how about you take a lie detector test about what happened the night of Feb. 25, 1990, Terri’s wish and all the rest.
Terri: The Truth? Words are cheap. Prove it to us with facts, Michael Schiavo.
June Maxam 4-09-06
© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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