Originally Posted - February 18, 2007

return home

It was 17 years ago this week that Terri Schindler Schiavo mysteriously collapsed, certainly forever changing the course of her life as well as that of vulnerable adults throughout the United States.

Right-to-die proponent George Felos used the Schiavo case to promote his own ideological agenda while being compensated by monies that were to have been used for therapy and the rehabilitation of the ward of his client.

Terri collapsed amidst suspicious circumstances at her home on Feb. 25, 1990, during a time when witnesses say there had been on ongoing situation of argument and strife between Terri and her husband, Michael Schiavo, and possible domestic violence. The only person known to be at the home at the time of her collapse which resulted in a lack of oxygen to the brain, causing incapacitating brain damage, was her husband.

Within 48 hours after she had been admitted to the hospital, Daniel Grieco, Michael's employer and owner of a restaurant, arrived at the hospital. Grieco, an attorney, consulted with Terri's parents outside the Intensive Care Unit waiting room, recommending that they sign documents that would allow Schiavo to handle Terri's medical affairs on the pretense it would expedite Terri's emergency treatment.

The attorney's claimed rationale was since Terri was barely clinging to life, vesting Michael Schiavo with this power would expedite her medical care. Grieco did not mention that Schiavo would have exclusive power to dictate Terri's medical treatment and the authority to control the release of any medical information concerning Terri. The Schindlers did what they thought best for Terri at the time.

Michael had quickly commanded guardianship in June, 1990, with the assistance of Grieco who notarized the guardianship application which Schiavo had signed under oath, under penalties of perjury, saying that he had earned a degree from Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania when he hadn't.

His guardianship application contained other false statements sworn to under oath too, such as employment data which as presented, states he was employed in Florida three years longer than he even lived in the state. Once he obtained the guardianship with false statements, he then refused to inform her parents of medical information and medical records concerning their daughter, controlling all visits to Terri and in essence, controlling every aspect of her life------and death. Even after he was court ordered to provide medical information to her parents, he failed to do so and the court in the person of Judge George Greer failed to find him in contempt of court.

There is no affidavit of service indicating that the Schindlers were even notified about the court proceeding in which Michael was named guardian. He says they didn't show up. They say, and supported by the court file, that they were never notified of the hearing. The Schindlers were somewhat in a state of shock, a condition which Schiavo and Grieco quickly took advantage of, meticulously and immediately moving to seize control of Terri, her medical treatment and anything that she might say or reveal about what happened the night of Feb. 25, 1990.

By Schiavo's own admission, it was Grieco who initiated the ensuing medical malpractice actions, when thoughts of dollar signs and sugar plums danced in Schiavo's head. Of course the lawyers, recommended by Grieco who presumably also was entitled to a portion of the malpractice settlement, profited very handsomely in that action too with Michael as guardian calling the shots. It was Grieco who insured that Michael Schiavo obtained guardianship of his wife without even consulting her parents.

By 1993, after he had the money in hand from the malpractice suits, Schiavo hired attorney Deborah Bushnell as his guardianship attorney. She led him to George Felos.

According to the fee petitions in the case, later sealed by the court, Schiavo already had his plan to kill his wife underway by late 1995 and Felos was already involved in the matter----contradicting Schiavo's claim in his book that he didn't proceed until after his mother's death.

The fee petitions show that on Dec. 13, 1995, Bushnell contacted Felos telephonically and asked for "assistance with analysis of life-prolonging procedures statute..." The written fee petitions show that Michael's statement in his book that infers that Felos was not involved in the matter under after his mother's death in June, 1997 when he says that Bushnell put him "in touch" with Felos. According to the existing documentation on file in the office of the clerk of the court, Felos by that time had already been involved for nearly two years.

According to the court records, Bushnell and Felos talked about removing Terri's feeding tube for a half an hour in December, 1995---chargeable to Terri.

The records show that in February, 1997, Terri's trust fund was billed for $54 for Bushnell to talk to Michael by phone "re: associating George Felos to handle removal of life support issue". The premeditated plan to kill Terri Schiavo was well underway.

Although Michael Schiavo claims in his book which he claims is "The Truth", that he had his first meeting with Felos after his mother died, the court records prove him to be a liar. He signed a contract with Felos on March 5, 1997 "to represent him in connection with the withdrawal and/or refusal of medical treatment" This is nearly 10 weeks before Judge Mark Shames signed a court order authorizing Schiavo to employ and pay an attorney with the costs to be "borne by the client", contingent on the approval of the Pinellas County Probate Court---and the ex parte communications with Judge Shames. Shames approved the agreement but the costs associated with killing Terri by the withdrawal of medical treatment weren't borne by "the client" but rather by Terri through her trust fund. As of that date, there was no mention of a feeding tube---no doubt because as of 1997, Florida law did not consider feeding tubes to be medical treatment.

An attorney for a guardian also has a fiduciary duty to the ward, not just the guardian and in the case of George Felos, the strange attorney who hears voices and harbors both suicidal and homicidal thoughts, raising grave questions about his fitness to practice law, he advanced the interest of a guardian, Michael Schaivo, at the expense of the ward, Terri Schiavo, an impermissible conflict of interest.

Felos, while chairman and member of the board of directors for Hospice of Florida Suncoast, maneuvered Terri into hospice literally in the dead of night without prior notice to either her family or the court. Hospice has no curative therapy available, by definition. Terri wasn't terminal and lived in virtual solitary confinement the last five years of her life. That may have suited Michael Schiavo's agenda, but it hardly benefited Terri.

Felos failed to disclose his position as chairman of the Hospice board to the court or the Schindlers, then resigning in 2001 amid public pressure and scrutiny after he and Schiavo had surreptitiously moved Terri to the facility without court authorization in April, 2000, reportedly as a result of arrangements made by Felos. By moving her to a facility where Felos was chairman of the board, all of Terri's caregivers were presumably under the total control of Felos and his client----but it appears that Felos knew, or should have known, that the proper certification had not been completed and that she was not eligible for hospice care as she did not have a terminal illness. In fact, according to the hospice law, Terri Schiavo should have been allowed to be cared for in her home----or that of her parents.

Felos was the lead attorney in one of the most controversial cases watched worldwide, representing Michael Schiavo for over seven years in a contentious court battle to end the life of brain-damaged Terri Schindler Schiavo. Felos and Schiavo were successful in removing all dignities from Terri including her personal privacy, convincing Pinellas County probate court judge Greer to issue a death order, engaging in what many call judicial homicide, which resulted in the 13-day execution of the 41-year-old disabled woman in March 2005 while the world watched by removing her nutrition and hydration.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says that the root of the word Felos is in medieval Latin meaning evildoer in respect to oneself and is defined as "one who commits suicide or who dies from the effects of having committed an unlawful malicious act".

When lawyers enter the practice of law in Florida, they obligate themselves to uphold the law and to abide by the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar. These rules of the Supreme Court of Florida specifically regulate the professional conduct of lawyers. Those who violate these professional standards are subject to discipline. A lawyer may be disciplined for violating the standards of conduct set forth in the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar.

Pamela A.M. Campbell, the attorney who represented Terri's parents at the 2000 guardianship trial before Judge George Greer, raised the issue of Felos' violations of fiduciary duty, arguing that Felos was acting unethically and should have been removed as Schiavo's attorney.

Of course, Greer denied her motion.

In 1993, when the Schindler family had first challenged Michael Schiavo's fitness to be guardian, Sixth Circuit Court Judge Thomas Penick presided and ultimately rejected court monitor Daniel Nievenski's recommendation to remove Schiavo. Penick then assigned guardian ad litem John Pecarek who embraced Schiavo as guardian.

Coincidentally, it was Penick who asked the Florida Attorney General's office in 1996 for an opinion on if an attorney representing the guardian of a person adjudicated incapacitated and who is compensated from the ward's estate for such services assume a duty to the ward as well as to the guardian.

Although Penick's request was not made in relation to the Schiavo case, it was exactly the same situation as Bushnell and Felos were to be compensated more than half a million dollars from Terri's trust fund.

Robert Butterworth, then Florida's attorney general, currently secretary of the Department of Children and Families (DCF), issued a formal opinion that as the ward is the intended beneficiary of the guardianship, the attorney(s) representing the guardian owes a duty of care to the ward, such as Terri, as well as to the guardian.

"Third-party beneficiary principles have been employed recently in tort law to expand liability where a duty of care exists between a third party and a professional, again despite the lack of direct contractual privity. However, this Court has clearly distinguished between privity and duty of care as separate means of proving a professional's liability. Clearly, privity between the parties may create a duty of care providing the basis for recovery in negligence. . . . However, lack of privity does not necessarily foreclose liability if a duty of care is otherwise established", Butterworth wrote.

"The courts have recognized a duty of care with respect to the intended beneficiaries of wills. In addition, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Rushing v. Bosse held that the attorney for adoptive parents also owed a duty to the child who was the subject of the adoption. The court concluded that the child was the intended beneficiary of the adoption proceeding and that it was the intent of the adoptive parents to benefit the child by adopting her. Since adoption proceedings are intended to serve the best interests of the child, the court found that the attorney, although in privity with the adoptive parents and not the child, owed a duty of care to the child to be adopted.

"Thus, a negligence action could be maintained on behalf of the child against the attorney since the child was the intended beneficiary of the proceedings", the formal opinion continued.

"Under the state's guardianship statutes, it is clear that the ward is the intended beneficiary of the proceedings. Section 744.108, Florida Statutes, authorizes the payment of attorney's fees to an attorney who "has rendered services to the ward or to the guardian on the ward's behalf[.]" Thus, the statute itself recognizes that the services performed by an attorney who is compensated from the ward's estate are performed on behalf of the ward even though the services are technically provided to the guardian. The relationship between the guardian and the ward is such that the ward must be considered to be the primary or intended beneficiary and cannot be considered an "incidental third-party beneficiary."

Butterworth concluded that "Accordingly, I am of the opinion that as the ward is the intended beneficiary of the guardianship, an attorney who represents a guardian of a person adjudicated incapacitated and who is compensated from the ward's estate for such services owes a duty of care to the ward as well as to the guardian. Florida Attorney General Advisory Legal Opinion - November 20, 1996

In that both Bushnell and Felos were directly compensated from Terri's estate, they acted in a prohibited dual role.

This conflict as well as other alleged violations of various rules of professional conduct, and in particular, his writings in his book, "Litigation as Spiritual Practice", published in 2002, bring into question Felos' fitness to practice law and his mental stability, and seem to be issues to raise with The Florida Bar.

Among the issues are:

--An alleged conflict of interest in Felos using his position as chairman and member of the board of Hospice of Florida Suncoast to move a non-terminal resident into the facility without disclosure of his affiliation with the facility to other parties in litigation and ensuing application for Medicaid benefits --Alleged improper relationship with court's expert medical witness Dr. Peter Bambakidis

--An alleged violation of Rule 401.16 involving termination of representation in March 2005 after his client, by his own admission in a widely published statement in his book, "Terri: The Truth", told Felos that he wished to withdraw the petition seeking to end the life of his wife and to stop the action which would remove her feeding tube.

--Using the case and receiving fees from a client, paid directly from the trust fund of the ward, in order to advance his own ideological agenda and to use the case to advance his personal interests.

--His fitness to be an attorney, i.e. his published admitted statements that he sees visions, hears voices, is inside people's stomachs, believes be can cause planes to crash and has both suicidal and homicidal tendencies.

---A breach of fiduciary duty to the ward. In Terri's case, Felos allegedly advanced the guardian's interest (his client) at the expense of the ward which is an impermissible conflict of interest as per Attorney General's Opinion, AGO 96-94.

© 2007 North Country Gazette