Daughter appeals to Pennsylvania Supreme Court to free elderly mom from guardianship

A Pennsylvania woman has appealed to the state’s highest court for assistance in freeing her elderly mother from a court-appointed guardianship.

Mary Bush filed an application for Extraordinary Jurisdiction and King’s Bench Power to topple the guardianship imposed on her mother Mrs. Genevieve Bush by the Chester County Court of Common Pleas orphans' court division.

“The matter of Mrs. Genevieve Bush has been an unconstitutional nightmare riddled in no due process, no discovery, trickery, perjury, thefts, assaults, and false documentation,” Bush wrote in the pleading.

Defendants named in the action are Judge Katherine B.L. Platt, Attorney Alexander Chotkowski, and petitioner’s brothers Joseph Bush and Michael Bush.

As previously reported, the elder Mrs. Bush resides in a care center where the petitioner says she is only allowed one visit per month for one hour and is court-ordered to pay for the visit and to be monitored by a Sheriff and an Adult Protective Services (APS) supervisor.

In the application, Bush accuses Judge Platt of multiple ongoing violations of law and procedures, including ignoring a superior court’s order mandating that her brother, Michael Bush, never be appointed guardian of Mrs. Bush.

“At a Feb. 18, 2020 hearing, Judge Platt claims that superior court's decisions are law yet she ignored Michael's removal putting him back as plenary guardian,” the petitioner-daughter wrote. “Judge Platt refused to recuse even after multiple requests due to her ongoing bias and personal agendas. Michael Bush will not allow friends, family, or Americans with Disability Act (ADA) advocates visit their mother, not even a window visit.”

It has been widely reported that in most American states, it is not uncommon for the elderly and people with disabilities to lose their individual rights around a dwelling, visitation, choice of meals, health insurance, marital status, medical care, assets, and property once they become a ward of the State under a guardianship ordered by a state or county Judge.

Bush is asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to issue an immediate order to stay all lower court orders to stop the alleged ongoing irreparable harm.

“Alexander Chotkowski willfully filed sworn falsified documents in the Chester County Orphans' Court where Judge Platt condoned, participated in, and promoted the fraud by backdating Genevieve incapacitated to January 2006 with a June 2011 order,” Bush stated in the legal action. “Judge Platt willfully made orders to go back in time to order in order to void Genevieve’s 2006 advanced directives that would have protected her as she aged...It's clear Platt's intention was to eliminate anyone or any document that stood to legally protect Genevieve and her assets.”

Bush further accuses Chotkowski, who represents her two brothers, of taking advantage of an unqualified medical diagnosis of Alzheimer's against Mrs. Bush.

“Alexander Chotkowski clearly directed his clients to perjure and fabricate evidence knowing they would not ever be held accountable,” Bush wrote in her brief. “Chotkowski has surpassed all ethical breaches as an attorney by his manipulations in and out of the courts.”

Bush isn’t the only one who feels their life has been detrimentally altered by Judge Platt’s orders.

Krissy Smith, whose married name was Stepenosky before divorcing her husband, accuses the Chester County administrative judge of signing an order that severely restricts visits with her children despite having participated in a committee called Changing the Culture of Custody for the State Commission on Justice Initiatives in 2007, which vowed to reform family court into a less contentious system that would expose families to less trauma and separation.

“Our current predatory capitalist based judicial system and the institutions these courts feed are not focused on protecting innocent children, the elderly or victims like myself and Mary Bush or her mother Genevieve Bush, who is currently and tragically being held against her will in a permanent detention where she is psychologically abused,” wrote Smith in an Amicus Brief filed in support of Bush. “This is a national health crisis caused by judicial corruption and vindictive absolute power and judicial immunity.”

Smith's divorce proceedings include reports that family members had attempted to commit the mother of three children, according to an affidavit filed with the Chester County Court.

"This statement is a lie," Smith wrote in the affidavit. "Never once was it discussed to put me against my will into an insane asylum."

Another incident involved her children who Smith complains were left alone in her ex-husband's Conestoga Road home in Chester Springs while he was away in Connecticut.

"Sergeant O'Connell and I did respond to that address," a March 17 West Pikeland police report states. "We attempted contact at the residence for several minutes with no response. I did call the homeowner and father. I told him why I was at his home. I asked if the kids were home, he believed they were on Zoom meetings for school. I told him we had been knocking on the door for several minutes with no response. I said we just need to make sure that both children are okay. He did give me permission to go to his home but said he would call the kids and have them come meet us. He did confirm that he was out of state at a funeral."

While Smith further states in the police report that her parents withhold and conceal her children, Sergeant O'Connell told the Union Square Times that the case is closed.

"The kids were out to lunch with their grandparents," O'Connell said in an interview. 

After losing custody of her children, Smith filed several complaints against multiple professionals involved in her case.

The Pennsylvania Lawyers Fund for Client Security is scheduled to review Smith's claims against attornies in June, according to Pennsylvania Supreme Court documents, but a Pennsylvania Supreme Court employee reached by telephone declined to comment stating that the claims are confidential.