The Bad Guardian: a review

The new movie from Lifetime is an extremely realistic look at the corruption and abuse in America's probate courts.

The aptly named Shadyside assisted living facility plays a central role in The Bad Guardian

Note: spoiler alert. If you haven’t seen the movie, I will give away some plot points, but not the whole thing.

“The law is on my side,” says the character Janet Timms played by La La Anthony to the character Leigh Delgado played by Melissa Joan Hart.

In the movie, Timms throws Delgado’s father into a nursing home like a piece of trash. She sells off most of his property, drugs him, isolates, charges him for frivolous expenses like phone calls, and attempts to amputate his leg.

Yet, that quote sums up the attitude of Timms and bad guardians she’s modeled after.

Bad guardians like April Parks, who is now serving forty years in jail. Parks was known for selling off property and charging estates for frivolous charges.

What Ms. Parks had going was a Physicians Assistant who would sign off on reports saying the elderly person was incompetent and not well enough to even appear at the hearing. Then, the motion would claim the elderly person’s family was either out of state or incompetent to serve due to drug/alcohol problems.

So, she’d get appointed as a temporary guardian. Then she’d move the person to an assisted living facility, where they’d be heavily medicated.

After this, Ms. Parks would apply for full guardianship, knowing the court had a distrust of family members serving as guardians and taking their parents’ money. Then, ironically, she’d drain their bank accounts to pay her crazy invoices, often billing for 25 hours of services in 1 day. She’d sell their property and generally ruin them.

All of this the fictional Timms did as well.

April Parks is serving up to forty years in prison

Timms, Parks, and thousands of other bad guardians throughout the US feel untouchable.

They are predators, as Delgado called Timms.

I have exposed several of them here like Beti Bergman, David Shaver, and Sandra DeMeo.

Just like Timms, I believe all bad guardians will face their day of reckoning soon.

The Bad Guardian is the latest feature film to examine this underbelly.

I Care a Lot and Guardians- about Parks case- are two others.

How accurate is The Bad Guardian?