District Attorney Dave Clark speaks at elder-abuse task force meeting
Attorney General Dave Clark of the 7th Judicial District, and 31st Judicial District Attorney General Lisa Zavogiannis were in attendance at the October Elder Abuse Task Force meeting to discuss matters related to legislative reforms.
Clark was a guest speaker at the meeting and addressed the topic of financial exploitation of the elderly from a prosecutorial perspective.
“We are just beginning to scratch the surface on this issue, but the task force is taking the right steps to be able to appropriately identify and respond to these types of issues,” Clark said. “We need to increase the public’s awareness on the ease of reporting this issue and the requirement to report this issue, and that there is a remedy once it is reported.”
Zavogiannis was voted by her fellow district attorneys to serve on the task force, which focuses on the matter of financial exploitation and works to provide a report to the governor and General Assembly on the impact of financial exploitation and legislative solutions to the issue.
More recently, she was elected by the task force members to serve as president.
“Our goal, first and foremost, is to protect our state’s elderly population and to make sure they have access to resources and support should they feel taken advantage of or unsafe,” Zavogiannis said.
“A key element to this is response time. Creating a faster and more-efficient way for authorities to be alerted to a situation can allow for more time to ensure the appropriate courses of action are being taken.”