Buzz Aldrin returns to Twitter, sues his son and former manager ..
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin has sued his family, including his son Andy Aldrin, former business manager Christina Korp, and several foundations. The suit alleges that the family has taken advantage of the 88-year-old through a de facto guardianship.
Filed on June 7 in a Florida judicial circuit court and obtained Friday evening by Ars, the lawsuitalleges that Andy Aldrin and Korp used the former astronaut’s personal credit cards, trust accounts, artifacts, and social media accounts for their own purposes. It additionally alleges the following: that the family prevented Aldrin, who has been married three times, from marrying for a fourth time; that the family has “bullied” his romantic interests; and that the family has slandered the astronaut by saying he has dementia or Alzheimer’s.
This story made me laugh at first, but it's actually really quite sad. Reading the article, it appears that he may have Alzheimer's and that this is causing him to reject his family's interest in managing his estate and other things. I hope it all gets sorted out.
Alzheimers sucks. My dad has started to get it, truly a terrifying disease.
Not only the second man on the moon, but a father and close family member and he is being taken advantage of. Elder abuse is more common than people realize.
or he has Alzheimers (much more likely)
Still possible he has enough awareness to realize he is being taken advantage of. My best friends uncle had to sue his son and daughter when
they essentially used their power in attorney to do some stuff with properties he owned. Problem was he was aware of it but with his diagnosis of
Alzheimers he couldn't get the attention of authorities cause he was just being written off as senile. Eventually other family members brought by an
attorney who specialized in elder abuse cases. Eventually they were able to shift custody over to my friend's dad and ensure that the money stolen from him
was paid back. Its pretty sick what people will do when they perceive you to be helpless.
Or even more likely, a combination of the two to various degrees among different family members. I've worked in nursing homes for years, and families do take advantage of the elderly in some cases, and in many, many more, the elderly have such crippling dementia/Alzheimer's that they think family members they haven't spoke to in years are trying traveling across the country to steal their TV remotes; these are people 10+ years younger than Aldrin, so I can believe he's likely got some form of cognitive decline.
At the same time, those with severe dementia are massive drains of finances and the patience and time of their family; people don't want to see their parents suffer in nursing homes, but with their own kids and grand-kids, jobs, hobbies, etc. it's impossible to take care of somebody who may be unable to even use the restroom and needs constant care and supervision. This can make family members bitter and resentful, for having to spend so much time and money and effort to care for someone who they love, but who may fight and argue and even be violent because their family doesn't "trust them to drive a car," when the elderly may have a history of getting frequently lost when driving.
This bitterness can lead to forms of taking advantage of finances as a "justified expense" of the stress of taking care of someone with Alzheimer's. Not a good thing, by any means, but not completely malicious.
It can very well be that some members of his family are taking more than they should because he has Alzheimer's/dementia, and the effort required to take care of him puts strain on their health and finances in a way that they feel entitled to recompense for the effort, and at the same time, someone with Alzheimer's may be completely unaware of the effort required to care for them, their strain on their family, or be paranoid about being used for their money. These all go hand in hand to some extent.
The fact he's been married three times and he's looking to get married AGAIN while 88 years old and possibly suffering from dementia, it really doesn't seem like Aldrin's making the best decisions for himself at the moment.
We really don't have enough information to go on (that'll be a matter for the courts) but assuming he is suffering from dementia and his family's trying to prevent him from making poor choices for himself this is really sad.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
