An Emergency Guardianship To Protect A Trusting & Generous Senior

NEWPORT, RI — Louise Mancini died in August at her sister's home back in North Carolina, the state where she was born. She grew up there in Rocky Mount, but Rhode Island was her adopted home. Mancini lived here for about 60 years. She came north with a friend and hoped to work in nursing.

"Louise wasn't a registered nurse, but she liked working with elderly people," said her younger sister, Faye Weller.

She did find a job. One night, the friend who traveled with her to Rhode Island invited her to a party. It was there she met her future husband, Joe Mancini. He predeceased her, but she had a circle of friends in Newport and Middletown. including one best friend she called her boyfriend. According to her death notice, she was a member of St. Joseph's Church and was also active with the "Chicks" group at St. Lucy's and the Italian Forum. She loved flowers and tended a garden around her house at 12 Spring St, until about a year ago, her sister said, when she went into the Village House Nursing Center on Harrison Avenue. She also loved animals. And yard sales.

"You'd go into her house, and you could tell that," she said from all the treasures she'd collected. But she adjusted to the nursing home. It may have been Mancini's years working with the elderly that endeared her to the Village House Nursing Center staff, or just her personality, but she loved them and they loved her.

"She trusted everyone," Weller said. It was Weller who rushed to Rhode Island with her son last summer to take Mancini home after hearing a contractor had tried to take advantage of her older sister, then 86.

That June, according to Land Evidence Records in Newport, Nicnap Partners, LLC, recorded a Purchase and Sale agreement for $375,000 for her Spring Street house. Mancini apparently had signed the paper, although the price was substantially lower than market value per a recent appraisal obtained by her lawyer. The discovery of the P&S prompted her attorney to petition the Probate Court for an emergency guardianship to protect her. Mancini had suffered a past stroke and had been on hospice. After she improved, she came off hospice. But she wasn't her old self. She had become confused about her finances.

"She was taken from her nursing home by her 86-year-old boyfriend," her longtime attorney William Harvey wrote, "and induced into entering into a purchase and sale agreement for less than market value."

Mancini realized she had been duped, and her predicament distressed her. But except for someone to help her with her property, she wanted to stay independent.

"I don't think I need a guardian at all," Mancini wrote Probate Court Judge Gregory Fater. "I am not crazy, and I am able to take care of myself. I feed myself and dress myself and use my walker and wheelchair to move myself around."

According to court papers, Fater appointed Harvey as her temporary guardian and Craig Sampson, of Nicholson & Sampson, as the guardian ad litem. It fell to Sampson to interview her and decide her mental condition. He billed her estate $500 for two hours of work, visited her and concluded she had mild cognitive impairment.

Mancini realized "she gets a little confused when it comes to her finances," Sampson wrote. "She would like Mr. William Harvey to continue to take care of her finances."

Harvey did not immediately return Patch's calls. The court did grant his petition for a "mutual release" of the Purchase and Sale agreement, so Mancini did not have to give up her house. But Weller had heard enough.
"I'm going to Rhode Island to get her," Weller told her son, and he offered to accompany her. They arrived in July.
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The trip back to North Carolina took a lot out of Mancini, Weller said. It was not easy. They were at the airport but not allowed to board because Mancini's oxygen tank had not been turned on while they were at the nursing home. Her son rented a car, but the traffic was awful. After 14 hours, they reached the North Carolina state line.

"I had the honor and pleasure of having her with me for seven weeks before she passed," she said. They still had some happy times, Weller said, even though Mancini was "fading away from me."

"I have a beautiful front porch out in the country," Weller said. They'd sit out there and talk. Mancini would remember things they did as girls.

The P&S was signed by Sean Napolitano, manager for Nicnap Partners, LLC. He did not immediately return a message asking for comment.

To Be Continued

Cover Photo Caption: The house at 12 Spring St., Newport. Staff Photo: Margo Sullivan