I was appalled to read a recent article regarding a company down in South Florida called Opulent Living and a Michael Bellamy who apparently was the owner of this company. This company was subcontracted by the State of Florida to provide services, Life Coaching is what they called it, to a disabled woman in South Florida. Well apparently, these life services somehow included sexually abusing this disabled woman. Well apparently, part of these life services was requiring this woman to have sex with the owner of this Opulent Living agency in order for him to provide the services to her things like taking her to get groceries or helping her balance or checkbook or things of that nature. Apparently, Mr. Bellamy was having her have sex with him as a trade-off for providing the services. Obviously, this is something that’s not required of disabled people for them to get services particularly when it’s being provided by the state of Florida.
So the story had to do with Mr. Bellamy finally being criminally charged with abusing this woman based on some DNA evidence. So, we’re very pleased to hear that he’s finally going to be brought to justice. Obviously he’s innocent until proven guilty, but DNA evidence is pretty strong in something like this. Also, I want to say a quick congratulations and provide some kudos to my friend and colleague Adam Horowitz who is a lawyer down in South Florida who is involved in the civil side of this case. Apparently, even before Mr. Bellamy was charged with the crime, Adam was able to engineer some sort of settlement for his client because the state and his agency were not providing her the services that she was entitled to and they were using this service as a proxy for sex abuse. So congratulations to Adam.
If you have any questions regarding the sexual abuse of a disabled person or the interplay between a state agency and its subcontractors and how those contractors are dealing with adults or children who need help, please call me or my law partner Robert Hemphill at (407) 254-4901.
