He Said He Wanted to Live. His Florida Guardian Capped His Feeding Tube and Got Probation.

Rebecca Fierle, the Florida professional guardian whose ward Steven Stryker died days after she had his feeding tube capped against his wishes, was sentenced in July 2023 to four years of probation. The sentence included no jail time. Prosecutors had asked for a year behind bars; the judge said incarceration was not appropriate for a woman with no prior record.

The case is three years old, but it keeps resurfacing for a reason. It is the clearest example in recent memory of what happens when the state hands a stranger legal power over a vulnerable person’s life, and that stranger overrules the person himself.

How a stranger got control of his life

Stryker was a Tampa man in his mid-70s with chronic medical problems, including a condition that made swallowing difficult, which is why he relied on a feeding tube. He also had a history of dementia, and hospital staff later testified that finding him a place in an assisted living facility had been difficult. In 2018, while he was being treated at AdventHealth Orlando, the hospital petitioned Ninth Judicial Circuit Judge Janet Thorpe to appoint Fierle as his guardian, arguing that his family could not be located and no one else was willing to care for him.

His family disputed that. His daughter, Kimberly Stryker, lived in Virginia, and her contact information was on his advance directive. She told Spectrum News 13 in 2019: “she never contacted me, she never reached out, never asked for any information from me.” Linda Lanier, a longtime friend who held his durable power of attorney and was preparing her home for his discharge, said, “I didn’t know about the petition until much later when a case manager reached out to me.”

“He wanted to live”

Fierle signed a do-not-resuscitate order for Stryker. Then, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, she obtained an order to cap his feeding tube against medical advice. It was capped on May 9, 2019. Stryker died on May 13, 2019, at a Tampa hospital.

State investigators were blunt about what he had wanted. FDLE said its investigation showed Stryker did not want a do-not-resuscitate order and “stated several times that he wanted to live.” He had asked to keep receiving nutrition through his tube, and medical professionals who examined him believed he could make his own end-of-life decisions.

An investigation report prepared for Florida’s Office of Public and Professional Guardians concluded that “the removal of this necessary care resulted in the ward’s death.” In that report, Dr. Kirtikuma Pandya, the St. Joseph’s Hospital psychiatrist who evaluated Stryker, said: “The ward wanted to be resuscitated and wanted to be alive.” Lanier put it more simply to Tampa Bay 28: “Steve did not want this. Steve was pretty much begging for his life.”

The empire behind the case

Stryker was one ward among hundreds. A 2021 CBS12 investigation reported that Fierle’s guardianship business at one point controlled the assets and medical decisions of more than 400 elderly and disabled Floridians. After his death, she was removed from or forced to resign from hundreds of cases, and the Orlando Sentinel reported that in many of them she had filed DNRs on behalf of clients without their families’ knowledge or against their wishes.

The money was just as troubling. According to the Orlando Sentinel, an Orange County Comptroller audit found AdventHealth paid Fierle nearly $4 million from 2009 to 2019 for services to Stryker and more than 600 other vulnerable clients, and investigators found she double-billed clients’ assets and health care facilities. CBS12 reported the audit found more than $4 million in questionable fees that were never reported to or approved by the courts. Investigators also found the cremated remains of 10 people and one pet in her Orlando office.

The scandal forced change. In 2020, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law requiring guardians to get a judge’s approval before signing a DNR order, Central Florida judges created DNR hearing requirements, and AdventHealth stopped paying private guardians to take on clients.

Charged with a felony, sentenced to probation

FDLE arrested Fierle in February 2020 on charges of aggravated abuse of an elderly person and neglect of an elderly person, both felonies. Her 2022 trial in Hillsborough County ended in a mistrial. In February 2023, she pleaded no contest to neglect of an elderly person, a third-degree felony carrying up to five years in prison, and the aggravated abuse charge was dismissed.

On July 21, 2023, Circuit Judge Samantha Ward adjudicated her guilty and sentenced her to four years of probation and 100 hours of community service. She may not associate with any guardianship and, under her plea, can never again work as a professional guardian. Statewide prosecutors had asked for a year in county jail. The judge said, “The reality is what she did was wrong,” but concluded that jail was not appropriate given Fierle’s lack of a prior record.

Advocates were stunned. Hillary Hogue, a member of Florida’s Guardianship Improvement Task Force, told CBS12: “Unbelievable, unbelievable what happened.” Rick Black of the Center for Estate Administration Reform said his group was “very disappointed.” Fierle’s attorney argued she was a victim of bad publicity, and defense witnesses, including two of her children and longtime colleagues, described her as a great caretaker. Fierle declined to comment outside the courthouse.

Why it still matters

Guardianship is one of the most sweeping powers a court can hand out. It strips a person of the right to decide where he lives, what he spends and what medical care he receives. Florida learned the hard way how little oversight there was, and it fixed some of it. But the sentence sent its own message: a man begged to live, a court-appointed guardian overruled him, he died four days after his feeding tube was capped, and the person responsible went home.

Steven Stryker told everyone who would listen that he wanted to live, and the woman the court put in charge of him walked out of the courtroom with probation and not a single day of jail time in her sentence.

Editor’s note: This article covers Rebecca Fierle’s July 2023 sentencing in the 2019 death of Steven Stryker, which drew renewed attention in September 2026.

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