Elderly Couple Face Nightmares

When her husband's Alzheimer's disease made him so violent that she had to lock her bedroom door at night to feel safe, Janet Lentz knew it was time to put him in a nursing home.

Heartbroken, alone and unsure how to manage financially, Lentz turned to Kissimmee elder-care lawyer Linda Vasquez Littlefield to help get Medicaid for her husband.

Five years later, Eugene Lentz is dead; Janet Lentz, 76, is pinching pennies to survive; and Linda Vasquez has been arrested and disbarred.

Osceola County sheriff's investigators say Vasquez — known as Linda Littlefield before her divorce in May — used the Lentzes' credit cards to charge nearly $54,000 worth of office furniture, a vacation in Cancún and a ghostwriting project for her daughter. More than $43,000 was paid to Littlefield Law Group using the cards. Vasquez also spent nearly $8,000 from the couple's trust account to pay the card balances, detectives allege.

Lentz hopes Vasquez, 39, gets prison time for her fraud conviction in the case. Sentencing is Sept. 16.

Vasquez's ex-husband, Ross Littlefield, 46, who ran a trust in which Janet Lentz and dozens of other seniors placed their money, is scheduled to go to trial, also in September.

"I thought these people really cared for me," Janet Lentz said last week in an interview at her mobile home at Good Samaritan Village retirement community. "I was devastated. All I did was sob for days and days."

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Elderly Couple Who Trusted High-Living Couple Now Face Nightmares