2 men plead not guilty to bilking elderly Anchorage woman of millions of dollars

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A former nurse and former attorney took millions of dollars from an elderly Anchorage woman's trust fund, federal prosecutors said.

Brian Ben-Israel, 53, and Philip Myers, 60, both pleaded not guilty Wednesday, the Anchorage Daily News reported (http://bit.ly/XKCPsS).

In December, a grand jury indicted friends and business partners Ben-Israel and Myers for mail fraud. In February, jurors handed up a superseding indictment adding charges of wire fraud and, for Ben-Israel, charges of filing false tax returns.

Ben-Israel, once a registered nurse in Anchorage and now a Georgia resident, and Myers, a disbarred California lawyer still residing there, worked together to pilfer the accounts of Juanita Gielarowski, a longtime Anchorage resident and the widow of Thomas Gielarowski, documents said.

The two men emptied the Gielarowski trust, leaving Juanita destitute, according to court filings in a separate civil case. Without funds to pay for her in-home care, and with her house in foreclosure, Juanita was forced to live in a state-funded nursing home, where she died during the legal wrangling over the stolen money, according to the indictment and civil court filings.

Both men face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

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2 mean plead not guilty to bilking elderly Anchorage woman of millions of dollars