Michigan Family: Caregiver Wed, Left Elderly Man Broke

Frank Calcaterra was in his 80s in 2008 when his family hired a home care company to help the former Detroit-area funeral home owner look after his ailing wife Jonnie, who had dementia.

Tangi Coleman, Aged 35

The company — Kentucky-based ResCare — sent Tangie Coleman, who, at the time, had a warrant out for her arrest, records show.

Jonnie's jewelry soon began to disappear, as did Frank Calcaterra's sizable fortune — estimates from court filings put the loss at anywhere from more than $500,000 to more than $1.5 million. When Jonnie Calcaterra died in a nursing home in January 2012, Coleman and her mother were living in Frank Calcaterra's lakefront home in Waterford, Mich., and he was sleeping in the basement.

A few months later, Coleman married Calcaterra in Ohio, without his family's knowledge.

In April, when Frank Calcaterra's daughters removed him from his home, he was 10 pounds lighter and so broke he no longer had a positive bank balance or a valid credit card. Coleman was driving him to a check cashing place with his monthly Social Security check, his daughters say.

The case highlights what experts say is a significant and growing problem in the U.S. — financial exploitation of elderly people by caregivers. Many cases go unreported and accurate estimates are hard to pin down, but studies suggest there are at least tens of thousands of such cases each year.

In Michigan, more than 10% of the 33,710 adult abuse complaints the state received in 2013 — up from about 21,000 in 2011 — related to alleged financial exploitation. The state substantiated financial exploitation in more than 1,000 cases.

"We're seeing more and more of these cases where people pose as legitimate caregivers, befriend the elderly, become a part of their lives, and then start taking advantage of them," said Jim McGuire, director of research for the Area Agency on Aging 1-B in Southfield, Mich., which serves about 30% of the state's senior population in six counties.

Who's accountable?
Residential home care companies don't require state licensing, and criminal background checks for their workers are only mandatory if public funds are used to pay them.

Though Michigan has recently toughened laws and penalties related to financial exploitation of seniors, making background checks mandatory for all home care workers could have helped Calcaterra, said McGuire, as could a bill stalled in the state Legislature making it mandatory for financial institutions to report suspicious banking activity affecting seniors' accounts.

On Oct. 25, 2012, when Coleman, who was 35, and Frank Calcaterra, who was 86, were married in Ohio, at least two complaints alleging financial exploitation had been filed with the Michigan Department of Human Services' division of Adult Protective Services.

In May of this year, an Oakland County, Mich., judge appointed a conservator for Calcaterra, citing fraud and financial exploitation, which Coleman denies

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Family:  Caregiver Wed, Left Elderly Man Broke