3 court-appointed guardians embezzled more than $1M from 108 victims, Delco DA says
by Julie Shaw
JULIE SHAW / Staff
Three former court-appointed guardians are charged with embezzling more
than $1 million from 108 victims in six Pennsylvania counties, using a
shell company and a church to launder the stolen money, Delaware County
authorities said Monday.
Also charged by Delaware County authorities were Byars’ sister Carolyn
Collins, 70, and Collins’ husband, Keith, 59, in their roles as
guardians and managing partners at Pinnacle Guardian Services in Ridley
Park. The couple, who live in Ridley Park, are founders and pastors at
the Church of the Overcomer in Trainer. From 2011 to 2015, Carolyn
Collins was a legislative assistant to State Rep. Margo Davidson (D.,
Delaware).
JULIE SHAW
Keith Collins
Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun M. Copeland announced the
charges at a news conference Monday morning in Media, flanked by members
of her office’s Criminal Investigation Division, including its chief,
Joseph Ryan. Copeland said unauthorized funds taken from elderly clients
of all three ex-guardians were funneled through the church and a shell
company set up by Byars called ICU Records & Billing (ICURB).
“These defendants were clearly living the high life,” Copeland said,
noting that unauthorized money taken from client accounts was used to
lease new cars and to buy vacation timeshares and Louis Vuitton
merchandise, among other things. In a photo displayed at the news
conference, Byars stood next to a white 2016 Lexus SUV, one of her
former cars. Byars also spent some of the unauthorized money on a trip
to Spain, Copeland said.
All three turned themselves in on Monday. At hearings in Havertown,
District Judge Elisa Lacianca set bail for Byars at $500,000 and for the
Collinses at $100,000 each. The three were held in the George W. Hill
Correctional Facility in Thornton on Monday evening.
Byars is charged with theft offenses in connection with 90 victims, and
with conspiracy. Carolyn and Keith Collins each is charged with theft
offenses in connection with 18 victims. The District Attorney’s Office
said the 108 victims were in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware,
Lancaster, and Berks Counties.
Byars, her attorney, Sharon Alexander, and Carolyn Collins declined to
comment to reporters. The Collinses did not yet have attorneys.
Keith Collins, interviewed while he sat in a car outside the District
Attorney’s Office before being driven to the bail hearing, said he had
not ripped off the elderly. “The body of my life’s work will speak for
itself,” he said, adding that he’s been a minister for 40 years. “I
worked with the poorest people in this county. I don’t have a salary. I
don’t get paid.… There’s nothing extravagant about me.”
Copeland said investigators in her office were alerted to the alleged
embezzlement scheme in February 2017 after learning that Pinnacle was
the court-appointed guardian for a 94-year-old “incapacitated” person
whose nursing-home bills weren’t being paid.
At an Orphans’ Court hearing that month, a judge ordered Pinnacle
removed from all guardianship cases and required Pinnacle to provide
accountings of how it spent money in all 25 cases for which it had
served as guardian, Copeland said.
A financial analyst in her office then found that of the 25 cases,
financial records for 18 showed “numerous improper cash withdrawals and
checks,” Copeland said.
During their investigation into Pinnacle, investigators learned of
Byars’ company, Global Guardian Services in Lansdowne, and that in 2012
she had set up a bank account under ICURB’s name “and used this account
as a shell company to move stolen money from ward accounts to other
shell business accounts,” Copeland said. The ICURB account also was used
by the Collinses “to funnel money that was stolen from wards,” people
deemed by a court to be incapacitated.
“Instead of simply doing their job, they cruelly embezzled over $1
million from over 100 incapacitated individuals,” Copeland said.
More than $28,000 in improper payments were made from ICURB to benefit
the church, Copeland said. Byars and the Collinses also used two other
shell companies, ACC Medical and CWR Medical, Copeland said.
Before opening Global Guardian Services, Byars worked for a well-known
Philadelphia-area guardian, Robert Stump, at his RES Consulting in
Havertown, starting as an office manager in 2008, Copeland said. Stump
fired Byars in October 2016, and after reviewing his office accounts, on
Dec. 20, 2017, reported to the Delaware County DA’s Office an alleged
fraud by Byars involving one of his clients, the district attorney said.
In Philadelphia, the District Attorney’s Office announced in April that Byars was charged with stealing from four elderly victims. Copeland said that those cases would be withdrawn in Philadelphia and handled by her office, adding to the 108 victims.
In most of her Philadelphia cases, Byars was appointed as guardian after a recommendation by the Philadelphia Corp. for Aging.
Byars’ Philadelphia theft charges were related to the estates of Edmund
and Margareta Berg of Fox Chase and two other alleged Philadelphia
victims.
The Bergs’ niece, Heidi Austin, discovered through a Google search that
Byars previously had been charged in Virginia with defrauding people.
Court records show that in 2005, Byars was charged in that state with
defrauding several people by using their discarded credit-card
convenience checks, fished from post office trash cans. She pleaded
guilty in October 2005 and was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison
and ordered to pay $29,503 in restitution.
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