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| Lynrod and Millicent Douglas |
A woman is accused of taking $25,000 from her
mother to pay bail for her husband, who is accused of stealing hundreds
of thousands from at least two people who he was the guardian for,
according to court records.
Millicent Douglas, 64, was arrested April 7 and faces charges of exploitation of the elderly and money laundering, according to court records.
Douglas’ husband, Lynrod Douglas, faces charges of elderly exploitation for allegedly taking more than $200,000 from a 94-year-old man and more than $100,000 from an 90-year-old woman he was the guardian for, according to court records. The 94-year-old also was living at one of the assisted living facilities Douglas owned, records show.
There may be several others under his care that he took money from, prosecutors wrote in a motion concerning his bond.
In early March, Lynrod Douglas was being held in the Palm Beach County Jail on $250,000 bail. As a condition of his release, a judge ordered he would need to show where the source of the funds for his bond came from.
Recorded jail phone calls revealed he and his wife “conspired to commit additional crimes of exploitation of the elderly in order to secure a bond for the defendant’s release,” records show.
On March 5, investigators say Millicent Douglas took $25,000 from her mother’s account that had funds from the sale of her Boynton Beach home in 2019. That money, her son and primary caretaker later told police, was used to pay for her healthcare. The 91-year-old woman, who lives in Canada with her son, has dementia.
Investigators said additional jail phone calls and financial documents showed Millicent Douglas turned the $25,000 she took from her mother into a cashier’s check and used part of it to hire a private attorney for her husband. After parting ways with that attorney on March 16, she had the money returned to her and planned to use those financial documents to secure her husband’s release, law enforcement records show.
On March 19, Lynrod Douglas had a court hearing where his new attorney, Jason Weiss, asked to reduce his bond not only because his client couldn’t afford it, but because of concerns of 68-year-old would contract the coronavirus while in the jail.
Prosecutors argued “the defendant’s motion failed to disclose that (Lynrod Douglas) actually sold the property as (his mother-in-law’s) Attorney-in-Fact.”
Circuit Judge Cheryl Caracuzzo granted Douglas his request and reduced his bail to $180,000, but still required the source of the money had to be proven.
On March 31, Weiss filed another motion stating his client’s family had only been able to raise about $6,000 less than needed to pay a bail bondsman.
In her reply to the motion, Assistant State Attorney Stacey Ibarra wrote the jail calls between Douglas and his wife showed their continued effort to “circumvent the laws.”
On April 2, Circuit Judge Joseph Marx wrote an order stating Douglas had satisfied the bond source condition for his release, according to court records, but said the $180,000 bond would remain.
Two days later, Lynrod Douglas was arrested on charges in connection to his wife’s arrest. According to court records, prosecutors are now asking for his bond to be revoked in his first case as well. That hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
By April 7 his wife was also arrested, jail records show.
Full Article & Source:
Woman stole from mother to bond out husband, who’s accused of stealing from elderly, records show
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