Warrant: Ex-Ansonia mayoral candidate stole $23K from 'vulnerable' elderly woman with dementia

By Jesse Leavenworth

ANSONIA — A city public works employee and former mayoral candidate stole more than $23,000 from an elderly woman who was diagnosed with progressive dementia, according to a warrant for his arrest.

Harry Danley, 55, a petitioning candidate in the three-way race for the executive seat in 2023, is charged with first-degree larceny for cashing numerous checks the 85-year-old woman wrote, including a total of $10,000 over two days in April 2024, police said.

The woman's lawn care provider for many years, Danley told police the funds were loans from one friend to another, but he has paid back only a small fraction of the checks he cashed from January 2020 to February this year, the warrant said.

City officials could not be reached Friday about Danley's employment status.

The vicim's daughters complained to police in March after noticing irregularities in their mother's checking account, Detective Richard Esposito wrote in the arrest warrant affidavit. One daughter is her mother's financial conservator and the other is her conservator for medical needs, Esposito wrote.

A letter from a physician's office dated March 19 says the elderly woman was being treated for progressive dementia, "which impairs her ability to problem-solve and increases her vulnerablity for financial exploitation," the warrant says.

Danley told Esposito in an initial interview on March 27 that "he didn't do anything wrong," the warrant says.

"He said he has cut (the victim's) lawn for the last thirty years and the money/checks she gave him was a loan," the warrant says.

Danley told Esposito that he was having financial troubles when he took the loans, including the foreclosure of a house he owned in Ansonia, the warrant said. He said he owed the woman $20,000, but provided only two transaction receipts signed by her, one for $2,000 and another for $100, Esposito wrote. Asked if he knew the woman had dementia, Danley said he had no idea, the warrant says.

Danley admitted he had not repaid the loans as he should have, but he told police he intended to sell the house he owned on North Cliff Street and pay the woman back with proceeds from the sale, the warrant says. City property records, however, showed an outstanding tax bill of $5,066 on the property and the owner listed as Sachem Capital Corp., the warrant said.

"It appears that Harry Danley exploited (the elderly woman's) vulnerability and gave her false promises and misrepresentations of being able to pay her back... plus telling her about selling his home that technically is not even his to sell," Esposito wrote.

Danley was released after posting a $35,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in state Superior Court in Derby on June 18, police said. 

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Warrant: Ex-Ansonia mayoral candidate stole $23K from 'vulnerable' elderly woman with dementia