By JONATHAN GALLARDO
On Nov. 24, Circuit Judge Greg Steward found probable cause to suspect Sabrina Montgomery, 54, of two counts of exploitation of a vulnerable adult and two counts of felony theft and bound her over to District Court.
Besides the transfer of the money, Montgomery also is accused of using some of the money she made from selling her father’s car to pay off her own car.
Her husband, Nathan Montgomery, had been charged in Circuit Court with one count of exploitation of a vulnerable adult and one count of felony theft. But these were dismissed because prosecutors do “not have sufficient evidence to meet its burden of proof,” according to their motion to dismiss.
Prosecutors intend to refile this matter under different law violations.
On Oct. 3, an investigator with the Sheriff’s Office met with the Department of Family Services for a report of an elderly man who was possibly being taken advantage of.
An 81-year-old man with dementia was living in the VA in Sheridan. He has two daughters, including Montgomery, and in January, she and a friend who was a notary went to Sheridan, and she had him sign over power of attorney to her. Before this, Montgomery’s sister had power of attorney.
The man has a savings account with Campco and a bank account with First National Bank. He had told Montgomery’s sister that the savings account was to be used to pay for his funeral. The First National Bank account was to be used to pay the man’s insurance and water bills.
When Montgomery became his power of attorney, the savings account was used to pay for his Verizon cellphone bill, loans on a 2018 Cadillac and a side-by-side, and any money left over was to pay for the funeral, according to court documents.
Investigators learned that on Feb. 10, Montgomery called the Sheriff’s Office and asked about retrieving his car. She claimed she needed to sell it to pay medical bills. Montgomery would later sell the car. It returned as registered to new owners on July 25.
On Feb. 7, First National Bank contacted DFS about possible elder abuse reported by Montgomery. She came into the bank and asked for access to her father and her sister’s shared bank account. She accused her sister of spending their father’s money instead of taking care of his bills. Bank staff checked the account’s activity and didn’t see anything suspicious, according to court documents.
The bank called the man, but due to his mental state he was unable to understand the questions. The VA in Sheridan told DFS that the man was likely mentally unfit to be signing a power of attorney form in January.
On Oct. 3, Montgomery’s sister met with investigators and provided them with the First National Bank account records. It only had deposits from Social Security and payments to Farmers Insurance and Wright Water. She said Montgomery refused to pay their father’s phone bill, so his Verizon account was closed, and she also said Montgomery sold their father’s Cadillac.
Without the phone bill and car payments, the only recurring cost from the savings account should be the payments on the side-by-side — $517.99 a month — and the only monthly deposit should be the VA benefits deposit, which was $3,831.30.
Montgomery’s sister said that the VA pays for all of their father’s medical bills because he is a fully disabled veteran.
Two weeks later, investigators learned that the Cadillac had been sold for $23,000.
Montgomery got power of attorney in mid-January. Starting on Jan. 27, transfers were regularly made from her father’s Campco account to her and her husband’s Campco accounts. From Jan. 27 to Oct. 17, $26,579 was transferred out of the elderly man’s account.
Investigators noticed that the car payments were not made from January through May, even though the car wasn’t sold until July. No payments on the side-by-side were made from January through August.
The DFS agent said that on Sept. 12, Montgomery sent an image of her father’s bank account showing a balance of $17,650.93. Montgomery refused to show the agent her father’s bank statements. It was on this day that $15,000 was deposited into the man’s account. Seven days later, this $15,000 was transferred to the Montgomerys’ bank accounts, along with another $1,000.
On Oct. 20, investigators were granted a search warrant for the couple’s bank accounts. On July 10, the $23,000 from the sale of the Cadillac was deposited into their accounts. Then money was withdrawn to pay off their loan on a 2019 Chevy Silverado.
There were a large number of purchases made, but none of them appeared to “support a claim of (the man’s) best interest being pursued in the spending of the money transferred from his bank account” to the Montgomerys’ accounts, the investigator wrote in the affidavit.
On Oct. 22, Montgomery met with investigators and told them that she believed her sister was stealing from their father, which is why she reported her sister to DFS. Montgomery claimed her sister was doing “questionable things” with their father’s accounts and personal items.
She said that when her father signed over the power of attorney to her, he was “kind of lucid.” She said he understood what he was doing when he signed the paperwork, and she said she was helping sell things that he didn’t need.
Montgomery said that her father doesn’t need the Cadillac because he’s in a nursing home and can’t drive. She was trying to settle his assets before he passes away because her power of attorney would no longer be valid when he’s dead. She said he was OK with her selling the car, and she sold it to a pastor who paid her $23,000 in cash for it.
Investigators told her she was being interviewed because of suspicious activity with her father’s bank account, and his car had been sold and the funds were not being spent in his best interest. Montgomery said she sold the Cadillac because she didn’t need it and she was making payments on it.
Montgomery didn’t leave a lot of money in her father’s Campco account, she said, because when he dies she’ll lose access to the account and won’t be able to pay his bills and funeral costs. Investigators asked her if she knew of anyone who wanted to take money from her father. She said no, because she was the only one with access to her account.
She said it wouldn’t help her and her husband to take money from her father because, “I hate to be braggy, but we make enough money,” according to the affidavit.
Of the $23,000 from the sale of the Cadillac, about $10,095 was used to pay off the loans. There was a payment of $12,052.14, which went to Montgomery’s personal truck. When confronted about this, Montgomery said it probably wasn’t the right thing to do and that she could pay back the money.
Investigators then brought up the $26,579 that had been transferred to the Montgomerys’ bank accounts. She said if she had to, she could pay it back over time but not in one lump sum.
When asked if her husband knew about this, Montgomery said he didn’t know about the $26,579 transfer because he doesn’t look at their bank records, but he was aware of the Cadillac money being used to pay off their personal vehicle loan. She alleged that her husband said they might as well do that because the state would take that money when her father passes away.
Montgomery told investigators that she took the money because she believed her sister was doing the same thing. According to the affidavit, she said she was “pissed” that her sister had access to a separate bank account with what she believed was $50,000 of their father’s money. Montgomery accused her sister of going on trips to New York with the money.
When her mother died, Montgomery didn’t receive a lot of money, and her father didn’t have a will, and she was upset that her sister received so much money. She said she felt like she deserved something for taking care of her father.
Montgomery said she knew what she did was wrong but maintained that she never would have gotten into trouble if her sister hadn’t reported concerns to law enforcement.
Full Article & Source:
Woman allegedly transferred $26K from bank account of her elderly father who has dementia
