CT caretaker sentenced to 45 months in prison for stealing over $300K from elderly woman

Abigail Wood has been sentenced to 45 months in prison for stealing $340,000 from an elderly woman, exploiting her role as a caretaker.

By Justin Muszynski

A Sharon woman has been sentenced to prison for bilking more than $300,000 from an elderly woman while she was serving as a caretaker for her.

Abigail Wood, 39, was sentenced to 45 months in prison during a hearing Friday in the Litchfield Judicial District courthouse in Torrington. Her sentence will be followed by three years of probation during which time a violation would expose her to more than six additional years behind bars.

Wood’s sentence came after she pleaded guilty to one felony count of first-degree larceny.

Wood was arrested by Connecticut State Police in April 2021 after an investigation revealed that she, in her role as a caretaker, was misappropriating funds belonging to an 88-year-old Sharon woman, according to court documents.

A financial advisor for the elderly woman contacted her power of attorney to let him know about what appeared to be excessive expenses related to her medical needs, court documents said.

State police then launched an investigation and found that Wood spent $340,000 of the victim’s money on things like salon visits and restaurant tabs, according to court papers.

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CT caretaker sentenced to 45 months in prison for stealing over $300K from elderly woman

Caretaker ‘preyed’ on home care residents left begging for food, Georgia officials say

By Tanasia Kenney

An Atlanta woman gets a 20-year sentence after she’s accused of neglecting disabled and older adults living in her unlicensed personal care home in Georgia, state authorities said. Getty Images/iStockphoto

Residents of a home care facility were promised “housing, meals and other services,” but were instead left without cash and begging for food, according to the Georgia Attorney General’s Office. 

Now, an Atlanta woman is headed to prison. 

Michelle Oliver was given a 20-year sentence, with the first seven years to be served in prison, after she was convicted Sept. 8 on charges related to the neglect of older, disabled adults living in an unlicensed personal care home she owned, state authorities said.

A Dougherty County jury found her guilty on multiple charges including willful deprivation of an elder person and 51 counts of financial exploitation of a disabled adult, according to a news release.

 Investigators said Oliver, who owned the Miracle One Care Center, also pocketed more than $32,000 from residents between December 2016 and September 2017, all while still depriving them of basic needs. An investigation found residents were often left alone in filthy homes with no furniture, air conditioning or access to clean clothes.

“Michelle Oliver preyed upon some of our state’s most vulnerable and in-need citizens,” Attorney General Chris Carr said in a statement. “She systematically neglected those she had promised to help, all while taking their money but leaving them with nothing in return.” 

In December 2016, Oliver moved several residents from the Atlanta area into “a series of duplexes” nearly 200 miles away in Albany, according to authorities. The Georgia Department of Human Services, along with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and other state agencies, launched an investigation after a complaint from a concerned citizen about the Albany facility. 

In addition to the dirty conditions, investigators said residents were deprived of food despite Oliver hiring a “cook” who prepared meals in the morning “but left before the lunch hour.”

“Due to the residents’ disabilities, they did not have access to their own money and were left to beg neighbors and nearby stores for food on a near daily basis,” state authorities said. 

A financial payee who took residents’ monthly payments pleaded guilty to charges in the case last year, according to the attorney general’s office. 

The residents were eventually moved out of the duplexes, many of which the Albany Code Enforcement deemed “unfit for human occupation,” authorities said.

Albany is about 90 miles southeast of Columbus.

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Caretaker ‘preyed’ on home care residents left begging for food, Georgia officials say

Man enters plea in abuse by caretaker case

HUNTINGTON - A Huntington man jailed in 2016 after he was accused of physically attacking an incapacitated adult male who was under his care at a behavioral health facility has entered a plea connected to the incident.

Jimmy O'Dell Hardwick pleaded guilty May 2 to felony abuse of an incapacitated adult. Cabell Circuit Judge Paul T. Farrell agreed to allow Hardwick to enter a deferred adjudication with a year and six months of probation in lieu of a two- to 10-year prison sentence.

If Hardwick successfully completes the probation period, he will be able to exchange his felony plea for a misdemeanor charge. If he fails he will be sent to prison.

Hardwick, a former employee of Starlight Behavioral Health Services, had originally been charged in April 2016 after he was recorded body slamming a client onto a set of stairs in front of a residence in the 800 block of 23rd Street in Huntington.

Hardwick is then reportedly seen on camera dragging the victim into the residence, where the victim was thrown onto a couch.

The criminal complaint says the video shows a few moments later Hardwick pulled the victim from the couch and onto the floor, where he then threw the victim across the room, causing the victim to fall against a second client who was sitting in a chair.

According to the complaint, Hardwick then dragged the victim to another room before dragging him back into the living room, where he is seen wiping sweat from his face onto the victim's face.

Hardwick then reportedly again pulled the victim into another room before returning a short time later with his shirt torn and his pants pulled around his ankles, the criminal complaint said.

In his plea, Hardwick said he "restrained the victim in this case three times" and that the man "sustained red marks on his back."

The criminal case against Hardwick had been delayed for years as a civil case connected to the incident was pending in the circuit court. It has since been dismissed.

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Man enters plea in abuse by caretaker case

Champaign man who swindled elderly woman in his care gets 7 years

Mark A. Stites

URBANA — A rural Champaign man who admitted he stole thousands of dollars from an elderly woman who was his neighbor as he grew up is headed to prison for seven years.

Judge Heidi Ladd also ordered Mark Stites, 64, to repay $5,000.01 to the estate of the woman from whom he stole over a period of years while he acted as her caretaker, power of attorney and tax preparer.

"He siphoned funds from a dependent, vulnerable, helpless, victim. He knew not to commingle the funds. He was draining her assets to the point she had to go on public aid," said Ladd.

Stites pleaded guilty in May to financial exploitation of a person over 80, admitting that between June 2007 and February 2013, he withdrew more than $5,000 from two bank accounts belonging to the woman and used it fraudulently.

The woman was 96 when she died in 2016, just three months after the criminal charges had been filed against Stites, and three years after the financial improprieties first came to light.

The veteran jurist expressed frustration that the paper trail presented her by Assistant State's Attorney Joel Fletcher and defense attorney Blake Weaver of Urbana could not paint a clear picture of what happened to the money that once belonged to the elderly widow who spent her last days in the Champaign County Nursing Home supported by taxpayers.

Ladd heard testimony that the woman's husband, who preceded her in death in 2007, left money to Stites to care for his wife. Some of it he intended for Stites; most was for the care of his wife, who needed long-term nursing care.

Testimony also showed that Stites combined money for the woman's care with his own business accounts, and did pay many of her expenses.

It was in 2013 when Stites sought advice from an attorney with the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation on how to get the woman on Medicaid, after an initial denial, that his mishandling of her money came to the attention of authorities.

That attorney, Valerie McWilliams, testified she thought that it was "extremely odd" given Stites' background as a professional bookkeeper and tax preparer that he would admit to commingling the woman's funds with his own.

She also felt, given what Stites had told her about the woman's assets and income, that she should have enough money to pay for her own care.

Ladd said she wanted the appellate court to know that she felt Stites had stolen far more from the woman but could not order a higher restitution figure because of the incompleteness of the evidence and the records that were before her.

After Stites' plea, Ladd heard evidence in aggravation and mitigation over two days as the attorneys attempted to come to a restitution figure.

Fletcher urged the judge to impose restitution of almost $315,000 while Weaver declined to offer an estimate, saying "somebody smarter than me will have to do that."

"I simply have no reasonable basis factually to determine what that is," Ladd said of the real loss.

Fletcher argued that Stites was in a "position of trust" and "routinely exploited that trust for years on end."

He told the judge he was not naive enough to think that Stites could or would repay the woman's estate the $315,000. He urged the judge to impose the eight-year sentence he agreed to at the time of Stites' plea. The most Stites could have received was 15 years in prison.

Weaver acknowledged Stites had "abused a fiduciary relationship" but reminded the judge of how Stites and his wife were at the beck and call of the woman for years and took on her care because she had no heirs.

He painted a picture of his client as someone in over his head who still didn't own his pickup truck or his own home, even after helping himself to the woman's money.

"I regret all that's happened. I don't understand a lot of it," Stites told Ladd, maintaining there was never any criminal intent on his part.

Ladd said Stites was minimizing his role and said as a business man educated in bookkeeping and tax preparation, that at the very least he knew not to combine the woman's assets with his own.

"In November 2011, he wrote three checks (from her account) for $155,000 and put it in his own work account. For him to commingle, shows he is up to no good," said Ladd. "I believe he took a large amount from her estate but I don't know how much."

Noting Stites' prior theft conviction for stealing from his employer in 2001 — that sentence included $88,000 in restitution — Ladd said he "didn't get the message the first time."

Stites was given credit on his sentence for 45 days already served. He is eligible for day-for-day good time in prison.

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Champaign man who swindled elderly woman in his care gets 7 years

Woman in adult abuse case gets probation, suspended sentence

A woman accused of misspending more than $23,000 as the caretaker of a 77-year-old Newton victim received probation and a suspended prison sentence on Monday.

Renee S. Goeldner, of Beaver Dam, Wis. pleaded guilty to first-degree theft and dependent adult abuse. According to police, the 48-year-old woman made unauthorized purchases for personal gain from the victim’s bank account between Jan. 13, 2014 and April 6, 2015.

District Court Judge Terry Rickers issued a suspended 15-year prison sentence and five years of probation. According to court documents, Goeldner owes more than $46,979 in restitution. Rickers ordered her to “promptly pay in full all restitution and all fees and costs associated with her probation.” She is also ordered to pay $1,750 in court fines, among other fees and surcharges.

Goeldner was initially charged in August 2015 with first-degree theft and dependent adult abuse-financial exploitation following an investigation by the Newton Police Department. Court records say police began investigating the former caretaker and conservator after being alerted to possible abuse.

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Woman in adult abuse case gets probation, suspended sentence

Caretaker sentenced to 27 months in fraud case

A Memphis caretaker who defrauded a woman's estate of more than $80,000 was sentenced Wednesday to 27 months in prison, said the office of Edward L. Stanton III, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee.

Shirley Hardaway, 60, who was the owner of Companion Plus, cared for the victim for about four to five years before the woman died in September 2009. She was 91.

"The deceased victim left behind more than $80,000 in two investment accounts at Franklin Templeton Investments, an investment managing company headquartered in California," Louis Goggans, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office, said in a news release. "Nearly two years after the victim's death, in June 2011, Hardaway mailed fraudulent change of address requests to Franklin Templeton on the decedent's investment accounts, changing the address used for future correspondence between the parties to Hardaway's address."

She then worked with a co-conspirator to open a bank account in the victim's name and requested the investment company transfer the money.

"Upon receiving the request to liquidate both of the deceased victim's accounts, Franklin Templeton electronically transferred more than $80,000 to the bank account," according to the news release.
"Hardaway then transferred the money to her personal Bank of America savings account and withdrew it all via cashier's check."

She pleaded guilty in October to one count of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

She was sentenced Wednesday by Judge Jon Phipps McCalla and ordered to pay $124,630.54 in restitution. The U.S. Secret Service investigated the case which was prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Leetra Harris.

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Caretaker sentenced to 27 months in fraud case