A Detroit Lakes man must pay back $55,000 for
bilking an elderly Hubbard County woman out of tens of thousands of
dollars through overbilling for tree removal, roofing and riprap work.
Dale Ray
Tyge, 62, of Detroit Lakes was originally charged in Hubbard County
District Court with felony theft by swindle and felony financial
exploitation of a vulnerable adult.
Tyge could not be reached for comment and his attorney, Simon George of Detroit Lakes, had no comment.
According
to court records, on Nov. 30 of last year Hubbard County investigators
learned Hubbard County Social Services had received a report from the
Minnesota Adult Abuse Reporting Center that an elderly female was
possibly the victim of financial exploitation.
A
Northview Bank vice president in Park Rapids began noticing a pattern
with the elderly woman's bank account. The bank executive said the
82-year-old victim had always been frugal with her money, but starting
in late 2013, thousands of dollars in checks had been written to Tyge.
Bank
staff who had worked with the woman for many years said they noticed
that in the past few years she seemed to be suffering from some
confusion and memory loss.
The investigating officer
obtained an administrative subpoena for bank records from 2013 to 2015
which indicated $106,527 in checks had been written to Tyge during that
time.
The complaint states Tyge cashed 27 checks, ranging in value from $400 to $8,400.
The
investigator met with the victim's family members and friends who
stated the victim is a "very trusting and good person, with declining
health and mental ability."
A daughter-in-law said the
money Tyge received was from a trust, with the older woman's children as
the beneficiary. After the family learned from the trust administrator
of the large payments to Tyge, the daughter-in-law called to ask Tyge
what kind of work would cost that much money, and to ask for
documentation of the work. It was never provided.
The
older woman told a sheriff's investigator that she didn't remember how
she met Tyge, but did recall wanting a few trees cut down that were
growing too close to her house, located on a lake in Thorpe Township.
She guessed that Tyge had cut down 20-30 trees.
When told
that he had charged her for the removal of 78 trees, she said she did
not ask for that and would not have authorized the removal of so many
healthy trees. Tyge had told her she had diseased trees on her property
and they needed to be removed.
Hubbard County Forestry found none of the trees—on the
property or removed—were diseased or in danger of being diseased. The
forestry officials found a large brush pile down out of the victim's
sight line in the residence.
The victim said that after
the first time she called Tyge's tree service in Osage, he would just
show up to do work without being called. She said she felt pressured to
write a check each time he presented a bill as she didn't want to have
outstanding bills. She said she is very frugal and considers $100 a lot
of money.
At one point, she said, Tyge approached her
with a single shingle and said her roof needed to be replaced. She said
she didn't get an estimate from Tyge and didn't remember how much it
cost.
From bank records, the investigator found Tyge had
received $8,400 for the roof work. An expert roofer contacted by the
sheriff's investigator found that Tyge had simply added a new layer of
shingles on top of the old ones. He valued Tyge's work at $2,400, and
put the value of a new roof at $3,900.
At the end of the
investigator's interview with the older women, she acknowledged she had
been taken advantage of, and said she felt very embarrassed and bad
about it.
In an interview, Tyge told the investigator
that he had helped the older woman remove trees from her property from
2013 to 2015. He said he had removed 30 to 40 trees. When asked about
notes to the woman that he had cut down 120-foot trees, he admitted they
might not have been that tall. A reputable tree-removal business owner
told the investigator he has never seen a 120-foot spruce tree in the
Hubbard County area, and said the prices charged to the woman were
extremely high for tree removal. He also confirmed that some of the
trees that Tyge had billed to remove had never existed.
When
asked why his prices were so high, Tyge said his equipment was
expensive and he had to pay his employees $200 a day. That turned out
not to be true.
Tyge admitted he had taken advantage of the older woman, and said he would try to return some of her money.
In
a contested omnibus hearing earlier in the case, Tyge asked that his
statement to the sheriff's investigator be suppressed, since he was
never read his Miranda rights, and asked that the charges be dropped.
Hubbard
County District Judge Robert Tiiffany denied the motions, ruling that a
Miranda warning was not required for the law enforcement center
interview because it was not a custodial interrogation—Tyge was free to
leave at any time—and the interview was not required to be recorded. And
he ruled that probable cause existed for both charges in the complaint.
Tyge
pleaded guilty on Oct. 3 to felony financial exploitation of a
vulnerable adult, and on Nov. 20 Judge Tiffany stayed imposition of
sentence and ordered him to serve 180 days in jail, stayed 20 years.
Tyge
was ordered to pay back $55,000, with $5,000 due immediately and the
rest to be paid back $5,000 a year. If the $5,000 annual payment is not
made by Nov. 20 of each year, Tyge will have to serve 180 days in jail.
He
was also ordered to pay a $500 fine and $85 in court fees. He was
ordered to have no further contact with the victim or her family and to
not be within 1,000 feet of her property. He was ordered not to vote or
possess guns or ammunition, and to incur no further debt without
authorization from his probation officer. He was placed on supervised
probation for 20 years.
Full Article & Source:
DL man must pay $55K restitution after bilking elderly woman
