Former lawyer sentenced to 18 months for stealing from elderly clients

The prosecutor calls the Tenants Harbor woman – who stole more than $1 million from three, elderly incapacitated clients – 'the Bernie Madoff of Maine.' 

WISCASSET — Former lawyer Anita Volpe was sentenced Friday to 18 months in jail for stealing more than $1 million from three elderly, incapacitated clients.

Justice Daniel Billings sentenced the 76-year-old Tenants Harbor woman in Lincoln County Superior Court for three counts of felony theft.

Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin filed a memorandum in the Knox County court in October 2019 asking for a seven-year prison term for Volpe. At the March 4 hearing, Robbin asked for a 10-year sentence with all but five years suspended to be followed by three years of probation.

“Anita Volpe is the Bernie Madoff of Maine,” the prosecutor said.

Justice Billings imposed a 10-year sentence with all but 18 months suspended to be followed by three years of probation. The judge cited Volpe’s age and her health in imposing less than sought by the prosecution. Volpe was treated for bladder cancer but has been in remission.

The judge also noted that Volpe had the support of her community. About 20 family and friends attended the hearing to show support for the Tenants Harbor woman. They included other attorneys and her pastor.

Volpe pleaded guilty Oct. 18, 2021, and has been free awaiting sentencing.

Volpe was indicted in March 2019 on three counts of felony theft, two counts of Class B misuse of entrusted property and one count of Class C misuse of entrusted property. The misuse of entrusted property charges were dismissed Monday in exchange for the guilty pleas.

Volpe was represented by attorney Leonard Sharon.

The case, like most in the court system, had been delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions imposed by the court.

Volpe stole $553,225 from Mary Webb; $490,416 from Patricia Wakefield; and more than $100,000 from Corine Hendrick who was her mother-in-law. Judge Billings ordered Volpe to pay about $1 million in restitution to the Webb and Wakefield estates. Her attorney said she was ready to pay $65,000 in restitution.

Volpe had stolen from the Webb and Wakefield estates to repay the Herrick estate. The prosecutor said if not for an alert teller at the Bar Harbor Bank and Trust, Volpe may have gotten away with her crimes.

Volpe served as the power of attorney for the three women.

The longtime local lawyer used the stolen money to pay personal credit card debt and to purchase real estate, including a parcel abutting her home in St. George. Volpe also used some of the money to repair her Main Street law office in Rockland, and for repairs to her St. George home. Money was also used to pay property taxes for property she owned in Florida and for a vehicle for her business partner. One payment from Webb’s account was $2,500 for a wood carving from an art gallery that Volpe owned in Rockland.

Volpe also received annuities meant for Wakefield, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, after the woman died. The prosecutor noted that Wakefield had intended for her estate to go to a private school that provided her a scholarship after her father died. The money was intended to provide scholarships to the next generations of students.

“That would have been her legacy,” Robbin told the judge.

Volpe apologized in court, saying she still doesn’t know why she stole the money.

“I wasn’t thinking. I was ego driven to appear successful and receive the love that I wanted,” Volpe said.

The prosecutor said courts tend to treat white-collar criminals more leniently because they look like the people who decide their fate.

Hendrick died Dec. 20, 2014, at 92, after several weeks in a nursing facility in Augusta that her grandchildren said was very low-quality. The family had wanted to put her in Quarry Hill, but could not because of lack of funds.

The Maine Supreme Court accepted the surrender of Volpe’s license in lieu of disciplinary action in August 2016. Justice Andrew Mead impounded all the documents related to the matter, but Hendrick’s grandson, Shane Hendrick, of Camden, released the paperwork in 2016.

Volpe initially had been the personal representative for Hendrick’s estate after Hendrick died, but withdrew before the estate was probated. She repaid the Hendrick estate after she surrendered her law license, but the Board of Overseers of the Bar was unaware that the money had been stolen from Webb and Wakefield.

The thefts from the other women occurred in multiple bank transactions over a period of years.

Volpe was admitted to the Maine Bar in 1977.

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Former lawyer sentenced to 18 months for stealing from elderly clients 

New charges, new investigation involving embattled former professional guardians

I-Team has investigate both cases for months

By: Adam Walser

OCALA, Fla. -- Disgraced former professional guardian Rebecca Fierle was arrested and is facing two felony charges after an eight-month police investigation.

Her arrest comes at the same time a Pinellas County judge ordered auditors to open a new investigation into another guardian -- Traci Hudson -- who is accused of stealing money from an elderly man.

After spending the night in jail, Fierle wouldn’t answer reporters’ questions Tuesday morning, as she walked out of the Marion County Jail after posting bond.

Fierle was arrested Monday night for aggravated abuse of an elderly person and neglect of an elderly person.

Both crimes are felonies.

The charges involve the death of Steven Stryker, a man under her care who died at St. Joseph's Hospital last May after investigators say Fierle plugged his feeding tube and ordered a do not resuscitate order against his wishes.

Fierle wouldn't answer our questions either in July after a judge removed her from nearly 100 cases.

The Price of Protection

The allegations against Fierle were first brought up in a July report for the Florida Office of Public and Professional Guardians.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody wouldn't say why it took eight months to arrest Fierle.
A spokesperson told the I-Team it is still an active, ongoing investigation.

Documents we obtained show investigators didn’t interview the hospital staff at St. Joseph’s until September, about four months after Stryker’s death.

The arrest warrant was signed by a judge February 10, the day of Fierle’s arrest at one of her homes in Ocala.

She will stand trial on the charges in Hillsborough County, but an arraignment date has not yet been set.

In Pinellas County, a judge ordered the Office of Inspector General to investigate embattled former professional guardian Traci Hudson for "concerns about the care and well-being of people and property under her care."

Hudson was arrested in November, accused of stealing more than $500,000 as the power of attorney for an elderly man.

The order is a reversal for Judge Pam Campbell, who previously said she believed it was an isolated incident.

“None of us, and we've all conferred about it, are aware of any kinds of improprieties in the guardianship cases,” she said in November, at a hearing following Hudson’s arrest.

Hudson is scheduled to appear in court in April on that criminal case. An arraignment hearing for Fierle will be set in the next 30 days.

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New charges, new investigation involving embattled former professional guardians

How Criminals Steal $37 Billion a Year from America’s Elderly

Marjorie Jones trusted the man who called to tell her she’d won a sweepstakes prize, saying she could collect the winnings once she paid the taxes and fees. After she wired the first payment, he and other callers kept adding conditions to convince her to send more money.

As the scheme progressed, Jones, who was legally blind and lived alone in a two-story house in Moss Bluff, Louisiana, depleted her savings, took out a reverse mortgage and cashed in a life insurance policy. She didn’t tell her family, not even the sister who lived next door. Scammers often push victims to keep promised winnings a secret, says an investigator who helped unravel this sinister effort to exploit an 82-year-old woman.

Marjorie Jones.

Source: Courtesy Angela Stancik

Her family didn’t realize something was wrong until she started asking to borrow money, a first for a woman they admired for her financial independence. But by then it was too late, says Angela Stancik, one of Jones’s granddaughters. Jones had lost all of her life savings—hundreds of thousands of dollars.

About one week after calling Stancik at the family business in Ganado, Texas, to borrow $6,000, Jones committed suicide.

That was May 4, 2010. When family members went to her home, they found a caller-ID filled with numbers they didn’t recognize and three bags of wire transfer receipts in her closet. Jones had $69 left in her bank account.

Some 5 million older Americans are financially exploited every year by scammers like the ones who targeted Jones. The elderly are also suffering at the hands of greedy, desperate or drug addicted relatives and friends, among others. The total number of victims is increasing as baby boomers retire and their ability to manage trillions of dollars in personal assets diminishes. One financial services firm estimates seniors lose as much as $36.5 billion a year. But assessments like that are “grossly underestimated,” according to a 2016 study by New York State’s Office of Children and Family Services. For every case reported to authorities, as many as 44 are not. The study found losses in New York alone could be as high as $1.5 billion.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drew attention to elder exploitation as a public health problem in a 2016 report, citing groundbreaking research two decades earlier by Mark Lachs. Now co-chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Lachs says elder abuse victims—including those who suffer financial exploitation—die at a rate three times faster than those who haven’t been abused. It’s a “public health crisis,” he warns.

“I knew these crimes were killing people,” says Elizabeth Loewy, who directed the elder abuse unit at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. As her exploitation cases steadily rose to hundreds per year, she says, “so many family members told me, ‘I can’t prove it, but this killed him.’”

“How could you do that to older people who could not protect themselves?” 

Bente Kongsore, a retired accountant in Creswell, Oregon, says her parents’ mental and physical decline accelerated after an assistant manager at a local bank, Susan Paiz, befriended the octogenarians and subsequently stole $100,000 from them in 2014. To hide the theft, Paiz pretended Kongsore’s father, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 85, gave her the money. The lie soured the last two years the couple had together, as Kongsore’s father questioned himself and his wife questioned him. “It was a total violation of the type of feelings we would want to share with each other at the end of their lives,” Kongsore says.

Illustration: Rebekka Dunlap

By 2016, her mother had become bedridden, eventually dying in June of that year. Kongsore’s father died in December 2017, just weeks before Paiz was sentenced to 10 months in jail. Paiz was caught and convicted thanks to a dogged detective in Bellevue and the King County prosecutor’s office in Seattle, which had established an elder abuse unit in 2001. When Kongsore saw Paiz in the courtroom, she says she thought to herself, “How could you do that to older people who could not protect themselves?”

Adding insult to injury, the bank where Paiz worked, Union Bank in Bellevue, didn’t return the money until Kongsore scanned and emailed a bank investigator an incriminating letter Paiz wrote her parents, Kongsore says. She adds that the bank still hasn’t formally apologized. Union Bank didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Paiz couldn’t be immediately reached.

Financial exploitation is “a huge problem in the sense that it’s so profoundly destructive,” says Page Ulrey, a senior deputy prosecutor who became the Seattle unit’s first member. The bulk of her cases are financial, involving victims who rarely get their money back. “They’re usually emotionally devastated as a result of having been betrayed,” she says.

In many cases, it may appear the victim gave consent, but it’s often based on manipulation or deception. Like Kongsore’s father, victims often “have some level of cognitive impairment, which makes it really difficult for them to figure out the truth of what’s going on,” Ulrey says.

As a result, many of her cases hinge on showing incapacity. “Obviously, you have the right to give your money to who you want, even if your family disapproves,” Ulrey says. But when you suffer from dementia, you may no longer have the ability to judge whether another person has your best interests at heart, or to understand the consequences of your decisions.

If an evaluation shows a victim lacks capacity to make financial decisions, “we potentially have a stronger criminal case,” she says.

But capacity assessment by adult protective services investigators and police is uneven across the country. “Law enforcement doesn’t have good tools to assess capacity,” Ulrey says, adding that most jurisdictions lack people who can conduct thorough evaluations.  (Click to Continue)

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How Criminals Steal $37 Billion a Year from America’s Elderly

Metro home healthcare worker given 3 years of probation for stealing from elderly

OLATHE, Kan. -- A judge in Johnson County sentenced a healthcare worker Tuesday for stealing thousands of dollars worth of jewelry from elderly clients.

Aldean Foster, who pleaded guilty to mistreating a dependent adult, was sentenced to 36 months of probation, but she must first serve 60 days in custody.  She was also ordered to pay $46,850 in restitution to the two victims.

Aldean is not allowed to work in home health care or nursing facility settings during the term of her probation.

Since FOX 4 first told you about the charges against Aldean “Suzy” Foster in April, detectives say they've discovered more victims.

Foster was hired through a company, before she had any criminal charges, to care for seniors in Johnson County, but some of those seniors say she was stealing from them instead.

“I was probably watching television, and I paid no attention to her, I know she was in my bedroom for a very long time, but I didn’t think any more about it until after she had gone,” said one victim who wanted to remain anonymous. “I went in there, and I noticed things were not exactly where I had left them.”

Court documents say victims lost as much as $100,000.

“They’re the most vulnerable people, and to take advantage of that trust, it’s a terrible thing,” said Andrew McCarl.

McCarl said he found out Foster was stealing from his mother when police recovered an Overland Park Police Department ring with his dad's name on it from a pawn shop.

“To take something with a family name on it, that’s kind of gutsy. To take a police department ring with a family name on it is fairly incredulous,”McCarl added.

“I’m hoping she doesn’t have that opportunity again,” said the first victim. “She slipped through the cracks, and I paid the price.”

Leawood police say through investigations and speaking with pawn shops, they were able to determine the items stolen from Foster matched several items she had pawned, including items from other jurisdictions. Since then, about a half-dozen more victims have come forward.

“She had been doing this job for quite a while, so it’s unknown how many are out there,” said Detective John Freeman with Leawood police.

Many families say they don’t know the extent of what Foster took from them, as they don’t know every piece of jewelry their loved ones had. Foster will be back in court in May.



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Metro home healthcare worker given 3 years of probation for stealing from elderly

Aberdeen woman sentenced in elder abuse theft case

An Aberdeen woman was sentenced Thursday for stealing thousands of dollars from elderly people, the Attorney General's Office announced.

Amy Schmidt, 37, from Aberdeen, stole money from three elderly people she worked with while employed at a home health agency.

She was sentenced for one count of grand theft and was given five years in the state penitentiary and ordered to pay about $7,000 in restitution, along with court costs.

The case was investigated by the Aberdeen Police Department and the Brown County Sheriff's Office and prosecuted by the Elder Abuse and Financial Exploitation Subdivision of the Attorney General's Office.

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Aberdeen woman sentenced in elder abuse theft case

Hubbard nursing home employee accused of forging resident's checks

HUBBARD, Ohio - An employee of a Hubbard nursing home faces fifteen criminal charges for allegedly stealing hundreds of dollars from an 89-year-old resident of that facility.

Ashley N. Dawson of Boardman was arraigned Tuesday in Girard Municipal court on one count of burglary, seven counts of forgery and seven counts of theft by deception.

According to a police report, Hubbard City police were called last month by the administrator of Elmwood Assisted Living who believed one of the residents may be the victim of a theft.

Detectives were told that five checks belonging to the elderly resident had been taken and cashed.

Police say the total amount of the suspected forged checks amounted to $2,900 dollars.

Investigators compared the signatures on the checks to the signature on a birthday card given to the victim by Dawson.

The judge set a $12,500 bond for Dawson, but placed her on house arrest until her next hearing on April 13.

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Hubbard nursing home employee accused of forging resident's checks

Woman sentenced to prison for scheme to steal millions from elderly

TRENTON — An Egg Harbor Township woman involved in a scheme to steal millions of dollars from senior citizens was sentenced Friday to three years in state prison, according to the state Attorney General's office.

Susan Hamlett, 57, of Egg Harbor Township, was an employee at A Better Choice, a senior care company in Atlantic County that offers life care, legal planning and financial planning for its clients.

Hamlett is one of five people involved in the case that have pleaded guilty to charges.

Between 2003 and 2012, former A Better Choice owner Jan Van Holt, 60, and her sister Sondra Steen, 61, both of Linwood, stole more than $2.7 million from 12 clients.

Hamlett, Van Holt and Steen were arrested with former county social worker William Price, 58, of Linwood, and attorney Barbara Lieberman, 64, of Northfield, after an investigation was conducted by New Jersey State Police and the Division of Criminal Justice.

Senior citizens were targeted if they had assets but no immediate family. Services like household chores, errands, driving, scheduling, budgeting and paying bills was handled by the service. Money taken from the bank accounts of victims was used by Van Holt and Steen for their own bills, pool supplies, Mercedes cars and lease payments for a condo in Florida.

The Camden County resident was a driver for the Moorestown School District.

"By stealing the life savings of elderly clients who had no family to look out for them, these defendants placed themselves among the lowest of con artists," said Attorney General Christopher Porrino, in a statement. "The victims are gone, but we've persisted in our quest for justice for them, securing prison terms for all of the perpetrators."

Hamlett pleaded guilty in August to second-degree conspiracy for helping to steal more than $100,000 from an elderly woman. The guilty plea came just before Hamlett was supposed to go to trial.

Lieberman pleaded guilty to first-degree money laundering on Nov. 3, 2014 and was sentenced on March 25, 2015 to 10 years in state prison. She forfeited $3 million in assets and lost her law license in the process.

Van Holt pleaded guilty on April 12, 2016 to first-degree money laundering and faces a possible sentence of 12 years in prison. Her sentencing is scheduled on Oct. 28.

Steen pleaded guilty to first-degree money laundering and was sentenced on March 4 to 10 years in prison.

Price pleaded guilty to second-degree theft for stealing $125,000 from a couple he met while working as a caseworker for Atlantic County Adult Protective Services and was sentenced on Oct. 23, 2015, to five years in prison.

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Woman sentenced to prison for scheme to steal millions from elderly

N.J. senior care employee pleads guilty to stealing from elderly clients

TRENTON — An employee at a senior care company in Atlantic County pleaded guilty to her role in an alleged scheme to bilk millions of dollars from elderly clients, the state Attorney General's Office announced Monday.

Susan Hamlett, 57, of Egg Harbor Township, who worked as an aide at the company, A Better Choice, is the fifth and final defendant to plead guilty in the investigation, the office said.

Hamlett pleaded guilty on a charge of second-degree conspiracy on the eve of her trial, admitting that she conspired with her co-defendants to steal more than $100,000 from one client, an elderly woman, the office said.

She faces three to five years in state prison, according to the office. Sentencing is Oct. 21.

Hamlett was indicted in March 2015 with three other people:

• Jan Van Holt, 60, of Linwood, the owner of the company, which offered in-home care and legal financial planning for senior citizens.
• Sondra Steen, 61, of Linwood, Van Holt's sister, who helped run the company.
• William Price, 58, of Linwood, a former county social worker who conspired with the others to steal from an elderly couple.

Another defendant, Barbara Lieberman, 64, of Northfield, a lawyer, pleaded guilty before the indictments.

All of the defendants pleaded guilty in the case, each on different charges.

In all, Van Holt and Steen conspired with Lieberman to steal more than $2.7 million from 12 elderly clients from 2003 to 2012, the Attorney General's Office said.

Steen and Lieberman were each sentenced to 10 years in prison, while Price got five years. Van Holt faces a 12-year sentence.

"By stealing the life savings of elderly clients who had no family to look out for them, these defendants placed themselves among the lowest of con artists," said Attorney General Christopher Porrino said in a statement. "The victims are gone, but we've persisted in our quest for justice for them, securing prison terms for all of the perpetrators."

Ellie Honig, the director of the criminal justice division of the attorney general' office, called the scheme "one of the most egregious cases of elder fraud that we have prosecuted in recent years."

The defendants targeted elderly clients with "substantial assets" but no immediate family, offering to do things such as household chores, errands and budgeting, according to the Attorney General's Office.

Eventually, the defendants took control of the victims' finances by forging a power of attorney or obtaining one in false pretenses, the office said.

Once in control of the bank accounts, the defendants stole from the victims, the office said.

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N.J. senior care employee pleads guilty to stealing from elderly clients

Judge sets bail for couple convicted of stealing from elderly friend

By DAVID FERRARA
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

A judge ordered $20,000 bail Monday for a couple convicted of stealing their friend’s retirement savings in his last years of life.

The Nevada Supreme Court recently ruled that Robert Craig Ballew and his wife, Ivy Rasmussen, should be given a bail hearing while their conviction is on appeal.

Defense lawyer Tony Sgro said the cash posted would be held and put toward a restitution should the high court uphold the couple’s conviction.

Ballew and Rasmussen, both former Clark County School District employees, have spent a little more than a year in prison after a jury convicted them of bilking their longtime friend Elliott Smith out of more than $150,000 in about a year and a half.

Attorneys for 70-year-old Ballew and his 63-year-old wife have said their health has diminished since being imprisoned on more than a dozen conspiracy, theft and elderly exploitation charges. Ballew suffers from skin cancer and dementia, while Rasmussen has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Smith’s stepdaughter, Sue Sweikert, called the bail “a pittance.”

“I’m thinking justice delayed is justice denied,” she said. “We’ve just gotten more delays.”

District Judge Stefany Miley ordered that the couple also pay $1,000 each per month and remain on house arrest while awaiting appeal. The monthly payments also would go toward restitution.

In January 2015, Miley sentenced the couple to eight to 20 years in prison.

At the time, Sweikert had asked the judge for the maximum sentence.

“They had no sympathy for my parents, who were elderly and in ill health,” Sweikert said Monday.

Prosecutor J.P. Raman asked Miley for a bail of $153,000, equal to the amount of restitution Ballew and Rasmussen were ordered to pay. Since being convicted, neither has contributed any money to the restitution.

He called the health issues “some of the least compelling” reasons to release the couple.

“They were well enough to do the crime,” he said. “They should do the time.”

Authorities said Rasmussen and Ballew became greedy as their careers wound down and stole every penny they could from Smith, who considered them close friends.

Ballew, a teacher who retired after 36 years, and Rasmussen, a guidance counselor who resigned from the school district in November, brought Smith into their home after his wife, Sandra, was hospitalized and under constant care for the rest of her dying days.

The couple used money from Smith, who suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, to make purchases small and large, from charges at Starbucks to checks made out for foreign cars, according to court records.

Smith’s relatives believe the couple took even more than what a jury convicted Ballew and Rasmussen of stealing. At least $100,000 in cash that Smith kept in a safe went missing, his family said, but the jury acquitted the couple of taking that money. In the last years of his life, Smith told family members he was worth about $600,000, with $300,000 set aside for his wife’s medical bills.

Smith did not learn about the theft until a few months before he died, broke, at age 84 in 2010.

In January 2010, when the Sweikerts went to collect Smith’s remaining possessions at the home of Ballew and Rasmussen, they spotted a picture on a bookshelf. It was a studio portrait of Smith’s grandchildren, daughter and late son — the family dearest to his heart.

At his North Las Vegas home, Smith kept the photograph in an elaborate oak frame. In Ballew’s home, the frame had been replaced with a cheap plastic border emblazoned with the word “Friends.”

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Judge sets bail for couple convicted of stealing from elderly friend

Hercules man stole $300,000 from elderly mother, police say

HERCULES -- A 54-year-old man was arrested Thursday morning after police discovered that he stole more than $300,000 from his own mother and spent some of it at casinos, police said.

Angel Robert Garcia, 54, of Hercules, used his mother's personal information to access her bank account, according to a news release from Hercules police. Garcia created multiple fake accounts and used them at several local businesses and casinos throughout California, police said.

Police searching Garcia's Hercules home Thursday morning found electronic devices and documentation that linked to the investigation.

Garcia's mother, an 84-year-old woman who was not identified by police, reported fraudulent activity in her bank account in March, police said.

Garcia was arrested on suspicion of financial elder abuse, forgery, grand theft, unauthorized access to computers and check fraud. He is being held at County Jail in Martinez on $215,000 bail.

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Hercules man stole $300,000 from elderly mother, police say

Liberty woman admits to stealing thousands of dollars from elderly woman

 

Sharlene Liesen

QUINCY, Ill. (WGEM) -A Liberty, Illinois, woman admitted Tuesday to stealing thousands of dollars from an elderly woman, according to court records.

Sharlene Liesen, 54, pleaded guilty to financial exploitation of the elderly and is set for sentencing June 18. Two other financial exploitation charges were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

Police said Liesen stole more than $25,000 from an unidentified 76-year-old woman. Liesen was supposed to be helping the victim pay bills, but had been stealing the money since June of 2014. She was arrested in February.

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Liberty woman admits to stealing thousands of dollars from elderly woman

Police: Sarasota home health aide stole thousands from elderly client

A home health is arrested for stealing thousands of dollars from her elderly client.

Megan Craig, 25, was a home health aide for Youthful Aging in Sarasota, Fl.

Officials say Craig began working as a caregiver to the 91-year-old victim, who suffers from age related dementia, in the Fall of 2013.

Craig was responsible for providing the victim with her medication, errand running, grocery shopping and basic cleaning around the house.

When grocery items and other things that needed to be purchased, Craig would take the victim to the store. The victim would purchase the items using his/her credit card.

According to an arrest affidavit, Craig slowly started signing for purchases while the victim was there and progressed to making purchases, using the victim's credit card, while the victim was not present.

While Craig was authorized to make purchases for the victim, officials say, she was only allowed to purchase grocery items and medication for the victim.

It was the victim's daughter in law who contacted officials with receipts and transactions that showed Craig began to purchase gifts cards in various amounts between May-August 2014.

According to the affidavit, Craig is accused of making more than 30 purchases at Publix stores between May and August 2014 totaling more than $3,900, as well as 10 gift cards at Walmart stores.

In all, officials have accounted for $4,926.11 in unauthorized gift cards believed to have been purchased, by Craig, using the victim's credit card.

Officials have charged Craig with felony exploitation of an elderly person.

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Police: Sarasota home health aide stole thousands from elderly client

Health aide charged with stealing from Corning man

An Elmira woman was charged this week with stealing more than $2,000 from an elderly man who was in her care.

Tara Girardi, 28, a home health aide who lives on Allen Street in Elmira, was charged with fourth degree grand larceny.

The theft was reported by a family member of the victim, Corning police said. Some of the missing money has been recovered but not all of it, police said.

Girardi appeared in City of Corning Court on Tuesday and was released on her own recognizance. She turned herself in and is cooperating with the investigation, police said. Girardi will return to court Jan. 13.

Girardi is also under indictment for petit larceny in Chemung County on charges she stole money from a recycling firm where she was employed.

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Health aide charged with stealing from Corning man

Officials: Stealing money from elderly a common abuse

YAKIMA, Wash. — A 90-year-old Sunnyside woman who had almost $20,000 stolen from her checking account is a victim of one of the more common forms of elder abuse, according to one expert.

“Financial exploitation is a significant issue,” said Lori Brown, director of Southeast Washington Aging and Long Term Care, an area agency on aging. “It is the primary issue relating to adult protective services.”

Brown and a Yakima County sheriff’s detective recommend that people find a trustworthy person — or more than one — to handle the finances of elderly relatives who may not be able to do it themselves.

Christina Contreras, 39, of Sunnyside was recently arraigned in Yakima County Superior Court on a single count of first-degree theft related to 57 unauthorized withdrawals from the woman’s checking account. Contreras worked as an in-home caregiver for the woman since August 2012, according to an affidavit filed by Sunnyside police.

Brown said in some cases it is a family member who is taking money from the elderly victim. She said the person may have relied on the grandparent or parent for money in the past, and dependency has turned into exploitation.

Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Mike Russell said his office has handled many similar cases. Part of the challenge, Russell said, is that an elderly person with memory issues may not remember if he or she authorized a family member or friend to spend money in a particular way.

Advocates for the elderly will be pushing the Legislature for funding to enhance aging services to address issues such as financial exploitation, Brown said.

She said people should consider alternatives to guardianship, which requires going to court, to help an elderly relative manage his or her affairs. A durable power of attorney that would allow a trusted family member or friend to handle financial matters is one alternative.

Russell said a simple way to reduce the risk of financial exploitation is to have more than one person working together on the finances, creating greater accountability.

The Sunnyside woman discovered the theft in May, when she asked a neighbor for help with a bank statement, according to the affidavit. The statement showed withdrawals made through an ATM, which the woman said she never used and did not know what an ATM was, the affidavit said.

Police checked the bank records and found ATM withdrawals from Nov. 5, 2013, to May 27, 2014, when Contreras was no longer employed by the woman, the affidavit said. Security camera photos from the ATM show Contreras making all but one of the transactions; the single transaction was made by another, unidentified person.

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Officials: Stealing money from elderly a common abuse

Missouri prosecutor admits stealing $540k from elderly client

KANSAS CITY, Mo.   •  A lawyer who was elected this month as a northwestern Missouri county prosecutor won’t be serving in that role after all, having pleaded guilty in federal court to stealing more than half a million dollars from an elderly client.

Richard F. Turner, 39, of Bethany, Mo., pleaded guilty Wednesday in Kansas City to one count of wire fraud and one count of making false statements on his tax return, according to U.S. Attorney Tammy Dickinson’s office. He also pleaded guilty to an asset forfeiture count.

Turner, who previously had served as Harrison County prosecutor and was again elected to that post Nov. 4, admitted trying to steal roughly $728,000 from his client but managing to obtain only $540,803.

More than $327,000 of the money was spent paying off and improving his home in Bethany — including installing a swimming pool — while a portion also went toward trying to prop up his struggling clothing store, Richard’s/TD Clothiers.

“This is an egregious case of elder abuse,” Dickinson said. “When those in positions of responsibility and trust abuse the elderly, we will bring the full resources of federal and state law enforcement to bring them to justice.”

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Missouri prosecutor admits stealing $540k from elderly client

Former caretaker accused of stealing $15,000 from her 84-year-old employer turns herself in

Suavonya Shantal Sykes

MOBILE, Alabama -- A woman accused of stealing thousands of dollars from her 84-year-old employer turned herself in to authorities on Monday afternoon, according to Mobile County Metro Jail records.

Authorities booked Suavonya Shantal Sykes, 37, on 12 counts of fraudulent use or possession of a credit card and one count each of first-degree theft and first-degree financial exploitation of the elderly.

On Nov. 5, Mobile Police Department spokeswoman Ashley Rains said Sykes used her employer's debit card multiple times at stores throughout Mobile and Prichard.

She stole about $15,000 over the course of four months while working as a caretaker for an 84-year-old woman, Rains said.

Sykes has no known prior arrests in Alabama, according to court records.

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Former caretaker accused of stealing $15,000 from her 84-year-old employer turns herself in

Pill addiction blamed in Jonesborough woman's admittance of stealing from elderly ward

Jama Curtis

An addiction to prescription pain pills is what led a Jonesborough woman to steal more than $80,000 from an elderly man she helped take care of, she told a Washington County Criminal Court judge Monday.

In the process of entering a guilty plea to the charge of willful exploitation of an elderly adult, Jama Curtis, 40, 1412 Mill Springs Road, said her husband had nothing to do with taking the money and he had no knowledge she was doing it.

Tony Curtis had also been charged along with his wife, but part of her plea agreement included the charges against him being dismissed by Assistant District Attorney General Erin McArdle.

Judge Lisa Rice told Jama Curtis she should be happy her attorney, Don Spurrell, worked out the plea and sentence because if it had been left up to the judge, Curtis would face a harsher outcome.

The agreement called for two other charges — theft over $60,000 and theft over $10,000 — being dismissed. Curtis was sentenced to four years in prison, which was reduced to probation. She must serve a total of 120 days in jail, but that will come in 30-day blocks for each of the years she’s on probation.

Rice ordered that first jail stint to begin Nov. 30.

“That will give her Thanksgiving with her family, but she will be in jail over Christmas,” Rice said. “Don’t ask me to reconsider.”

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Pill addiction blamed in Jonesborough woman's admittance of stealing from elderly ward

Atlantic Co. lawyer, owner of senior care company, charged with stealing millions from elderly clients

ATLANTIC COUNTY - Four women from Atlantic County allegedly stole millions from elderly victims in South Jersey.

Since 2006, the women allegedly stole over $2 million from at least 10 elderly victims - and of those 10 victims, only one is still alive.

Acting Attorney General, John J. Hoffman held a press conference in Voorhees Thursday morning and explained, "We are supposed to honor our elders - but these women heartlessly exploited them."

Barbara Lieberman, a prominent 62-year-old elder law attorney from Northfield, and Jan Van Holt, a 57-year-old owner of an in-home senior care company from Linwood, were arrested on charges that they conspired to prey on elderly clients and steal their life savings.

Hoffman explained, "These defendants simply bled these victims dry."

Officials say the defendants targeted senior citizens with substantial assets, who typically didn't have any immediate family, and would offer them non-medical care, including financial and legal services.

The women then allegedly took control of their victim's finances by forging a power of attorney. Officials say the accused women added their names to the victims’ bank accounts, or transferred funds into new accounts.

"The amount that the defendants stole is truly shocking.  They allegedly stole close to half a million just from this one Margate couple. And Lieberman allegedly stole more than $600,000 from another Margate resident - a woman who was in her 90s," e90'sained Hoffman.

NBC40 talked to a man who identified himself as Van Holt's son, who says his mom is innocent, and blamed Lieberman for his mother's incarceration.

Eddie Van Holt said, "My mom has not stolen any money from them.  It's Barbara who has done the wills and stuff. My mom was only paid for her services…She would always choose clients who had no family."

 But officials say both women allegedly referred clients to each other, and used the trust gained with their clients to ultimately, steal their life savings…a scheme that had been going on for years.

"What they did was nothing short of evil - even stealing from these victims after they had passed away," said Hoffman.

Van Holt’s sister, 58-year-old Sondra Steen of Linwood, and a former employee 55-year-old Susan Hamlett of Egg Harbor Township, who worked for them as an aid for elderly clients, were also arrested and charged in the case.  These two women were charged with second-degree theft by deception.

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Atlantic Co. lawyer, owner of senior care company charged with stealing millions from elderly clients

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Women from Northfield, Linwood accused of stealing assets of elderly

Women from Northfield, Linwood accused of stealing assets of elderly

Lieberman & Van Holt

A Northfield attorney and a former Atlantic County social worker were supposed to help elderly clients with financial and legal services, but instead stole their money to buy cars, vacation homes and pay off six-digit credit card bills, according to charges announced Thursday.

Barbara Lieberman, 62, and Jan Van Holt, 57, of Linwood, were arrested Wednesday for taking more than $2.4 million from 10 victims beginning in 2006, acting Attorney General John Hoffman said. Nine of the victims — all from Atlantic County and in their 80s or 90s — have died. A Cape May Court House woman who allegedly had $20,000 taken from her is now 88 years old.

Two other women are charged with helping the enterprise, including Van Holt’s sister, Sondra Steen, 58, of Linwood. The fourth woman, Susan Hamlett, was the one who sparked the investigation, said her attorney, Stephen Funk.

“It is, therefore, somewhat baffling that she is included in this indictment,” he said. “She is a conscientious employee, not a criminal.”

Hamlett worked for Van Holt’s A Better Choice, an in-home senior service that offered nonmedical help to seniors, including legal and financial planning.

Van Holt and Lieberman allegedly referred clients to one another, targeting seniors with substantial assets and no immediate family.

Van Holt even used her former position with Atlantic County Adult Protective Services, which she left in 2006, to find at least one victim, according to the charges. A 94-year-old died in a nursing home because she could no longer afford the payments on her Ventnor home after Steen allegedly took out a $195,000 reverse mortgage, claiming to be the woman’s niece.

“These defendants were wolves in sheep’s clothing,” said Elie Honig, director of the Division of Criminal Justice. “(They entered) the lives of their vulnerable victims as caregivers, only to shamelessly steal all they owned.

Lieberman — a leading specialist in elder law in Atlantic County — met one of her alleged victims while giving a legal seminar to seniors at Atlantic City’s Jeffries Tower, where the woman lived. The woman lost $320,000 after hiring Van Holt, who then got power of attorney and was named executrix of the woman’s will. She continued to be robbed even after her death in an Atlantic City nursing home, according to the charges.

Lieberman would prepare powers of attorney and draft wills for the victims, giving herself or one of the other defendants power of attorney in some cases, according to the charges. She even transferred some of the victims’ money into her Interest on Lawyers Trust Account — which is supposed to be maintained as a safeguard for funds entrusted to lawyers. Checks from that account were allegedly then cut to Lieberman or one of the other defendants.

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Women from Northfield, Linwood accused of stealing assets of elderly

LaClaire sentenced for thefts, but prison time already served

BRATTLEBORO --A former caretaker at a Brattleboro care home was sentenced to prison time on Friday for stealing thousands of dollars from an elderly resident's credit-card account. 


Jodi LaClaire, 39, of Bennington, N.H., received a mostly suspended jail sentence in favor of probation. And, because she had been charged and later acquitted of murdering the same resident, LaClaire already has served all or most of the two years of mandatory jail time ordered by Judge David Suntag for the thefts.

The sentence disappointed the family of the 83-year-old victim, Nita Lowery. But Suntag said he could not -- in spite of continuing argument to the contrary from prosecutors -- consider evidence of Lowery's death when sentencing LaClaire for financial exploitation.

"I don't believe the evidence in this case, frankly, established ... that Ms. LaClaire was criminally responsible for the death of Ms. Lowery," Suntag said.

Jurors who heard LaClaire's case in September agreed with that assessment, acquitting her of second-degree murder and abuse of a vulnerable adult in connection with Lowery's death on April 1, 2009.

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LaClaire sentenced for thefts, but prison time already served