By Alex Bridges
WOODSTOCK — A jury acquitted a Shenandoah County woman Tuesday of charges of taking money from a man diagnosed with dementia.
Tracy
Ann Phillips faced 21 charges of financial exploitation of a vulnerable
adult. Phillip’s two-day trial began Monday in Shenandoah County
Circuit Court. Winchester attorney Charles I. Billman represented
Phillips. Shenandoah County Assistant Commonwealth Attorney John G.
Cadden prosecuted the case.
Jurors found Phillips not guilty on all counts on Tuesday night.
A grand jury handed up indictments on May 10 charging Phillips, 58,
of Basye, on 19 felony counts of financial exploitation of a vulnerable
adult for $1,000 or more, and two misdemeanor counts of the same charge
for less than $1,000.
Authorities accused Phillips of taking
approximately $40,000 from her friend Harold Fossett over a two-year
span ending in the summer of 2022. Phillips was suspended from her job
as a teacher at North Fork Middle School when she was indicted.
Shenandoah County Public Schools Superintendent Melody Sheppard did not
respond to an email Wednesday asking about Phillips’ employment status.
At
the trial, the prosecution needed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
that Phillips took money from Fossett knowing that he has been diagnosed
with dementia and that she permanently deprived him of the funds.
Cadden said in his closing argument that Phillips knew of Fossett’s
diagnosis and his declining health while she took money from Fossett
almost every month.
Fossett and Phillips had an arrangement by
which she would deposit checks from his pension into a joint bank
account, evidence introduced at the trial showed. The prosecution
accused Phillips of then transferring money into her separate account.
Cadden showed jurors a series of checks signed by Fossett that were made
out to and endorsed by Phillips for amounts ranging from $200 to
$3,700. Most checks were written out for $1,000.
The Loudoun County Department of Social Service opened an adult
protective service case in the summer of 2022 in response to concerns by
Fossett’s family members who said that Phillips had been taking money
from the man’s account. Fossett’s brother, Kenneth, told Phillips to
stop taking money from the account, which she did. However, Cadden
argued that Phillips did not return the money once she was notified she
was the subject of the protective services investigation.
“So I
don’t understand how it’s possible to know that you have this
investigation going ... and you still don’t return the money,” Cadden
said.
Billman argued that the prosecution, even by its own
evidence, did not prove its case. Billman said that Fossett, in his own
words, knew Phillips took money out of the joint account. Fossett
testified at the trial, despite an effort by the commonwealth to declare
him incompetent to do so.
“You saw Harold, right there,
repeatedly saying ‘I gave her the money,’” Billman said. “When she
opened a new account, Harold said right there, ‘I knew that. I was
sitting right next to her ...
“Are we going to completely discount
Harold in this, the victim?” Billman said. “He testified twice. Not
once did he say, ‘you know what, I’ve been taken advantage of.’”
Fossett
said in notes written prior to the trial that he and Phillips had the
arrangement and to blame him, not her, for any problems related to his
finances.
Moreover, Billman said, the prosecutor failed to prove
Phillips knew Fossett had dementia because the diagnosis had not been
made until September 2022, after the period in which the commonwealth
claimed she exploited Fossett. Phillips stopped taking money from
Fossett when members of his family told her to, Billman said.
Full Article & Source:
Jury acquits woman accused of stealing from a man with dementia
