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Lou Nelson, right, learned after the death of her mother, Grace Sweet, that Sweet’s in-home caregiver had gambled away Sweet’s savings. Financial exploitation is the most common form of elder abuse in Oregon.
Seniors are Targets for Financial Exploitation
By Alan Gustafson, The Statesman Journal
January 26, 2004
Grace Sweet carved out a productive niche in a silent world.
It wasn’t easy.
Born into poverty, Sweet, as a young adult, was afflicted with a nerve-damaging condition that snuffed out her hearing.
Resilient in the face of adversity, Sweet taught herself to read lips, and deafness posed no hindrance to her skill with a sewing machine. She fashioned a profitable career by making draperies, quilts and purses.
Personifying a generation steeled by the Great Depression, Sweet worked hard, lived frugally and saved well.
But she died broke.
Shortly before her death, Sweet, 90, was fleeced by a caregiver who blew her hard-earned savings on a gambling habit.
“It’s terrible the way she was exploited,” said Lou Nelson of Salem, Sweet’s daughter and only child. “I think that happens in a lot of these cases. A con person sees vulnerability and takes advantage of an older person.”
In fact, financial exploitation is the most common type of elder abuse in Oregon, said Joyce DeMonin, coordinator of the Elder Safe Program in the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, which tracks crimes committed against older people.
“It’s surprisingly easy to get money from an older person,” DeMonin said. “I always think, why would you rob a bank when you can just make friends with an older person and rip them off really easily.”
Blind in one eye, deaf and widowed, Sweet posed an easy mark for exploitation.
Tapping into Sweet’s savings with an ATM card, caregiver Karen Sutton drained tens of thousands of dollars from her bank account during a six-month spree, court records show.
Investigators determined Sutton left Sweet alone for long hours while she squandered $25,000 at the Wildhorse Gaming Casino in Eastern Oregon.
When Sweet died in October 1999, her bank account was empty. She went to her grave not knowing that she had been ripped off and that her last checks bounced because of a lack of funds.
Sweet’s death set off no alarm bells because the plundering of her finances had not yet been detected. Accordingly, no official inquiry was conducted into her death.
Scam targets
Sweet’s case may sound like an extreme example of elder abuse. But it’s far from unique.
Swindlers, con artists and unscrupulous caregivers increasingly are preying on seniors.
“Elders are the dominant target group for most forms of scams,” said Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers.
Older people’s courtly manners can play into the hands of wily peddlers and swindlers, he said.
Saying no “strikes them as impolite,” Myers said. “It’s just not good manners. For that reason, more than for any reasons of mental incapacity, I think, they tend to be more responsive and fertile targets for efforts to steal money.”
Thrifty people like Sweet lose their savings through home-repair ripoffs, investment scams, bogus foreign lotteries, pyramid schemes and brazen acts of theft.
Consider these trends:
· Since 1993, cases of financial exploitation of older Oregonians have more than tripled to nearly 1,500 a year.
· According to the Federal Trade Commission, at least 80 percent of the nation’s telemarketing fraud victims are 65 or older, with con artists bilking most victims for between $5,000 and $20,000.
· Nationally, reported incidents of identity theft involving victims over the age of 60 shot up by 218 percent in a single year, from 2000 to 2001.
Con artists and identity thieves aren’t the only ones stealing from seniors. All too often, family members and hired caregivers are the culprits.
Family members are responsible for more than 30 percent of all elder abuse cases, research indicates.
In some cases, particularly those involving family members and caregivers, money changes hands amid murky circumstances.
“It’s very difficult for all of us to figure out,” DeMonin said. “When does it become a gift? When is it really a loan? When does it become a crime? All those issues are difficult to tease out.”
Equally complex are the dynamics that come into play when trusted caregivers exploit their vulnerable charges. Lavishing attention on a lonely, dependent older person can provide thieves with easy access to credit cards, ATM cards, bank accounts and investments.
“This is sort of like the Stockholm Syndrome,” DeMonin said. “The money starts flowing because the victim has totally become emotionally dependent, sometimes even physically dependent, on a perpetrator.”
Getting older
Grace Sweet was no pushover.
From childhood poverty in Texas through complications of old age in Eastern Oregon, she exuded prickly self-confidence.
“She knew how things were supposed to go and, by golly, that’s the way they were going to go,” said Lou Nelson, her daughter. “It was her way or no way.”
Intent on making her own way, Sweet honed skills that produced lifelong benefits: lip reading; mastery at the sewing machine; growing fresh produce in her own garden; putting up canned food supplies.
Deafness imposed no limitations on Sweet’s industriousness. During World War II, she served as a civil service worker stationed at a military supply depot in California. In later decades, she toiled as a skilled seamstress and upholstery worker.
Uncomfortable in large groups — too many lips to track — Sweet favored one-on-one conversation. She liked to socialize by playing gin rummy, fishing and drinking beer with friends at taverns.
Engaging and generous with casual acquaintances and friends, Sweet sometimes alienated loved ones with her strong-willed, demanding demeanor. Five marriages failed before she tied a lasting knot that endured for three decades.
Sweet and her husband liked to travel, but they mostly led a simple, down-home existence. In Pendleton, they raised chickens and sold eggs to earn a few extra dollars. Ever industrious, Sweet peddled her homemade purses to tavern patrons.
During the 1990s, Sweet’s life became increasingly unhappy. Her husband died and her health deteriorated.
As her self-sufficiency waned, Sweet demanded that her daughter tend to her needs by providing in-home care.
Nelson, then living near her mother in Pendleton, refused to bend to her iron will.
“Every time she got unhappy, she wanted me to come home and live with her,” Nelson said. “This was an ongoing battle. She just thought it was my duty, regardless of what I was doing, to come home and take care of her.”
Nelson left Pendleton in 1997 and moved to California. Nelson said she invited Sweet to move south, too. She offered to help her find a pleasant care facility.
Sweet, who harbored depression-era memories of shabby poor houses and rest homes, shot down the idea. “Oh no,” she said. “You’re not going to put me in a home.”
Caregiver dependence
Sweet had little to celebrate when she turned 90 in January 1999. After shattering her thigh bone in a fall, she was often confined to a wheelchair. Emphysema, arthritis, ulcers and other ailments eroded her health.
Frustration set in as her world narrowed.
“She’s deaf. She’s blind. And now she’s in a wheelchair,” Nelson said. “She was just angry — not at anybody in particular, just her circumstances.”
Sweet used a TTY device to maintain a strained, long-distance telephone relationship with her daughter. Feeling abandoned, she often scolded Nelson.
“My mother became increasingly antagonistic toward me and to her very good friends,” Nelson said. “She resented us all for not coming into her home and providing care.”
True to form, Sweet hired and fired a succession of in-home caregivers who failed to pass her tough-minded standards.
Sweet opened her door to caregiver Karen Sutton in March 1999. It became a contentious issue, driving a bigger wedge between Sweet and her daughter.
To Sweet’s way of thinking, Sutton was a godsend.
“No one could say anything bad to her about this woman,” Nelson said. “As far as she was concerned, this woman was an angel.”
Nelson acknowledged that the caregiver presented herself as a kind-hearted Good Samaritan. “She appeared to be a very clean, well-spoken, pleasant, agreeable person.”
But Nelson, formerly employed as an accountant for a nursing home chain, grew worried as Sutton deflected phone calls and shielded Sweet from outside contact.
“When I worked in that industry, I saw a lot of potential for elder abuse,” Nelson said. “I saw family members ingratiating themselves with a lot of elderly, dependent people...I think that’s what triggered a lot of my suspicions. She ingratiated herself with my mother to the point that I was pretty sure some shenanigans were going on, but I didn’t have anything concrete.”
Unbeknownst to Nelson, Sutton’s life was in disarray. In 1999, court records show, she was estranged from her husband, then the chief financial officer at the Wildhorse Gaming Casino, because he was fed up with her gambling habit.
The Suttons individually filed for bankruptcy in March 1999. That same month, Karen Sutton started working for Sweet.
To Nelson’s dismay, Sweet shunned friends and family as she became utterly dependent on Sutton.
Nelson voiced her concerns to Adult Protective Services workers in Umatilla County. Caseworkers paid a visit to Sweet but detected no overt signs of mistreatment or abuse.
In fact, Sweet told them that Sutton was a life saver.
Abuse discovered
The looting of Sweet’s finances came to light only after she died in October 1999.
When Nelson checked her mother’s financial records, she was shocked by a bank employee’s assessment. “There is a little problem here,” she told Nelson. “All the checks are bouncing and all the money is gone.”
Investigators determined that $56,000 disappeared from Sweet’s accounts between March 1999 and her death about six months later.
At the Wildhorse Gaming Casino, $25,000 slipped away through ATM transactions — fodder for Sutton’s gambling habit.
Witnesses told investigators that they observed Sutton gambling at the casino “day in and day out,” court records show.
Sutton was charged with multiple counts of aggravated theft, forgery and criminal mistreatment.
Under terms of a plea bargain, she pleaded guilty to one count of criminal mistreatment.
After serving a short prison sentence, Sutton, 57, remains on post-prison supervision.
Nelson still has mixed feelings about the outcome. On the plus side, she said, this case of elder abuse, unlike most, was detected, prosecuted and punished.
A felony conviction does not bar Sutton from working as a privately paid caregiver. But it would pose a red flag for anyone doing a background check.
“That’s important,” Nelson said. “I wanted a prison record to pop up anytime that anybody looked into her background.”
By court order, Sutton is required to pay partial restitution — totaling $20,000 — to Nelson. That money, Nelson said, will go toward paying college education costs for Sweet’s two great-grandchildren.
Restitution can’t erase what happened to Sweet, though. And nagging questions persist for Nelson. What steps, if any, might have spared her from exploitation?
No reassuring answers have emerged.
“Gradually, I’ve come to terms with it,” Nelson said. “It was beyond anything I could do. My mother wanted this person in her home so badly that she was willing to drive off all of her friends and family. And no one could say anything bad to her about this woman or enlighten her to the dangers that she was posing.”
Protection tips
Advocates for senior citizens provide these tips on how to protect oneself from theft and fraud:
· Never sign anything you don’t understand. Have an attorney or trusted adviser review it.
· Stay socially active. Isolation increases your risk of becoming a victim.
· Be cautious of joint accounts and power of attorney agreements. Power of attorney is a legal document that puts your financial affairs into someone else’s hands. The power is easy to use, which means it’s also easy to abuse.
· Don’t give away property in exchange for promises of lifelong care. Document caregiver agreements and specify the compensation.
· Don’t give out your credit card number over the phone unless you placed the call.
· Shred or tear into small pieces all mail solicitations, bank records or any other discarded documents that contain identifying personal information.
· Be aware of scams. If you’re told you just won a prize, you probably haven’t, and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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