Task force tackles elder fraud, abuse
BY ROY WENZL
The Wichita Eagle
In 2003 a man named John Hartley began conning money out of Mildred Patterson, an elderly Wichita woman suffering from dementia.
Not many people know this, but bank employees all over Wichita and elsewhere are trained to watch for little red flags showing that a predator is stealing from elderly customers.
Banker Margie McFrederick says they watch for elderly customers coming in regularly to withdraw money with the "help" of some non-relative who does all the talking. They watch for seniors suddenly making a lot of small, unexplained withdrawals of savings they depend upon for survival. They know that scam artists call confused and trusting elderly people at home, pretending to be from a bank, asking them for their social security and bank account numbers.
"One of the worst parts about this is that the elderly involved are from a generation that trusted people, and has a lot of pride," said McFrederick, a vice president at Emprise bank. "So they often don't report it when they are robbed."
Authorities estimate that as many as 3,500 Sedgwick County elderly people are robbed every year by scam artists, or family "caregivers" or other thieves. As the Baby Boom generation ages, they fear a coming deluge of these crimes.
Only a fraction of these crimes get reported, authorities say.
Authorities arrested Hartley in January 2008, his son said. By the time Dana Gouge, Tania Groover and other members of the District Attorney's Office team finished prosecuting Hartley in the summer, they estimated he'd defrauded Mildred Patterson of as much as $67,000, by using her credit cards and taking from her in other ways. He'd done this in part by persuading her to let him take care of her financial affairs, police said.
Ray Patterson, her son, is convinced he may have stolen as much as $100,000 from his mother, a former registered nurse.
John Hartley pleaded guilty and is on probation for taking from Mildred Patterson.
Patterson did not live to see the prosecution of the man who gained her trust to steal from her. She died in January 2007, at age 81.
Abridged
SOURCE: Kansas.com - KS,USA
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