St Paul man gets jail time for bilking ill mother
Man got a reverse mortgage, didn't pay medical bills
By Emily Gurnon
06/05/2009
Larry Bekis, the St. Paul man who took out a $100,000 reverse mortgage on his elderly mother's home while failing to pay $49,000 in her Roseville nursing home bills, was sentenced Thursday to 30 days in jail.
Bekis, 51, asked to be allowed to wait a week to start serving his time, until his 16-year-old daughter finished school. Ramsey County District Judge Paulette Flynn denied the request.
Bekis pleaded guilty April 24 to theft by swindle in the first case prosecuted by the Ramsey County attorney's office's new elder-abuse unit.
The woman, identified in the criminal complaint by her initials, N.G.B., was placed in the Rose of Sharon nursing home in October 2006 with progressive dementia. She had given her son power of attorney earlier that year to pay her bills and manage her Lauderdale home.
For the first several months, the woman's HMO paid the nursing home bills. When Bekis was scheduled to take over that duty in March 2007, the payments stopped.
When he finally wrote a check in August 2007 for $2,500, it bounced, the complaint said.
At one point, Bekis told the Rose of Sharon business manager that he would sell his mother's house to pay the bill. Instead, he took out a reverse mortgage, removing $100,000 in equity and paying none of it for his mother's care, the complaint said.
The nursing home called the county's adult-protection department, which learned Bekis was collecting his mother's Social Security and pension checks totaling $3,000 a month.
After March 2008, the county took over the woman's care under a hardship provision.
If Bekis fulfills terms of his five-year probation, the felony charge will revert to the less-serious charge of a gross misdemeanor on his record.
Flynn said she would not oppose electronic home monitoring or work release during Bekis' jail time if probation authorizes it.
The question of restitution was left open for 90 days.
SOURCE: TwinCities.com
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