Friday, February 29, 2008

Two L.I. Women Charged With Pocketing $800K In Refinance, Forgery Scam, Says DA; 93 Year Old Alzheimer's Victim Now Faces Foreclosure

In New York City, the North Country Gazette reports:

  • Two Long Island women, one of whom has since relocated to Pennsylvania, have been charged under New York State’s Hate Crime Law with stealing a total of $800,000 from a 93-year-old Queens man suffering from Alzheimer’s disease by fraudulently refinancing a property that he owned in Bayside to steal its equity and by using a “straw buyer” to steal his primary residence in Jamaica, Queens, out from under him. One of the women is also charged with stealing the elderly man’s identity to apply for credit cards in his name.

The suspects, Alexandra Gilmore, 36, formerly of Massapequa, Long Island and presently of 1550 Clark St., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Rebecca Tharpe, 30, of Brentwood, Long Island are variously charged with multiple counts of:

  1. second-degree grand larceny as a hate crime,
  2. second-degree grand larceny,
  3. second-degree criminal possession of stolen property,
  4. second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument,
  5. first-degree falsifying business records, and
  6. first-degree and second-degree identity theft.

The prosecution is being handled by the Queens District Attorney's Office. For the details of the alleged scam, see:

Go here , here , here , and here for other posts on elder financial abuse.

Go here and go here for other posts on deed theft by forgery, swindle, etc. deed theft yahtzee whale