Seattle-Area Prosecutors Charge Man With Bilking $600K From 96 Year Old Widow With Alzheimer's

In Washington State, The Seatlle Times reports:

• A White Center businessman who presided over the liquidation of an elderly woman's $1.5 million estate was charged with felony theft Thursday, three years after her friends discovered she was penniless and days away from foreclosure. Tyrone Dash, 59, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of stealing from Frances Joy Taylor, a 96-year-old widow with Alzheimer's who went bankrupt after turning her financial affairs over to Dash, according to charging documents filed by the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

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• The case is unusual both in its complexity and in the financial devastation that befell Taylor, an otherwise-frugal woman who enjoyed traveling and donating to her church. She was remarkably independent, but as her dementia progressed, she turned her personal and financial affairs over to Dash, withdrew from longtime friends, and became increasingly secretive and unkempt, according to the 192-page document filed Thursday.

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• The charges are the result of a three-year investigation [which] began in March 2005 when Taylor's friends discovered that two apartment buildings Taylor owned had been sold, and her house was in foreclosure. Those friends helped Taylor file bankruptcy to stave off the foreclosure, and began piecing together the circumstances of her financial downfall.

For more, see Man charged with bilking 96-year-old of $600,000.

For story update (3-28-08), see Not-guilty plea in theft from Seattle woman with Alzheimer's.

Go here for the earlier Seattle Times investigative report on The Fleecing of Frances Taylor.

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