Connecticut Insurance Agent Accused Of Ripping Off Elderly Of Nest Eggs

In Waterbury, Connecticut, WFSB-TV Channel 3 reports:

• A Waterbury couple claims that their insurance agent and financial advisor stole their life savings. Michael and Elizabeth Santopietro said that they trusted Tom Cipriano to help them invest their funds, but said that he took the money and spent it. The I-Team uncovered allegations that Watertown's Cipriano has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from elderly investors.

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• The I-Team uncovered a lawsuit filed by the estate of Elizabeth Karas-Bartolini. The suit claims that the cancer patient was convinced to make a $25,000 investment loan to Cipriano in 2006. Her lawyer said that she died without collecting any of the promised $500 monthly payments.

• Donato Mancini said that Cipriano convinced him to empty his IRA in return for a promise of 12 percent interest. He said he hasn't seen his money since. Mancini's attorney called Cipriano "immoral, oppressive and unscrupulous."

• [Cipriano's attorney, Alfred] Morrocco said that all of the loans were financial transactions among friends, although when the I-Team pressed, he admitted that he didn't know how Cipriano knew any of the people who loaned him money.

• That question is answered in the lawsuit filed by 92-year-old James Frawley and his 91-year-old wife, Eleanor. They said they had never heard of Cipriano when he called out of the blue and convinced them to loan him money.

For more, see Insurance Agent Accused Of Stealing Nest Eggs (I-Team Uncovers Years Of Allegations).

For story update, see Attorney General Picks Up I-Team Report (Blumenthal Launches Investigation Into Financial Adviser).

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