Washington Man Found Guilty Of Swindling Nearly $1M From Elderly Widow, Leaving Her Facing Foreclosure

In Vancouver, Washington, The Columbian reported last Friday:

• A Vancouver man was convicted Friday of scamming an elderly widow out of nearly $1 million over five years by wildly overcharging for home-improvement projects and convincing her she was investing in other properties. In what’s believed to be the largest theft case prosecuted in Clark County, a jury [...] deliberated 2 hours before finding Richard M. Amaro guilty of 12 counts of first-degree theft, three counts of contracting without a license and two counts of second-degree theft.

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• During three days of testimony, jurors heard how Amaro befriended Pamela Leibel in 2002 after knocking on her door in the Fairway Village retirement community in east Vancouver and offering to clean her gutters. Over the next five years he did projects at her home at incredibly inflated costs, for example charging $130,000 to rebuild her deck twice. A licensed contractor testified that he would have bid $6,700 for the project.

In an earlier story, The Columbian reported:

• In November 2007, by the time Detective Jane Easter from the Vancouver Police Department found out about the case, “[The widow] was down to eating a packet of oatmeal, split three ways, for her meals,” [Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jim] David said. And her home, which she had owned outright, was in foreclosure because she’d taken out a $285,000 mortgage in order to keep paying Amaro. [...] An attorney did help [the widow] save her home.

For more, see:

• Man convicted in $1 million scam (Handyman bilked elderly woman over five-year period),
• Trial begins in alleged $981,000 swindle of elderly Vancouver woman.

For story update (11-13-08), see Seattle Times: Man sentenced for scamming Vancouver woman (A man who scammed $981,000 from an elderly woman was sentenced in Vancouver to nine years in prison).

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