92-Year Old Victim Of Alleged C. Florida House Swindle Gives Emotional Testimony In Criminal Trial; Says She Unwittingly Signed Deed To Her Home

In New Port Richey, Florida, The Tampa Tribune reports:

• Time has taken away some of Eloise Mudway's physical and mental abilities. She has difficulty recalling names, dates and times; struggles to hear and gets around only with the help of a wheelchair. Fortunately, she has retained a healthy sense of humor. Eloise Mudway, 92, needed it [Thursday] as she spent more than three hours on the witness stand answering a barrage of questions from Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis and defense attorneys Dean Livermore and Mark Goettel. "God help me," she said during one break in her testimony. Livermore and Goettel represent Cynthia and Joseph Clancy, a local couple prosecutors contend swindled Mudway out of her $370,000 house and other assets between 2001 and 2005.(1)

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• Mudway answered with an emphatic "no" when asked if Cynthia Clancy ever explained to her that she was signing a quit-claim deed to save the house from default. "I never heard tell of a quit-claim deed," Mudway testified. "She just brought the paper out, shoved it in front of me and said, 'Sign this. I'm getting mad.'" The Clancys continue to live in the house while Mudway lives with another local couple.

For more, see Elderly woman testifies in Pasco grand theft case.

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See also, the St. Petersburg Times: Elderly victim gives emotional testimony in Pasco County grand theft trial:

• The prosecutor handed Eloise Mudway the quit claim deed with her signature transferring her home to someone else. Sitting in her wheelchair, Mudway looked at the paper and fought back the tears. "Do you remember Cyndy Clancy taking you to Wachovia Bank?" asked Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis. "A piece of paper was put in front of me," replied the 92-year-old woman, whose voice cracked as she blotted her eyes with tissue, "and old dumb me signed it and didn't have a house anymore." [...] After her testimony, Mudway was wheeled out of the courtroom by a victim's advocate.

(1) The Clancys are each charged with one count of grand theft from a person over 65 and both face a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. FinancialAbuseOfElderlyAlpha DeedContraTheft