Financial Exploitation of the Elderly

I've recently finished reading this excellent book describing how the elderly become victims of financial abuse.  The author, Joe Roubicek, was a detective in the Fort Lauderdale Police Department for many years, and he investigated over 1000 cases of exploitation of the elderly during that period on the police force.  The book describes some of the cases he investigated and discusses the shortcomings of state laws protecting the elderly from financial abuse.

Roubicek clarifies the differences between exploitation of the elderly and fraud.  Exploitation occurs when someone takes advantage of a disabled elderly person to deprive that person of his or her assets.  For example, an in-home caregiver might take advantage of her employer's memory deficits to ask for grocery money five times in a single day.  Fraud occurs when a "false and deceptive statement of fact induces the victim to give up a valuable item that he or she owns."  Fraud laws are written under the assumption that the victim has the mental capacity to weigh information and make decisions.  For example, if a roofing contractor takes a deposit for work on a house with quality materials and workmanship and returns to do the job with defective materials, then fraud may have occurred.

Unfortunately, financial elder abuse often occurs in the gray area between the fraud and the exploitation statutes.  Many of the cases described in the book involve victims who lived alone and were stripped of their assets by contractors, care givers, and others.  It was often difficult for the police to prove that the victim lacked mental capacity at the time of the asset transfers, which is a crucial element of a conviction for exploitation.  At the same time, the police could not make a case for fraud because the assets were typically "gifted" to the recipient, and there was no provable deception.  This gray area gives a huge advantage to elder abusers who gain the trust of mentally and physically feeble victims and then strip them of their assets. 

This situation reinforces the importance of having friends or relatives monitoring the mental as well as the physical condition of the elderly.  It's also a call to action to plan for possible mental infirmity by setting up durable powers of attorney to designate trusted people to manage your financial affairs if you do become incompetent.

One of the very interesting sections was Myths about elder financial abuse.  They are:

1. Exploiters usually have criminal records.  Roubicek found that the majority of the suspects he investigated did not have criminal records and that many had reputable backgrounds.  One was even a Catholic priest and another was a court-appointed guardian.  However, most of these abusers had financial troubles and viewed their elderly victims as the solutions to their money troubles.  This also means that having a criminal background check performed on an in-home caregiver might not dramatically reduce the risk of financial abuse.
2. The greater the victim's income level, the greater the risk of exploitation.  Roubicek found that all income levels were represented in the cases he worked.  Some of the amounts stolen were as little at $50 and other amounts were over $1M.
3. Elderly persons with mental disabilities process information slower but their experience and wisdom offset this mental processing issue.  Roubicek says that elderly people who have short-term memory loss or other mental infirmities lack the capacity to understand financial issues and lack the capacity to give consent to financial transactions.  Wisdom and experience does not help the folks afflicted with memory deficits.

This is not a feel-good book about how the police and state laws protect the elderly.  Many of the suspects in Detective Roubicek's cases get away with their abuse because of the difficulties associated with proving exploitation.  The book is a wake up call to protect yourself and the elderly people you care about.

Financial Abuse of the Elderly is written in the same straightforward style that Detective Roubicek probably used in his police reports and court testimony.  There are some grammatical mistakes, but they don't detract from this very interesting and timely book.   If you have elderly parents, relatives, or friends, I recommend that you read this book, and then use this information to help your elderly loved ones protect themselves from financial abusers.