Nicole Freeman Smith was working at St. Mary’s Court, a housing development in Northwest D.C. with about 100 affordable homes for seniors, when she gained access to the bank accounts of an elderly resident of the property — a woman in her 90s who had serious difficulty with her vision, according to court documents.
She proceeded to take tens of thousands of dollars from the woman, who is referred to in the case by the initials J.E.G.
According to court documents, Smith took money from the woman’s accounts multiple times, including $4,000 to pay down a credit card, another $1,000 for a Pepco bill at her home, $33,000 to pay off a car loan in full, and another $40,000 to pay off another car loan for a friend. The investigation also surfaced another victim – a resident of a different property where Smith previously worked.
In the end, Smith pleaded guilty to two charges: a felony charge and a misdemeanor charge for financially exploiting a vulnerable or elderly adult. She admitted to stealing more than $130,000 from the victims and has agreed to pay more than $150,000 in restitution and civil penalties. She is awaiting sentencing.
“She had a momentary lapse in judgment and she took responsibility for it on the criminal side pretty quickly … I think we had one status hearing and she just came in and just accepted the responsibility,” said Smith’s attorney, Raymond Jones. “She considered them both really close friends,” he added, referring to the victims.
Smith’s case is one of three recently resolved elder financial exploitation cases D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb announced Thursday. Schwalb’s office filed civil lawsuits in all three cases, and the U.S. Attorney for D.C. prosecuted two of the cases criminally. In a separate case, Tyronne Taylor pleaded guilty to stealing about $50,000 from a cognitively impaired family member who was hospitalized at a nursing home. Taylor’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment. In the third, the D.C. Attorney General’s office sued Tracey Turner, the owner of the construction and real-estate development company Turner Development, for allegedly coercing his elderly neighbor into loaning him large amounts of money to benefit himself and his company and never paying it back. While the defendant agreed to pay restitution and avoid further financial transactions with the neighbor, he has not admitted liability in that lawsuit and told DCist/WAMU its claims were completely baseless.
Schwalb’s office is publicly announcing the cases’ resolutions in part to spread awareness about financial exploitation of seniors and elder abuse — and how D.C. seniors and their loved ones can seek help if they’ve been taken advantage of.
“Unfortunately, scamming is becoming more and more prolific,” Schwalb tells DCist/WAMU. “The creativity and the imagination that scammers are using seems to be limitless. And so unfortunately, with so many people dependent on the internet and on cell phone and iPhone use, there are lots of ways for people to take advantage of others.”
A spokesperson for Schwalb’s office says that so far this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, OAG has received more than 490 referrals for financial exploitation of elders – an increase from last fiscal year when the office received 370 referrals throughout the entire year.
Schwalb attributes this increase in part to an increase in scamming and in part to an increase in awareness of the ways to report elder abuse.
Still, researchers believe the problem goes vastly underreported. Schwalb says he thinks seniors in particular can be ashamed to report abuse. Close relationships between abusers and victims can further complicate reporting.
“Any one of us would be embarrassed if we’ve been taken advantage of, but sometimes seniors in particular are ashamed,” Schwalb says. “They may be being taken advantage of by people who are close to them or who they rely on to take care of them — family members or caregivers or property managers who they feel beholden to.”
Additionally, some seniors don’t even realize it’s happening to them — and others decide not to report abuse because they “feel like if they admit they’ve been taken advantage of, they may lose some of their independence in terms of living and making decisions for themselves,” Schwalb says.
The cases the D.C. Attorney General’s office receives tend to be a mix of scams committed by strangers and financial exploitation involving family or other people with relationships to the victims.
In addition to pursuing cases involving individuals, like those announced today, Schwalb says his office is interested in targeting businesses that have a pattern of taking advantage of seniors.
“I’m very interested in really addressing some of the businesses and business practices that are targeting seniors,” he says. “Because that allows us to hopefully prevent larger numbers of seniors from being taken advantage of, whether it’s in telemarketing, it’s in health care, property management and other things where many, many seniors might be victims of bad acting.”
Residents who witness or experience suspected elder abuse can file a report with Adult Protective Services (APS) by calling the 24-hour hotline at (202) 541-3950, file a police report with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) by calling the police at (202) 265-9100, or contact OAG’s Civil Rights and Elder Justice Section at (202) 727-3807 or elderjustice@dc.gov.
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