Four charged with stealing more than $80K from elderly
TRENTON » Four people have been charged with financially exploiting elderly, disabled residents.
“Instead of providing the care and assistance these elderly victims needed, the defendants allegedly preyed on them by stealing tens of thousands of dollars the victims were counting on to support them in their senior years,” Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a written statement. “Financial exploitation of the elderly is a growing problem that will not be tolerated in New Jersey.”
Tamerlane Amon, 38, formerly employed by Alaris Health at Hamilton Park, and his mother-in-law Marilyn Duran, 63, were charged with conspiracy, forgery and theft by deception for allegedly stealing $34,100 from a 75-year-old male assigned to Amon’s care at the facility. The charges were issued by a state grand jury in Trenton last week.
According to the charges, Amon was working as a Certified Nurse Aide at a rehabilitation facility in April 2017 when he took a checkbook belonging to a male patient. Amon allegedly filled out and signed several checks in the victim’s name. He gave the checks to Duran who opened a bank account in order to cash the checks. The two allegedly cashed and/or attempted to cash the checks in a series of transactions at various bank branches.
In a separate indictment issued Friday, a Willingboro couple was charged with stealing $49,500 from the bank account of an elderly relative living in a Burlington County nursing home.
Mythi Ly-McKinney, 50, and husband Todd McKinney, 47, were charged with conspiracy, forgery, theft by deception and attempted theft by deception for allegedly stealing funds from Ly-McKinney’s 79-year-old godfather whose finances she helped manage.
According to prosecutors, Ly-McKinney’s godfather, who lived in a nursing home, relied on her for assistance in writing checks to pay his bills. While she had access to her godfather’s checkbook, Ly-McKinney allegedly wrote checks to
herself and her husband’s business without her godfather’s knowledge or consent. Her husband allegedly endorsed and deposited the check into his businesses bank account.
The indictments were obtained by the Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which receives federal funding to investigate and prosecute Medicaid provider fraud as well as the abuse or neglect of Medicaid patients, or patients who reside in facilities that receive Medicaid funding.