MILLION DOLLAR SCAMMERS
TEAM CHARGED WITH FLEECING ELDERLY CLIENTS
MEDIA COURTHOUSE >> A former Democratic candidate for Delaware County Council, his wife and her sister were charged Monday in a scheme to embezzle more than $1 million from approximately 112 elderly victims through courtappointed guardianships.
Pastors Keith and Carolyn Collins, of the Church of the Overcomer in Trainer, and Gloria F. Byars, sister of Carolyn Collins, turned themselves in Monday morning on charges including theft, conspiracy, receiving stolen property and failure to make required dispensation of funds.
“Gloria Byars, Keith Collins and Carolyn Collins were entrusted to care for our most vulnerable elderly citizens,” said Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun Copeland at a press conference announcing the charges. “Instead of simply doing their jobs, they cruelly embezzled over $1 million from over 100 incapacitated individuals, people who could not make decisions for themselves.”
The total amount of fraud alleged comes to $1,009,172 and involves 108 victims in Philadelphia, Delaware, Bucks, Berks, Montgomery and Lancaster counties. Copeland indicated another four victims from Philadelphia would also be included in those roles. All of the victims are over the age of 60 and many are in their 80s and 90s, she said.
“Gloria Byars, Keith Collins and Carolyn Collins were entrusted to care for our most vulnerable elderly citizens. Instead of simply doing their jobs, they cruelly embezzled over $1 million from over 100 incapacitated individuals, people who could not make decisions for themselves.”
— Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun Copeland
“The impact of Byars’ and the Collins’ actions were far reaching, depleting significant amounts of monies from their wards from six different counties,” Copeland said. “To add insult to injury, Keith and Carolyn Collins, as pastors, used their church to help funnel the stolen money, betraying not only their duties as court appointed guardians but their duties as ministers of God.”
Copeland said the defendants used the ill-gotten gains on personal expenses including luxury cars, highend clothing and accessories from Louis Viton, Jimmy Choo and Coach, airline trips and Hilton Hotel stays worth thousands of dollars, and a time share.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, Byars was hired as an office manager for RES Consulting by Robert Stump in 2008.
Stump learned in August 2015 that Byars had opened a TD Bank account under the name of a person for whom RES had been assigned as guardian, according to the affidavit. The account allegedly listed Byars as power of attorney for that victim. Stump allegedly reported that Byars did not have power of attorney, that he was the appointed guardian for that ward, and that his appointment superseded any legal power of attorney Byars might have.
The address associated with the TD bank account was changed in September 2016 to Byars’ address on the first block of Woodlawn Avenue in Aldan, according to the affidavit. Investigators say Stump fired Byars the following month and began reviewing cases she had handled, leading to the discovery of the account in the first victim’s name.
Stump also allegedly discovered Byars took files on cases where she assisted as a guardian from the RES office and had established a company called ICU Records and Billing, which the affidavit identifies as a “shell company.”
Byars had been added as a guardian on 10 cases about six months before she was fired, according to the affidavit, causing Philadelphia Services for the Aging to add her as a guardian on those cases and put her name into the system. After Byars was fired, Stump told investigators that he learned that she had used a company called Global Guardians for other guardianships.
Stump reported a fraud against Byars to Sgt. Anthony Ruggieri of the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division in December 2017, according to the affidavit. Delaware County Detective Edward Rosen was assigned the case in March and served a warrant on the first victim’s Transamerica accounts.
An analysis of transactions showed that more than
$182,000 had been transferred from the victim’s accounts between August 2015 and August 2016 to the TD Bank account set up by Byars, according to the affidavit.
Investigators executed additional warrants at businesses associated with Byars and Stump, including ICURB, Global Guardians and RES. Data and documents from those warrants was passed along to CID analyst Edward Lowitz, who allegedly uncovered $855,964 worth of unauthorized transactions where Byars deposited money intended for wards she and Stump were assigned to care for into ICURB.
The affidavit alleges no receipts or other documentation was present in any records obtained from RES to support any of those transfers.
Further investigation unveiled two other associated shell companies, ACC Medical and CWR Medical, which were allegedly used as passthroughs for additional funds. ACC Medical opened July 2, 2014, and closed April
21, 2016, according to the affidavit, while CWR Medical existed from May 1, 2015 through March 11, 2016.
Alesha Mitchell, an associate of Byars, was listed as the president of ACC Medical, according to the affidavit. Byars’ brother, Carlton Rembert, was CWR Medical’s listed manager, the affidavit says.
Investigators allegedly discovered 11 wards of Stump and Byars had made deposits into ACC Medical between September 2014 and February
2016 totaling $71,998. The affidavit says an analysis of the ACC Medical account showed withdrawals totaling $85,714, all of which were of a personal nature for things like Netflix, OnStar, Direct TV and restaurants.
Another $64,818 worth of deposits from wards of
Byars and Stump had allegedly been made into a SunTrust Bank account for CWR Medical. Withdrawals there likewise showed no medical purpose but were instead for things like trips, hotel stays, meals and personal bills, according to the affidavit.
Between June and December 2015, $75,405 worth of withdrawals were made from the CWR Medical SunTrust account, according to the affidavit, many just under a
$10,000 threshold that would trigger the bank to issue a currency transaction report with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Investigators also discovered $28,739 worth of checks had been issued from ICURB to the Church of the Overcomer between June 2015 and February 2017, according to the affidavit. Collins additionally received a $500 check directly from ICURB, according to the affidavit, and another $15,890 was allegedly directly funneled into the church from ICURB.
Keith and Carolyn Collins, of the first block of Princeton Avenue in Ridley Park, also owned and operated another guardianship company, Pinnacle Guardians LLC, according to the affidavits. Carolyn Collins allegedly deposited at least two checks from the bank accounts of two different wards in March 2016 totaling $8,986 into an ICURB account.
“As no services were provided by ICURB to anyone, it is unknown why checks would be made payable from Pinnacle Guardians to ICURB,” the affidavit states.
The affidavit for Carolyn Collins indicates Pinnacle was assigned to a 94-year-old ward living in a nursing home. The home complained in February
2017 that an outstanding bill was due and it had not been receiving the ward’s Social Security payments, according to the affidavit.
Pinnacle was stripped of all guardianship cases in Delaware County following a hearing before the Orphan’s Court that same month and an accounting of all Pinnacle guardianships was ordered, the affidavit says.
The investigation revealed approximately $33,000 had been improperly withdrawn from the accounts of the
94-year-old victim between December 2015 and June 2017 alone, according to Copeland. After reviewing 65 accounts associated with Pinnacle wards, she said investigators discovered “countless” other unauthorized withdrawals.
An investigation revealed
18 of 25 wards assigned to Pinnacle had suffered approximately $110,319 worth of unauthorized transactions between November 2016 and May 2017, according to the Carolyn Collins affidavit.
Byars and Carolyn Collins had no comment Monday, but Keith Collins, a longtime staple of the church community and unsuccessful Democratic candidate in the 2011 county council race, denied the allegations.
“I’m a pastor and if there were donations made, people are allowed to make donations to the church,” he told reporters outside the county courthouse in Media.
When confronted with accusations of theft, Collins indicated he did not know what the specific allegations were, but that taking care of people was his “life’s work” and that he works with people that no one else wants to work with.
“You’re welcome to come to the church and find out about us,” he later said while being led out of district court in handcuffs to a waiting law enforcement vehicle.
Byars, 58, represented by defense attorney Sharon Alexander, faces more than 760 counts, while Keith and Carolyn Collins, 58 and 70, respectively, face 45 counts each. The Collins’s did not have representation Monday. Assistant District Attorney William Judge is prosecuting.
Haverford Magisterial District Court Judge Elisa C. Lacianca set bail Monday afternoon at 10 percent of $500,000 for Byars and 10 percent of $100,000 for each of the Collins defendants. A preliminary hearing has been set for Oct. 31.