Aging with Altitude: 8 A Police Detective’s Take on Elder Fraud and Abuse

Elder fraud and abuse happens and is under-reported.  What can be done to help?  This podcast has two focuses first, learn about the signs of abuse and strategies to avoid fraud and abuse.  Second, learn about the concept and practice of Elder Shelter.  Our guest is Colorado Springs Police Detective Chuck Szatkowski who is a member of the Colorado Springs Elder Abuse Coalition and the national Spring Alliance focused on creating elder shelter support.  Detective Chuck describes what mistreatment looks like so we can better know if a person is a victim and how to report it.  Detective Chuck also talks about the concept and services of Elder Shelter.  Colorado Springs has one of the best support systems in the nation to provide elder shelter to adults who have been victims of fraud and abuse.  This model is based on collaborations across organizations and for-profit entities and is a member of Spring Alliance, a network of regional elder abuse shelters and similar service models. 

Cynthia Margiata with Detective Chuck Szatkowski, Springs Alliance and Elder Shelter 

Q – What is elder fraud and abuse? 

A – Mistreatment is Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Caretake Neglect and financial exploitation. Nationally only 1 in 19 or 1 in 24 cases are ever reported. One of the national problems is that we have different definitions of what constitutes an at-risk or vulnerable adult and different definitions of what constitutes mistreatment or abuse. 

Cynthia – That makes it hard to work together 

Chuck – Right, no sort of national standard 

Q – What is the Elder Shelter Model? 

A – It’s a program in El Paso County where we have 9 skilled nursing facilities and 5 assisted living facilities so when we have a victim of mistreatment who requires either skilled or assisted living, when we arrest the perpetrator we have these facilities who have agreed that if the person is appropriate and they have a bed they will take the person in on an emergency basis and the adult protective services will work to expedite Medicaid funding to get the persons stay at the facility taken care of. We just recently joined the Springs alliance with a national association of 25 Elder Shelter programs across the united states. Every model is different based on the community and what we do is we help other communities try to set up elder shelter programs and they can look at the various models to see what works best for them. In El Paso County we are really fortunate that this has all been done on a handshake at this point. Christy Swanson from Sava Senior care has really been the guide to this, the go-getter that has kept this program going. But she has been doing this part time on the side of a full-time job as an administrator.  

Cynthia – Is she volunteering her time? 

Chuck – Her company has been very supportive. Which we really appreciate, but we are at the point now, last year we served 71, this year we have served 82. The program is large enough that we really need a full-time coordinator so we are looking at grant funding opportunities to have a ft coordinator and it looks like that coordinator will be housed in silver key senior services 

Cynthia – Nice. So, you are looking at space for them already 

Chuck – We are looking into a space, and a computer database so rather than calling around to see who has a bed. The participating communities can put in their availability – is there bed is it male or female so we can go down the list as we need a bed and find an appropriate placement for a person 

Cynthia – Are you taking applications? 

Chuck – We have to get the funding first. We are looking at applying in January 2020 for a GOCO grant.  

Cynthia – I hope you get it, we need it. 

Q – What are some signs of elder fraud or abuse? 

A – For the mistreatment part, the physical or sexual abuse, you would look for injuries that aren’t consistent with how they are being described, or an increase in emergency room or doctors’ visits. These are typically the signs you would see of physical abuse. For caretaker neglect you would see a decline in their physical wellbeing. Maybe they start to be dehydrated, malnourished, or you notice they used to be really clean and wear clothes properly, and now their appearance is changing. Those can all be signs of mistreatment, either physical or caretaker neglect.   Now it’s hard sometimes to see the difference between neglect or the disease process. The important thing is to work with law enforcement, and we will work with Adult Protective Services. To determine treatment, it may be just self-neglect, but adult protective services can help connect them with resources in the community. Our goal is least restrictive, we want to keep people in their home for as long as possible 

Q – What do we do in EPC that is different than other areas? 

A – In El Paso County we really have a long history of collaboration with our community partners. We work closely with Adult Protective Services; The Resource Exchange, which is our community center board which coordinates services for people with intellectual developmental disabilities; and the Area Agency on Aging, especially the Ombudsman Program.  In connection with Adult Protective Services we have a civil criminal investigator, paid for half by the police department and half by the Department of Human Services. She is a retired police officer. She has been to the social workers academy, so she is also social worker. She has access to both databases. The law says we have to notify Adult Protective Services within 24 hours of every report of mistreatment of an at-risk adult. We staff those calls every morning with Adult Protective Services to decide if it’s theirs, ours, or of both of ours.  If it’s both we coordinate closely with the assigned caseworker. We do share information freely between us. We do joint interviews not only with suspects and witnesses but also with victims. Primarily with victims so we don’t retraumatize them and so they don’t have to go over the same story over and over and relive the experience. And that’s unique, other jurisdictions don’t have that close collaboration with community partners 

Cynthia – I think that would help someone who is a victim to not have to talk about it many many times 

Chuck – That’s our goal. We’re victim centered. Sometimes it may not be in their best interest to pursue criminal charges, but we make that decision 

Cynthia – I like that term victim centered, thank you. 

Q – So, are older adults more susceptible to certain kinds of fraud then? 

A – There are a number of factors that make a person more susceptible as they get older. Some of that is that they become more dependent on other people as we become more frail. That results in isolation which makes it easier to exploit or mistreat someone and it’s not detected. A prior history of trauma, like domestic violence or something like that, also makes a person more susceptible to mistreatment.  Sometimes the economic factors can make it, but we see it occur across all income levels. We have it from the 700 social security check to the million-dollar home. The biggest problem is the isolation as we get older and aren’t as mobile and then we get isolated from the community and that creates an opportunity for people to mistreat and exploit us. 

Cynthia – I have seen a lot of that on the phone. Where people are calling on the phone and asking for money and lonely people seem to be more susceptible.  

Chuck – We seem to think about the phone scams as the mistreatment, but unfortunately 90% of offender oroffenders are spouses or family members.  The stranger crimes the fraud does occur over the telephone. The oldest of the old, the 80s seem to be the more trusting generation where things were done upon a handshake, so they trust when somebody calls them. But the government isn’t going to call you to tell you they are going to arrest you or that you owe taxes they aren’t going to ask you to go to Walmart to get gift cards to pay a bond because you missed jury duty. The key is if you don’t recognize the number don’t answer it. If its important they will leave a message. The federal government isn’t going to call you about your taxes, your Medicare. The sheriff’s office or the police department aren’t going to call you about an arrest warrant. The thing is to be cautious; you know the old story about if its too good to be true it is. We get the scams where the secret shopper or you won the lottery. Its illegal to participate in a foreign lottery number one, and how would you have won the lottery if you didn’t enter the lottery. A legitimate sweepstakes isn’t going to make you pay taxes or anything up front. They will take that out of your winnings.  

Cynthia – The one I got the other day was they were going to cancel my social security card 

Chuck – I’ve got over a dozen of those calls about my social security being compromised. The thing is its just a computer randomly dialing numbers. So, you say how do they know I’m older, well it’s just the luck of the draw you answer the phone and your older. The thing is if you answer the phone you get on a list that says this is a good phone number because it’s just a computer randomly dialing numbers. They sell that list to other scammers. And If you talk to them you go on another list, that I call the sucker list, and they sell that to other scammers too, because now people recognize that you are vulnerable. I remember when my grandfather would talk about during the great depression how the hobos would make a little symbol on the fence or back of a house where someone was willing to give them food and stuff.  And this is similar. This is organized crime that is doing this scam and its organized crime from outside the united states. So, it’s very difficult for us to investigate and almost impossible for us to prosecute.  

Cynthia – sounds horrible and very difficult for our seniors and sounds like our young people are having this problem too.  

Chuck – Yep. Some younger people are falling for it too. The thing is don’t answer the phone if you don’t know the number, get caller ID 

Q – How many cases have you dealt with in this area? 

A – In 2017 and 2018 my unit averaged 296 cases a year. My unit handles the physical assaults, the sexual assaults, the caretake neglect. The financial crimes go to the financial crimes’ unit. And we don’t have the stats on how many of those financial crimes because many of the times they are mislabeled. So, we aren’t sure if the victim’s elderly or how they are being targeted. So, we average close to 300 reports in my unit that we investigate a year.  

Cynthia – That’s a lot – painful.  

Q – So which ones would you say are the most common ones you deal with? 

A – The most common ones are intertwined, there is usually some sort of financial exploitation coupled with caretaker neglect. I have had people tell me they don’t want to spend their inheritance to take care of mom and dad. Its not their inheritance until mom or dad are gone. So those are the most common ones we see is the caretaker neglect coupled with the financial exploitation. We do, because we have a large number of skilled nursing facilities and assisted living facilities in this community, and we also have a very good program for our intellectual developmentally disabled citizens. So do get a lot of reports of incidents of what we call resident on resident assaults or participant or participant assault that we have to investigate. But usually does not result in criminal charges because the suspect doesn’t have the mental state capable of being charged with a crime knowingly or recklessly. But we do have to investigate those cases and establish whether they have the capability to understand right from wrong 

Q – How many convictions have there been?  

A – We don’t track convictions. When we make an arrest and file that with the DA office its pretty much out of our hands. We need probable cause to arrest the DA needs beyond a reasonable doubt which is a very high standard. We try to build our cases to beyond a reasonable doubt but many a times they will look at it and for various reasons they will decide it’s not prosecutable because they wont be able to reach their burden of proof to a jury. That why we don’t track our conviction rates.  

Cynthia – So is it sometimes also that maybe the victim doesn’t want to testify.  

Chuck – That’s a big problem, its just like in domestic violence, the victims recant they want the mistreatment to stop but they don’t want the offender to be punished and go to jail. So recanting is a big issue. We can prosecute those cases without their participation we try to build an evidence-based case like you do in a domestic violence case where you don’t have to rely on the victim’s testimony. But many times, when you get into the areas of exploitation the consent part is a big issue. Did they consent to this? You know, did they make poor choices and let people use their money the way it shouldn’t be and now they are in this position where they can’t afford their care. 

Cynthia – maybe writing a check to their daughter that is misused not for their care 

Chuck – Or undue influence. The daughter may say that if you don’t give me this money, you’re not going to see your grandkids or I’ll put you in a nursing home, that type of thing. Those undue influences do occur. The big challenge to prove in court.  

Q – What are some tips you can share to help an older adult prevent themselves from becoming a victim of abuse or fraud? 

A – Number one get your advance directives in place now – not only your financial powers of attorney but your medical powers of attorney, your living will. Make sure that people understand what your desires are so that when you get to the point you no longer have the capacity to make that decision. Be sure that when you create a power of attorney you don’t your rights to ask for an accounting of what’s going on with your funds. Be sure you have that accounting or someone who can ask the accounting because a family member can ask for an accounting too. You want to have some oversight because money does strange things to people. You may think its someone you can trust and then once they get access to the money, they start using it for their own benefit and not yours. As far as the way to avoid defrauds is don’t answer the phone if you don’t know the number. If somebody calls, don’t ask them for the number if they say they are from social security or the local sheriff’s office, hang up and find the number yourself and call to verify. Again, we’re not going to call you to tell you that your wanted. We are going to show up at your door. You get the grandma scams where they get the calls that this is some grandchild and they’ve been in a car accident or they’ve been arrested. My mother got that and first thing she did is hang up and call my brother to see where his son Justin was who was sitting right beside him in Cincinnati, he wasn’t in jail in Canada 

Cynthia – Good for her 

Chuck – Take a few seconds to breath, think it out. Don’t jump in and assume they are legitimate 

Cynthia – Smart move – your mom is a smart lady 

Q – When people are removed from their home with their family members. What happens from there? You mentioned that they might go to an assisted living or a nursing home, but what happens? 

A – First off, we don’t remove people from their homes. With consenting adults, you know it’s not like children, the law gives me the authority as a police officer to remove a child if I think it’s in an unsafe environment, I don’t have that with an adult. Adults are free to make choices. If there is a situation where they are dependent on their caretaker and we have arrested their caretaker and they need medical assistance, we will offer, and they have to consent, to go to one of our shelter facilities. A person can still deny it. We will work real closely with Adult Protective Services. Again, least restrictive is our goal. If its possible to keep them in their home and bring some in-home care in, then adult protective services will try to set them up. I want to emphasize that we don’t have the right to take away somebody’s civil rights as an adult. There is a process we have to go to through the probate court and it’s a lengthy process to protect people’s civil rights.  

Q – I found the online reporting form. It’s a 4 page form for reporting and I think it’s a great form and its very easy. I think I would have an easy time, so if people want to report I want them to see that. So, what’s the best number and site for reporting 

A – If you are a mandated reporter the law says you have to call law enforcement. But the best number here is 719 444-7000, which is the non-emergency reporting number to the police and fire dispatch. Give the call taker as much detail as you can about what you think is going on; what makes the person at-risk, are they elderly, disability, and as much information as possible about the perpetrator so we can do a check the welfare. But if you think someone is being physically abused or financially exploited, please provide those specific details. At a ‘check the welfare’ call an officer will go to the house, knock on the door, many times a victim won’t disclose what is going on. If the officer doesn’t know to ask about physical abuse or exploitation and they see the person and the person says they are well that is all that is going to happen. We are going to leave and we’re not going to get any in-depth investigation, so you need to leave as much detail as possible with the call taker. If its caretaker neglect you can call the Adult Protective Services intake line at 719-444-5755 and make a referral for self-neglect because self-neglect is not criminal so we can go out and check on somebody, but we don’t put resources in place. It’s important to understand too, that once Adult Protective Services gets involved, if the person has capacity they have to consent to APS help, so we can’t force them to change their lifestyle. 

Cynthia – Can’t make them go 

Chuck – No 

Cynthia -They can stay with their abuser if they want 

Chuck – Or in a dangerous, you know a hoarder situation 

Cynthia – And a hoarder likes their stuff.  

Q – We have a few more minutes, is there anything we didn’t talk about? 

A – I think we covered the general topic. The important thing is to watch out. It takes a community. Many elders get isolated, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you see changes or you have concerns. Please call Adult Protective Services or please call law enforcement so we can get involved early and see what we can do to help the individual  

Cynthia – Thank you so much and thank you for being with me. Thank you Chuck, I tried to practice your last name, multiple times over the weekend, I think my husband thinks I am going crazy. But thank you for being here and part of aging with altitude. 

Cynthia – Our podcast is part of how we are trying to share important information with people in our community.