While sitting in the airport Sunday, waiting for a plane, a fellow passenger reading his newspaper rhetorically exclaimed, “How can a man do that to his mother!”
He was discussing the indictment the Friday before of John Jerome O’Hara by a federal grand jury inLexington, Kentucky being briefly reported in the Washington Post.
The article read:
- For nearly four years, John Jerome O’Hara took charge of his mother’s care at a Kentucky nursing home as Alzheimer’s disease robbed her of independence.
- O’Hara gained power of attorney over her affairs in June 2014 and was expected to manage thousands of dollars in income a month — and, perhaps most important, direct most of it for living expenses at Wesley Manor in Louisville.
- For nearly four years, he robbed her of more than $332,000, according to a grand jury indictment released Friday that totaled 18 counts — 10 of bank fraud, four of wire fraud and four of “access device fraud.”
- The charges carry a maximum of several lifetimes in prison, the indictment said. Each bank fraud count carries a maximum of 30 years in prison. There is also the potential for hefty fines and restitution.
- O’Hara used a steady stream of his mother’s income from Social Security and other investments “to pay for personal expenses, including cell phone plans, credit card payments, youth soccer fees, and entertainment,” the indictment said.
- He did so in part by writing checks to himself, according to the indictment. Others were written out to cash or signed “POA” for power of attorney, and he also withdrew money from her bank accounts to use for his expenses, it said.
- O’Hara’s alleged theft left a trail of financial distress. He did not pay his mother’s living expenses, the indictment said, forcing family members to pay more than $100,000 to keep her cared for at the nursing home.
- But other obligations also went unpaid. O’Hara missed mortgage payments at his mother’s home in Lexington, the indictment said. The home was foreclosed in March.
- O’Hara could not be reached for comment, and no attorney was listed for him in court documents. He was ordered to appear in court for arraignment on Dec. 21. His age was not listed in court documents.
Curious voyeur that I am, I logged into Pacer.gov and pulled up the indictment to try and learn, as Paul Harvey has taught me, “the rest of the story.”
After that, I poked around in Mr. O’Hara’s available background searches and social media and learned a good deal about him, what the indictment alleged he had done, and a little bit more about how he alleged had done it.
The indictment totaled 18 counts — ten for bank fraud, four for wire fraud and four for “access device fraud” alleged as follows:
- O’Hara’s mother’s power of attorney did not authorize her son to make gifts of her property or money to himself or others; but that is just exactly what he did. Despite this lack of authority, however, the grand jury found that for nearly four years, John O’Hara robbed his saintly and blessed mother of more than $332,000,
- Almost immediately after getting control of his mother’s accounts, John began misusing his mother’s money for his own benefit.
- John wrote ten (10) checks on his mother’s accounts to himself, his family, cash, and other entities for such expenses as school fees, child support, and vacation expenditures, totaling a little over $38,000.
- John made hundreds of electronic transfers to his or his family’s personal bank accounts to pay his or their own bills and personal expenses. Not only that, but to he transferred money from his mother’s accounts into his own Chase Bank accounts wasting over another $10,000 of her money and used those funds to pay his personal expenses, including cell phone plans, credit card payments, and entertainment.
- O’Hara’s alleged theft left others in his family a trail of financial distress. Because O’Hara did not pay his mother’s living expenses, the indictment said, many other family members were caused to pay more than $100,000 to keep her cared for at the nursing home.
- Inexplicably, O’Hara failed to pay the mortgage payments on the house his mother owned in Lexington, the house in which he lived. That house went into foreclosure in March of 2018.
- O’Hara was ordered to appear in court for arraignment on Dec. 21, 2018.
Returning to answer the shocked and amazed disbelieving man next to me, I explained, “It happens a lot more often than most people realize. But, it can easily be stopped before it happens by simply having more openness, transparency, and honest reporting by and between the elder person, the fiduciary being appointed to manage the elder’s finances, the elder’s other family members, and an independent fiduciary.”
Time and time again, I recommend to clients, both elderly ones who immediately need help and foresighted ones who are doing (hopefully) advanced planning, that they should require the person they appoint to manage their financial and healthcare decisions to report those expenditures and actions to an independent monitor. Rarely, however, do clients follow this advice.
But, consider how O’Hara’s mother’s loss of $332,000 to her allegedly thieving son could have been caught very early if she had appointed an independent monitor to whom she had shared the details of her financial situation and to whom her son would have had to submit, even only once each month, account statements and accountings explaining his spending of his mother’s money.
The indictment alleges that, on June 14, the day after his step-father died, O’Hara obtained his mother’s signature on a power of attorney giving him unfettered control of her financial affairs; two weeks later he withdrew the first $6,000 out of her account; and, over the next 20 days, he withdrew another $33,500.
What if, once a month, O’Hara had to send his mother’s account statements to an independent monitor, who would look at them, notice something out of the ordinary for a woman living in an Alzheimer’s unit, question the extraordinary withdrawals and advise the appropriate other family members and/or authorities?
Momma would have been spared about $300,000. Her other children would have been spared having to pay herAlzheimer’s unit another $100,000 out of their own pockets. And the errant son, bad boy than he was, would probably have had to merely put the money back before he spent it and avoided being indicted by a federal grand jury, for which he must now appear in court for arraignment next Friday.
We as lawyers can do better for our clients, if they will only let us.
All best to all concerned.
KenBesser@LIfeCycleLaw.com