PORTLAND, Ore. — Two women gained power of attorney over the affairs of an ailing, elderly relative and they took her possessions, selling her house, dividing up the money and even prepaying her funeral, prosecutors said.
But 83-year-old Evelyn Roth recovered and showed up this week in Multnomah County Circuit Court for her relatives’ arraignment on a 35-count felony indictment that charges them with aggravated theft and criminal mistreatment. They have pleaded not guilty.
Roth said she was pursuing criminal charges because she’s lost her belongings and her savings to relatives who betrayed her trust.
Roth was wheeled up to the judge by Portland Officer Deanna Wesson, who investigates elder abuse, so the elderly woman could explain what happened.
“They robbed me blind,” Roth said. “Everything was for money, just to get money, money, money. That’s not the way it should be.”
Police and prosecutors say the defendants, Roth’s cousin Virginia Ann Kuehn, 66, and Roth’s niece, Kathleen Sue Jingling, 53, pocketed $235,000 from the house sale and cleaned out the elderly woman’s bank accounts and savings, sharing the money among themselves and family members.
Jingling’s lawyer, Daniel Lorenz, said his client may have received poor advice from another attorney and is working “to put matters in as good a situation as possible.”
Kuehn’s lawyer, Pat Birmingham, declined comment.
Roth had lived alone in her home after her husband Bob died a quarter century ago. She fell ill in February 2008 and a doctor removed a cancerous growth from her esophagus. Kuehn took her to the hospital for the outpatient surgery and drove her home.
The next day, Roth fell and wasn’t discovered until four days later. A friend visited the house, concerned because Roth hadn’t shown up for their weekly dinner date.
Severely dehydrated, confused and suffering from delusions, Roth was hospitalized for two weeks and then placed in a nursing home. Through the spring of 2008, she continued to receive radiation treatments for cancer.
On April 24, 2008, she signed over the power of attorney to Kuehn and Jingling.
“I kept insisting, ‘I want to take care of my bills. I can take care of myself,’” Roth recalled. “They said, ‘We have to be able to take care of you if you get sick.’”
Roth’s health improved steadily but by the fall of 2008, she was hearing from neighbors that a “For Sale” sign was up outside her home.
“I said, ‘Well, they can’t sell it because I haven’t signed anything,’” she recalled. “I had no idea what was all going on, just what the neighbors saw.”
Police said Kuehn and Jingling sold the house for $235,000 in October 2008, deposited the money into Roth’s bank account and then spent it, writing checks to themselves and other family members. They cleaned out $35,000 in her checking account and cashed her two annuities totaling $88,000.
Police said they also sold her car and cleaned out all of her belongings — her antique china and glassware collection, her silverware, the mahogany furniture her husband made.
Jeanine Boldt-Ginn, the daughter of one of Roth’s close friends, and her husband, Jim Ginn, worked to help Roth figure out what had happened. They got a county adult protective services investigator, Irma Mitchell-Phillips, and police to investigate.
Roth wants to see her relatives go to jail.
“I think they need to be taught a lesson,” she said.
Information from: The Oregonian, www.oregonlive.com
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