A man began to suspect in 1999 that someone was stealing money from him:
his accounts were going down and he could not find an explanation
.
His wife, Donna Marino, convinced him that he suffered from Alzheimer's and that he should not worry about it.
But it all turned out to be
a big lie
: neither did he suffer from a neurodegenerative disease, nor was it true that his savings were intact.
The thief turned out to live under his very roof
.
His 63-year-old wife had led him to believe he was senile for years, defrauding him $ 600,000 over two decades, according to the East Haven Police Department in Connecticut.
A couple walking down a street in Brussels, Belgium, in 2018.Francisco Seco / AP
The victim's daughter denounced already in 2019 that she believed that her father, who is 73 years old and whose identity was not disclosed, was being scammed by his wife.
She had found information regarding credit cards that the man did not know about, and documentation proving that the woman
had taken control
of her husband's
finances
.
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The man was then questioned by the police, but said he did not want to take legal action.
However, in January 2020 he filed for divorce and expressed his desire to reopen the investigation.
Detectives discovered many
bank movements in favor of the woman's mother
, The Washington Post reported.
The wife admitted last January that she had been transferring
her husband's
pension checks
for 13 years
without his knowledge.
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Oct. 15, 202101: 36
He thus stole about $ 216,000 from pension funds, "mismanaged" nearly $ 28,000 in workers' compensation, and confessed to having pawned eight silver coins in 2017 without permission, according to police reports.
The 63-year-old woman was arrested Wednesday and
charged with first-degree theft and third-degree forgery
.
She was released after agreeing to appear before a judge on November 29.
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"During the interview, he reported that he had been able to conceal these fraudulent activities by convincing him that he had Alzheimer's disease," the police said in their report.
"He explained that when [he] wanted to enter the bank to make a transaction, she would tell him that the last time he entered [the office] he made a scene. He did this to prevent him from discovering the lowest balance in his bank accounts." , specified the report.
