An elderly woman was secretly cheated out of millions of dollars by her at-home caregivers, her surviving family members have claimed.

The allegations were laid bare in an article published on Saturday The Chronicle of San Francisco which features four anonymous women as those responsible and 91-year-old Geraldine Clark as their unsuspecting mark.

Clark died in 2023, seven years after the alleged scam began.

The group of sitters found through a placement agency embezzled more than $4 million from his finances during that period, surviving relatives said.

The administrator appointed to oversee the San Francisco woman’s finances after her death then traced the money to an account run by Wells Fargo, where she found more than 1,000 canceled checks made out to the caregivers.

Geraldine Clark, 91, seen here before her death with her late partner William Clement, lost more than $4 million in seven years thanks to four fraudulent live-in caregivers, her relatives claimed this week.

Clark, seen here in a 1952 yearbook photo and another photo taken 50 years later, died in 2023, seven years after the alleged scam began. The group of guards found through an employment agency allegedly embezzled the money from their finances during this period.

“There were months where (caregivers) withdrew $100,000, $200,000,” David Stewart, Clark’s 60-year-old nephew, told the local newspaper. “It was like a piggy bank.”

“I sat with a bank manager until 8:30 at night, writing all the checks and putting everything together to put together a case,” added Heather Yarbrough, the trustee appointed just after Clark’s death to keep tabs on his finances.

Yarbrough, a licensed private professional fiduciary and nationally certified guardian, compared the cashed checks with a checkbook record recovered from Clark’s apartment.

All entries were handwritten by the primary caregiver, she said – citing how Clark was diagnosed with dementia in 2016.

She added that she discovered the checks four months after the matriarch’s death last year – just months after the anonymous caregiver phoned Clark’s nephew, David Stewart, to tell him that her nest egg Clark was exhausted.

The call came after Clark had lived for years on half a million left by his partner, William Clement, and an illustrious stock portfolio inherited from his family.

This arrangement allowed the woman to live comfortably in her rent-controlled apartment in the city’s financial district, even as her faculties declined.

However, by the time Clark was moved to a nursing home the month after Clement’s death in November 2022, her brokerage account that once held $5 million was worth only a paltry $185.

Clark, seen here as a youth, also suffered from dementia – a diagnosis that the four women did not reveal to her living relatives.

Now broke, Clark would die at the center months later, after which Yarbrough would pay the missing millions into the Wells Fargo account.

There, the fiduciary expert found checks that had been written and cashed for thousands of dollars more than the corresponding entries on the checkbook indicated, as well as documents showing how each of the caregivers was expected to earn $30 from the ‘hour.

However, once she took into account the overpayments, the hourly rate jumped to more than $416 an hour – compensation that amounts to more than $4 million which people close to her say Clark, were stolen between 2016 and 2022.

Yarbrough then submitted his findings to San Francisco police and the FBI in a police report filed in May last year, although both sides declined to take up the case again.

As for why, Detective Sgt. Justin Woo told the Chronicle on Saturday that “the case was presented to the DA’s office (but) was denied.”

“Without the testimony of the deceased victim, the prosecutor’s office will not be able to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

However, after contacting the DA’s office, the Chronicle found inconsistencies with this account, with prosecutors refuting Woo’s statement, saying, “No arrest warrant or evidence was presented to our office for review on this matter.

The trustee appointed to oversee the San Francisco woman’s finances, Heather Yarbrough (pictured), then traced the money to an account managed by Wells Fargo, where she found more than 1,000 canceled checks payable to caregivers.

The statement from the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office added: “If and when a case is presented to us by the San Francisco Police Department…we will carefully review all facts and evidence gathered to see if we can pursue criminal charges.” »

An FBI spokesperson also said the federal government had decided not to take on the case, prompting some statements of disbelief from Yarbrough.

“I didn’t think they would do absolutely nothing about a crime of this magnitude committed against an elderly person here,” she said, quoting emails showing the primary caregiver committing the theft in the middle of correspondence with Clark’s financial managers.

Medical records that caregivers failed to share with Clark’s family also failed to sway investigators, showing the extent of his condition that subsequently worsened. dementia and years of monthly prescriptions for 150 5 mg tablets of hydrocodone, a powerful opioid that may worsen cognitive decline in older adults.

“Every time a prescription was written, it was at the request” of the primary caregiver, Kaira Stewart said, pointing to notes in her aunt-in-law’s medical records.

She and David live in Costa Mesa, more than 400 miles from where all this was happening, both saying they were never even informed of the 2016 dementia diagnosis.

David’s sister, Elizabeth Bryant Stewart, lives even further away in France – and the family now say they believe there is little to be gained from taking the caregivers to court.

The newspaper did not name the four allegedly responsible for the plot due to the lack of any criminal charges, as the Stewarts struggle to put the pieces together without opening criminal proceedings. Pictured are Clark and his partner, who left behind half a million to his beloved, who had millions in an inherited stock portfolio.

After digging through Kaira’s social media posts from the primary caregiver, she told the newspaper how her mother-in-law’s money was likely long gone – and how the caregiver and her family’s posts showed photos vacations, new vehicles and even a new house.

She also recalled how the head warden repeatedly contacted her and her husband after Clark was moved to the nursing home, and then after his death, to ask for money, which she said , concerned missing paychecks.

“I feel bad about what happened to my No. 1 aunt,” David said, adding that he considered Clark a second mother. “But I feel like there’s another family that this could happen to again.”

John Hartog, a Bay Area attorney who specializes in estate law, blamed the lack of charges on the structure of the city’s criminal justice system, telling the Chronicle, “The criminal law will not punish these types of criminals.” , nine times out of 10.”

The newspaper did not name the four allegedly responsible for the plot due to the lack of any criminal charges, as the Stewarts struggle to put the pieces together without opening criminal proceedings.

The Chronicle, meanwhile, reported that it reached out to the primary caregiver for comment via email, text and phone call, but did not receive a response.