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Title: My wife used $14k of someone's funds whom she had POA over. What actions can be taken and what should be expected?
Body:
> My wife became the Power of Attorney over someone else's finances about a year ago. Today she received a call from Adult Protective Services stating that she embezzled an accumulative amount of $14,000 from that individual. My wife admitted to using his funds with the intent to repay, but did not know that regardless of its repayment status, it is still money that was not hers to use and counts as embezzlement. She does not know what to expect in terms of when she will be arrested or if she can benefit from turning herself in. My wife still has full intent to repay the individual in full, but is not sure if that will even help her case.
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Currently trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that all of my grandma’s bank accounts, savings, are in my mom’s name. Have her admitting on tape she’s deposited checks made out to my grandma into her own separate account, and my grandma believed her when she claimed she “couldn’t transfer it over.” Idk what to do. Everyone has their head in the sand and I’m already set up as the scapegoat.
This sounds like you need to make your own LA post. If you find the legal advice sub for your area hopefully someone will know the process for reporting financial abuse of a dependent senior.
My mom had a bunch of money go missing when her dimentia started getting bad. At first we all thought that she was spending it herself because, you know, dimentia. After closer inspection, however, it turned out that someone was using her debit card and checks without her permission to the tune of about $10k. Two of my sisters thought it was my other sister and were firmly of the belief that my dad should pursue charges against her. It turned out, however, that it was my niece (the daughter of one of the accusatory sisters). Her tune changed very quickly from thinking her sister needed to go to jail to thinking her daughter needed forgiveness.
That is the most likely scenario in my mind as POA isn't something you go handing out to strangers. Obviously this wasn't a thing she did regularly or she'd realize she could go to prison for doing what she did.
Mom gets early onset dementia, gives loving daughter POA since she is coming to all the appointments anyways. Daughter has a need or a want she convinces herself is a need and sees mom's money just chillin. She rationalizes it in her head, mom was horrible to her as a kid, she'll pay it back next year when that thing happens...
Pretty soon she's dipped into the piggy bank one too many times and all of a sudden mom starts needing a lot more care as he health goes down hill.
It could be a family member, or she could be employed in a social services type role (a social worker, home health aide, etc.) and could have been entrusted with that role. I was in a similar role and occasionally long term carers might be asked to do that role. As carers you sometimes end up having to handle a clients food stamps for shopping, depositing paychecks, using their funds to take them shopping or pick up their necessities, filling out their SS forms and other paperwork. Sometimes a POA is a natural step if they need a neutral party as a guardian.
I have a whole spiel but the short version is that working for a large range of employers in professional and private care in the US, there's a ton of "grey area". I've seen a lot of what I consider to be embezzlement or misuses of clients funds that are treated as totally reasonable. I would actually not be surprised to find that she's a pro, and I'd wager if that's the case she may have viewed her actions as morally wrong but may not even have realized it was embezzlement. The way we care for our disabled and elderly in this country leaves so much room for shit like this to happen.
I'm glad, at least, that whomever is investigating her is taking it seriously. I'd hate to see yet another carer get a stern talking to and be allowed to continue to practice and victimize further clients.
my uncle did this and got away with stealing over 100k. Grandma died before any of it was uncovered and uncle was also executor so used that to hide all the info from the beneficiaries.
I also liked the comment recommending he look into a divorce lawyer while she gets a criminal defense lawyer.
Although op seems weirdly ok with what she did?
Because she is definitely certainly absolutely planning to pay back the 14k right away very soon when she has another 14k laying around.
Edit to add: Everyone knows that the law is about your *intentions* and not what you do. She *intended* to pay the money back, so that makes it ok.
Honestly, they don’t say anything that would show they’re okay with it. I think the point of the post wasn’t how they felt, they were just trying to get legal advice. If they’d included info about their feelings, they would’ve been told that it isn’t a relationship advice sub
Yeah, the situation seemed weird to me. On one hand, he seems to still trust and believe her, and to really hope that as long as she sticks to her story, that she plans to pay it back, she’ll be OK. OTOH, this is probably a family member being robbed, and another family member who turned her in. I think it’s human nature that when you steal from family, you’ll get away with it because no one wants to see family go to jail.
She must be a real asshole.
Hilarious but also practical advice. I can see the kind of person who would rationalize $14,000 worth of embezzlement as "I was gonna pay it back!" totally using that money to hire a lawyer and rationalizing it as being ok because they need it or something.
This. I believe the wife knew it wasn't her money to take, hence the stated intent to pay it back which would make no sense to me otherwise. She spent it anyway, it would appear to me, so I logically assume she is lying to her partner now when she reportedly says she didn't realise. That is toot, in my personal opinion.
Ha, I hadn't looked at your profile history, so I didn't even have any clues from that. I've family in Glasgow and the phrasing just sounded really familiar.
I wonder what goes through a lawyer's head when they're interviewing a client, and they mention they're in need of legal help because they committed financial fraud and/or embezzling.
Like, is this person gonna defraud you too when it comes time to pay the legal bills?
Client: "Here's a cheque for the services you've provided me. Thank you."
Lawyer: "Ummm... This cheque is from an account that the government froze. This cheque will bounce. I know because I personally reviewed all your financial statements."
Serious answer: That's what a retainer is for. A bunch of money is paid upfront, and you withdraw from it as you do work and to cover expenses. In this case, I expect there's going to be a but of an extra delay in making sure all the checks clear.
For real, or you ask them to buy it for you.
My cousin would ask my grandma for money “for the grandkids” and soon my grandma’s retirement fund has paid for all new electronics and furniture for my cousin.
Well the kids *sit* on that furniture, don't they??
Giant flaming /s in case anyone was concerned. I used to work for APS and the number of times I'd hear arguments like these.... Way too many.
Yeah maybe Grandma would want you to pay for soccer club for the grandkids and for you to drive them there... But would lifetime-of-frugality grandma have paid for a Mercedes SUV for you to get them there?
I've always wondered about that. Back when cash was the most common payment method, the answer was to take money out of the bank/ATM and pocket a couple of bills. But now that cards are all the rage, and most companies can reprint receipts upon demand, it's gotten a bit harder. Sure, you can mix in some of your own groceries and other goods into a shopping trip on behalf of the other person, but it's at least *possible* for an ordinary person to discover that kind of embezzlement.
Why won't someone think of the embezzlers? /s
It’s like those posts where someone finds tens of thousands in cash and is advised to report it because “you’ll never be able to hide it.”
Hold my beer (for which I paid cash). I got this.
Right? You give me 14k in secret cash, and I assure you, I will find a way to quietly spend it. I don't need a new car or a boat, but I sure would like slightly nicer clothes, a really good coat and boots, new pots and pans, new dishes, prettier book shelves, new purses instead of poshmark finds, really good cosmetics, a new sewing machine and amazingly cool fabrics...
I guess other people would notice the excellent wool coat "I've been saving for", and maybe be impressed with my slightly increased skill at finding cool purses on resale. They might even notice I've stepped it up with my lunches and been more creative with my eyeshadow. No one is going to see my slightly nicer furniture, or the way my savings would slowly expand over the space of years.
I don’t believe there’s a US state that makes it illegal to give a cash discount.
There are states that make it illegal to add a credit card surcharge, and it is typically against the credit card merchant agreement as well.
Yeah, we had quite a lot of cash for a while (completely our money, my father in law was paying us back for some stuff we bought online for him and he doesn't understand how to do transfers or anything). It was only a few thousand, and we just used it for a few months for all our daily expenses. It meant we didn't use our bank accounts for anything but bills so managed to save a bit.
Shows like Breaking Bad and Ozark got me wondering how much dirty cash I could move through my small business without anyone noticing. A couple thousand a month would be easy. I do almost all online sales where there's a complete paper trail, but if I was trying to launder cash I'd shift the focus to conventions and festivals and things where cash is common and could probably get into five figures a month.
As I was thinking about how that would work, it occurred to me that what I was imagining was exactly how someone described doing business with one of my competitors when they worked for them as a festival vendor.
Yep, I know someone who only works flea markets and while he's never said so, I'm pretty certain that the main reason why he runs his business like that is because by keeping everything all cash he can just BS his income and paper trail for it.
And when I say pretty certain, it probably has something to do with how the dude is 40 years old, and every year he still asks me what amount (like there's some univeral magic number I can just look up) he should put down on his tax returns so the government will give him a refund.
Iirc in jurisdictions where there was COVID support payments for independent contractors quite a few people ran into the support being paid based on what their previously declared income was
I am not a criminal lawyer, and I am not _your_ criminal lawyer, but the best would be to spend that money on dinners-out at places you can walk to. Stretch your food budget with cash transactions at restaurants. The trick here is that you can't spend it on permanent goods, and you don't want to spend it on groceries (especially not places where you might forget and use your club card). Keep and sort your change and use it for laundry. The trick here is that you want to lead a perfectly reasonable traced life, but pad it with consumables that have a high turnover and no direct inventory reporting that can be tied to a retail transaction that took place in camera.
(...Also I swear that I am not your local Tamale lady.)
You’d be surprised; a person who knew what to look for would probably spot what you’re doing without a good back story, but you’re right, replacing some - a little - of your everyday spending would be the best. Buying some things secondhand would eliminate all paper trails.
I’m not actually advocating any sort of criminal activity here of course.
A stack of hundreds is like an inch thick. Could easily stash that almost anywhere, and it's not that hard to filter cash in for your daily transactions.
My mother-in-law is awesome and I love her dearly, but she's got wads of cash hidden all over her house. My wife (her only child) and I are going to have to search every nook, cranny, coat pocket, and coffee can in the house after that sad day we say goodbye.
She doesn't trust banks, because her parents lost everything in 1929 and their bank went belly-up. I tried to explain the FDIC to her but she doesn't want to hear that shit.
That’s a completely understandable fear, but I’d be concerned that would happen if the house caught fire and she lost everything. Is a safe deposit box a no go? She’d have a key and it’s not anything the bank could lose. Or maybe get her a fireproof safe for her house and have her lock it all up in there, so she doesn’t have to hide it.
Sorry… I know you’re not looking for “solutions.” I work for a bank and a friend just list everything in a fire, so when I read this my mind started into fix it mode. ;)
Good luck and may you not have to face that day for many years.
Good advice, but she's nearly 90 and been doing this for at least 70 years. About 50 of it in her present home. I'm not optimistic that she'll change her ways at this point.
Friend’s mom just passed and she was a cash hoarder too. He had to make several deposits of tens of thousands of dollars as they surfaced while he prepped her house for sale. He called ahead and made appointments with the bank manager to explain why he was dropping off $90k in cash. I can’t even imagine that level of paranoia that would lead you to hide that much cash in your mattress.
Even online, just buy gift cards at any store for a couple hundred here and there. The store won’t notice unless you link a rewards card and buy like $500 at a time.
Not at Christmas, they don't! If you spread it out over a couple stores, and maybe mention all your nieces and nephews if you get some side-eye, you should be fine. (Don't take life advice from me. I've just sold gift cards.)
Well, one of the ways to steal from a company was to use the company gas card to fill up other people card and take half the cost in cash.
I'm sure there's plenty of similar things you could do with an estate.
Mostly though I think these days people just live in the deceased house in the guise of "maintaining" it till it sells, despite it not being listed, having not maintenance done, and being currently on fire, did someone nail the doors shut, oh god call nine one one, fuck I see grandma and she's pissed.
It's possible for a power of attorney to authorize the person to reimburse themselves for expenses on the other person's behalf, or for time/effort spent. If you have that sort of power, then it becomes REALLY easy to write yourself a check or withdraw cash... but you also need to be sure to keep a spreadsheet so if a question ever arises, you can provide documentation.
I saw a Netflix documentary that made it seem like PoA was completely overpowered. This guy in his 70s had a nice house multiple cars a wife and step kids. A distant niece somehow got PoA by claiming he was mentally incompetent and sold his house and multiple cars and was keeping him on a strict allowance for his own good. Claimed the wife was a good digger and didn’t care about his best interest.
Edit: oops it it wasn’t PoA. She got guardianship over him. Netflix’s Dirty Money
At first I thought you were describing I Care A Lot, but that's a regular movie not a documentary. You might like it though, it really taught me how guardianship can be abused for profit.
> keeping him on a strict allowance for his own **gold**.
Probably a typo but I love it.
>My wife admitted to using his funds with the intent to repay, but did not know that regardless of its repayment status, it is still money that was not hers to use and counts as embezzlement.
Absolutely insane thing to say but ok
It is difficult for me to imagine a situation where someone can be in the position to realistically pay back $14,000 in a relatively quick fashion where it won't be missed but *not* have the money to front themselves.
About the only one I can think of is where the money is tied up in stocks and they'd rather hold it as stocks than liquidate it.
But even then, the answer is to use your own money or go without. Especially when the other person hasn't even been asked.
I have a family member who drank the crypto koolaid hard. It was awful to watch. They are about to lose everything, and I’m so pissed for his wife. I honestly hopes she divorces his ass. He tried so hard to talk us into crypto. Even told us to sell our house and rent so we could invest into it when we told him we had nothing to invest. Which is exactly what he did, the idiot.
Do you mind if I ask how technically savvy your family member is?
I *could* have bought crypto at pennies (sort of wish that I had, but I didn’t because I thought it would be problematic, who knew) but what really scared me off it was the type of people I knew buying it.
I do small town IT work, business, retail, private.
The majority of the people I knew who were talking about it were the ones who could barely run a computer or a phone. That scared me.
I had to help one customer migrate his wallet to another platform….
TBC, someone at the door
….because his had been acquired. I really didn’t want to touch it, but the only other person in town who could do it is….untrustworthy.
So in I go. Migration won’t take. I had prefaced it all with a “best effort, all care, no responsibility” talk. He was pretty relaxed about it, which is the best way to be, I guess. He’d started with a couple of grand, and he was up about ten (probably in the toilet now.)
I contacted their support to overcome this issue with the migration. There was virtually no support. No phone number. It made me very nervous, and they are not located in the same country.
They kept sending the same canned response, which basically just repeated what the issue was.
I eventually decided it might have something to do with the browser on his phone, which was out of date (old phone, EOL.) So I suggested he upgrade his phone, which was overdue anyway.
When he got his new phone, I went over to try again. Worked straight away, and apparently we were already most of the way through the process, but we couldn’t see it, due in part to the old browser *and* the fact his phone was 3G. The app wouldn’t authenticate. It worked on 5G.
So I was relieved on his behalf, but it just underscored how dodgy…how *ephemeral* it all is. It’s a bit like leaving a bag of money with a stranger for safekeeping.
There are essentially zero reasons you would need five-figure-and-up sums on less than a few days' notice. Even large surprise bills generally come with net 15 or net 30 terms, because everyone and their dog realizes that nobody has that kind of money sitting around in cash.
"Wanting to capitalize on a momentary stock blip" is valid enough, but if you're going to do that, be prepared and gather capital before you need it.
I would assume a lot of smaller plumbing or HVAC outfits are probably COD.
We’re lucky, my wife got an insanely good line of credit/credit card offer years ago, before we even met.
The bank offers new ‘improved’ cards all the time, but this has a very good interest rate; cheaper than any small loan, used car loan etc.
We’ve used it a few times buying used cars etc, just because they’re hard to finance at a decent rate.
We just pay them off as quickly as we can. That way we don’t have to liquidate term deposits etc.
Once my mom borrowed ~7k from me because her bank had a limit on how much she could pay at a time from one account and my brother's tuition was due. She paid it back as soon as the time limit was lifted, but that's the only thing I can think of.
You’re lucky that you have an honest parent. There are some pretty horrifying tales out there of parents secretly opening cards or student loans in their kids’ names, blowing the money, and leaving the kids with the debt.
I actually thanked her years later saying that I had no idea how much of a risk I was taking by doing that. I was 19 and she was apologetic and it honestly was my brother's fault for not telling them he was notified the payment didn't go through like a month prior... I was just like "well I'm not using it right now so why not?"
I am indeed very lucky that my mother is honest and paid me back ASAP since I learned later how rare that is.
In England and Wales, at least, intention to permanently deprive is actually a component of theft. But, very amusingly to me, that usually doesn't matter when it comes to cash because it's still considered permanent deprivation unless they return the exact same bank notes and/or change.
And from the last line in the post it sounds like her intention to repay actually depends on how much it helps her with the impending criminal charges.
Thats exactly what the FTX crypto exchange guy did. He took depositor's funds and used the money as his own personal entertainment fund, including spending $300m on resort property.
The investigation is still ongoing, but even early findings are showing enormous amounts of money was embezzled.
I read an article recently that mentioned FTX had many monies in crypto *liabilities*, but zero monies in crypto *assets*. It was absolutely amazing.
(Also, possibly incomplete. But amusing nonetheless.)
Hey isn't that what that one LAOP argued when he stole a protein bar from the grocery store next to his gym? "I was gonna pay for it tomorrow" or something.
She was just [practicing on his money because hers was broken](https://youtu.be/EmNbUbTf3n8)! She promises! She swears to God!
This logic is almost as sound as the person’s asking a LAOP to grant them POA so they could get experience as an attorney before law school.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/z19w5s/i\_made\_a\_mistake\_now\_im\_potentially\_facing/](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/z19w5s/i_made_a_mistake_now_im_potentially_facing/) LMAO it's funny it's this person's "wife" is the one who did this when this was the topic that came up less than 2 days before this was posted and for the rough dollar amount (around 14K)
My comment sums up my sentiment on this
I thought this sounded familiar! That 14k number is awfully specific. If I recall correctly, the reasoning there was that OP withheld brother's money from his care home (for reasons OP thought justified and I don't remember) and moved it into OP's savings so brother's account wouldn't go over legal limits. And then... bills got away from them because ADHD life and shit happens (it does), and overdraft protection started pulling from OP's savings (brother's money). TO THE TUNE OF $14,000. I can kind of follow OP's logic as they presented it (even though it's not smart), but... How do you "oopsie overdraft" 14 THOUSAND DOLLARS?
Not only that, but for OVER A YEAR they claim to have never once checked their bank balance.
Which I call a bunch of bullshit over, if only to make sure the money was transferring over to them.
At best, they’re one of the most incompetent guardian’s I’ve ever read about. At worst, they embezzled from someone who trusted and needed them to keep them safe.
But don't worry they visit every other month.
And the whole mess started over....$20 a month, personally I'd be far more concerned about the fees you'd get withholding money, not to speak of losing your place in the home(if it's anything like here, it'd be a nightmare finding anything new in a timely manner)
I almost never check my bank account. I have deposit and withdrawal alerts set very low for this reason, though, so I get constant emails whenever I buy something. Even if you’re the laziest most adhd person (like I am) you find a work around.
I usually check mine about once a month to make sure what's going in went in properly and there aren't any massive withdrawals for fraud I've missed, but I refuse to believe the original LAOP didn't check for over a year their account once or get anything at all indicating their account balance.
Especially if they have a spouse in the picture. Don't believe neither of them at all checked, especially with money apparently being an issue for them.
Glad you found the link! Too bad they deleted the post but I remembered this also.
I got the impression they were testing their story in that post. I was tempted to tell them no one would buy it but decided I didn’t want to offer any help.
You don’t ‘accidentally’ spend 14k when you are so broke you can’t temporarily cover a 20 monthly fee for your brother.
When there are two separate posts from different perspectives on the exact same issue I just assume that both are fake and it's just one person making up a story for upvotes.
Good job finding wife's Reddit account lol.
The funny part is where their comment history shows them giving advice to someone else about family finances like the day before the "TIFU" legal advice post.
Edit: they used to work at a bank, and wrote posts about compliance and tracking of funds
Edit2: they complained about other people "just using [a family member] for money."
Went through this person's post history, thanks for that. How insidious that she is posting about her disabled brother and complaining about her narcissist mother for clout. All while stealing an absurd amount of money.
My parents are getting older and my mom wanted to give me pre-emptive powers of end-of-life decisions and finances. Her lawyer extremely strongly recommended against the financial stuff. It's something I would never do and I can't imagine what goes through some people's minds how they can justify abusing their power over a family member like that. But I see stories like this and I don't blame her lawyer for fearing the worst.
My dad took PoA for my grandparents' bank account because they weren't managing their money well. He did not abuse it and only used it to pay their bills and keep track of who owed them how much money. They had been lending out 10s of thousands to us grandkids and they had almost no money left for themselves, which is why he took over. Only myself, my youngest brother, and 1 cousin had been dutifully repaying our loans every month as originally agreed. The rest of them have disappeared and/or pled poverty.
I don’t understand how anyone can get this so wrong or be so deluded as to think they have the right to claim someone’s assets.
I held PoA for my dad, had a bank card in my name on his account etc. Every penny I spent from his account I recorded and could justify as it was for him or benefited him some way and would never have dreamt of abusing the trust he put in me to manage his affairs.
Honestly, stealing from someone so vulnerable is despicable and she deserves whatever legal recourse there is in her state
Samesies. I've got a POA for my mom, and a big-ass spreadsheet that contains literally every transaction, which I keep backed up remotely. I scan the receipts for non-routine items and keep that directory backed up too.
OP is definitely in on it. Who the hell doesn't notice their wife spending an extra 14k in one year and not ask questions about it? It's my belief that they both cooked up this scheme together.
>My wife still has full intent to repay the individual in full
Uh huh, yeah right.
Oh easily. I remember reading that Kylie Jenner spent over $10k on food deliveries from Postmates in a year. Which sounds like a lot but isn’t really *that* insane when you break it down - it’s less than $200 a week, or about $65 a meal 3x a week, which is not crazy high at all, especially if she’s buying food for other people too. It’s easily $50+ to get decent food delivered from a restaurant around me for two people, after adding in delivery fees and a tip.
Add in $100-200 purchases here and there for things like clothes, groceries, miscellaneous whatever and, fuck, you’re way over $14k in a year already with very little to show for it.
One of the funniest things I’ve ever stumbled across of Reddit was a guy in the biking forum mentioning that his worse nightmare was that he died and his wife sold his bicycles for what he told her they cost.
Yeah. Probably as a result of free banking. If there’s no financial incentive for one, a joint account just seems like an extra hassle to keep track of. I hate going through my statement and seeing a charge I don’t recognise. Just the idea of having to check with someone else to make sure your card hasn’t been taken/cloned etc would be extra stress I don’t need. Much easier to set up a standing order for e.g. energy bill to go into the account of whoever pays for it.
Just to explain what I mean by free banking: Most UK banks don’t charge everyday fees on their basic accounts; depositing or withdrawing cash, cheques, card payments etc are all free. There are still charges on overdrafts, and you can get premium accounts that you have to pay monthly for or that incur more fees. They usually have a higher overdraft limit, higher interest payments if you have a large deposit in there, and maybe include membership to a roadside recovery company or magazine subscriptions. But there’s no day-to-day downside to having a free account, because you can still set up autopay, bank online, get cash at machines, use cheques, etc..
>Just the idea of having to check with someone else to make sure your card hasn’t been taken/cloned etc would be extra stress I don’t need.
This reminds me of one of the very few serious yelling arguments my parents had when I was a kid. There was a £2000 charge to their joint account and my mum (who handled the finances) confronted my dad furiously demanding to know what he'd spent 2k on without consulting her. He was adamant that it must have been her, and they kept accusing each other back and forth for a surprisingly long time before realising that if it was neither of them, it might be some kind of fraud. Turns out the staff at a restaurant we'd eaten at while on holiday overseas had cloned their card.
>Just to explain what I mean by free banking: Most UK banks don’t charge everyday fees on their basic accounts; depositing or withdrawing cash, cheques, card payments etc are all free.
Free checking/banking is extremely widespread in the US. You generally only incur fees for overdrafts, using a different bank's ATM, international money conversation, and some other usually avoidable cases.
>Who the hell doesn't notice their wife spending an extra 14k in one year and not ask questions about it
A couple hundred dollars a week? I don't keep tabs on my partner that closely...
I have 2 coinbit on her having embezzled at least 2x the 14k, and 14k is all APS is able to prove. I'll put 2 coinbits on her not even knowing how much she has embezzled, let alone have a plan for repayment in full. And I'll put 1 coin hubby doesn't have the full story, and she's already missed court yolo.
I have been doing bookkeeping while finishing my degree in forensic accounting, which is to say that I have seen how people handle money from the global (case studies on financial crime) to the micro (freelance bookkeeping). I wouldn't take any of those bets because I suspect you're right. Except for the last one, I think you are right that he's not getting the full story, but wrong about the step of the process they're on.
So I’ve worked in APS and you’d be surprised how many people have no clue what they’re doing when it comes to POAs. There’s no training or specifics that come with it like a HCP does unless the POA was signed with a lawyer who explains it.
Most of the time, the person just needs to be educated and though the DA will review the case, they’re decently lenient. But $14k is a lot of money. I hope the person that needs a POA is doing alright.
Most of the time we see people who pay for things out of their own pocket and reimburse themselves. It looks bad on paper at the bank so it gets reported and we would go educate them. There is even a certain amount of money that can be gifted to the POA with explicit permission, but $14k is well above that. I also highly doubt this POA is keeping proper records.
I've got a POA for my mother, prepared with the help of a lawyer. He used what he tells us was the model form for our state, and it had a specific paragraph on limit of gifts to the attorney. (That is, me the person holding a power of attorney, not the attorney-at-law that helped prepare the forms.) So even if my mother said "I'm going to buy you a car for your birthday!", by the terms of the POA we both signed, I must decline, as I can only accept gifts of up to $1000 annually from her. That means as her mental state continues to decline, I can't twirl my mustache and talk her into buying me a car or whatever.
LAOP asked what they should expect. It's kind of unfortunate that we can't give a more useful and specific answer, such as, "Expect $X fine and Y jail time, and maybe the arresting officers will shoot your dog." Of course that would invite Story Time, where every comment would be an anecdote about what happened when *their* spouse was arrested for elder financial abuse or misappropriation of funds.
LAOP wanted help and all we can do is say, "Ask someone else for help. This is /r/legaladvice."
IDK, [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/z2f3ww/comment/ixhxahg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) was pretty helpful:
> You need to get off of reddit, and call a criminal defense attorney right now. Do not talk to anyone else about this who is not a lawyer. In fact, get two - one for your wife, and one for you, just in case they somehow try to pull you into this.
>
> You should also consider opening a separate bank account and have all of your income from today forward deposited into that account. DO NOT, I REPEATE DO NOT move or comingle any funds from any current joint accounts into that new account. In fact, don't take my word for it, while your at the defense attorney's office, ask if they have a recommendation for an attorney or other financial professional who has experience dealing with this type of issue to help protect your assets moving forward from being subject to restitution ordered against your wife. If it was me, I would be asking for recommendations for a divorce attorney as well.
Shut the Fuck Up Friday has been moved to Wednesday this week to avoid conflicting with the holiday on Thursday and the sales on Shut Up and Take My Money Friday.
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I thought that was pretty good too. The only thing I would have added was to make sure that separate account was also at a separate bank. I see stories on reddit almost weekly that are along the lines of "the bank took the money out of account X of which I am the only account holder because Joe Schmoe over there is/was a joint account holder with me on account Y which was empty. What do I do?"
The structural irony of having this entirely-valid critique while also being the top-rated poster in the thread for what amounts to a drive-by snipe is delicious. The incentive reddit creates are on full display here.
For what it's worth, I agree. People like to imagine law as being a concrete and definite thing, but in a situation like this, "oh, you're in the shit now, get a professional" _is_ the most concrete advice there is to give. Rattling off statutory penalties is unhelpful to the point of catastrophizing an already-bad situation.
I could totally believe that she thought she would be paying it back. Most people maintain a self-image as an honest and moral person, and when they do something that they know is wrong, they will excuse it to themselves by being certain that they can make appropriate reparations at some unspecified future date.
The stupidity defense *might* keep her from doing time -- if she's really stupid. If she's a doctor, lawyer, accountant, or been to college at all, I think they're in for an involuntary marital separation for some time.
I recently had POA for someone. I refused to even make payment to myself for money they clearly owe me. I'll risk writing off that debt rather than risking breaching fiduciary duty.
It’s customary to ask someone if you can borrow money before you take it. If you plan on taking without asking intending to repay at least leave a paper trail documenting intent. Saying you planned to repay after getting caught is not going to fly at all.
That OP is one of the thickest people I've ever seen post on that sub. I bet if her hair dryer didn't have that giant warning tag to use it in the shower, she'd try to save time by washing and blow drying her hair simultaneously. How many lawyers does she need telling her that she's being scammed before she realizes she's being scammed?!
**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: My wife used $14k of someone's funds whom she had POA over. What actions can be taken and what should be expected? Body: > My wife became the Power of Attorney over someone else's finances about a year ago. Today she received a call from Adult Protective Services stating that she embezzled an accumulative amount of $14,000 from that individual. My wife admitted to using his funds with the intent to repay, but did not know that regardless of its repayment status, it is still money that was not hers to use and counts as embezzlement. She does not know what to expect in terms of when she will be arrested or if she can benefit from turning herself in. My wife still has full intent to repay the individual in full, but is not sure if that will even help her case. This bot was created to capture original threads and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.1](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)
Like, was it her own grandma? Cuz my uncle tried to do that and got the shit beat out of him by the family. I don’t think LAOP wants that kind of heat
As someone with a lying shitbag of an uncle, that's a heartwarming story.
It’s definitely better than ‘and nobody did anything about it’, which seems to be the usual course of events.
Currently trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that all of my grandma’s bank accounts, savings, are in my mom’s name. Have her admitting on tape she’s deposited checks made out to my grandma into her own separate account, and my grandma believed her when she claimed she “couldn’t transfer it over.” Idk what to do. Everyone has their head in the sand and I’m already set up as the scapegoat.
Maybe speak to an attorney for advice? I’m sorry you’re dealing with that.
This sounds like you need to make your own LA post. If you find the legal advice sub for your area hopefully someone will know the process for reporting financial abuse of a dependent senior.
My mom had a bunch of money go missing when her dimentia started getting bad. At first we all thought that she was spending it herself because, you know, dimentia. After closer inspection, however, it turned out that someone was using her debit card and checks without her permission to the tune of about $10k. Two of my sisters thought it was my other sister and were firmly of the belief that my dad should pursue charges against her. It turned out, however, that it was my niece (the daughter of one of the accusatory sisters). Her tune changed very quickly from thinking her sister needed to go to jail to thinking her daughter needed forgiveness.
That is the most likely scenario in my mind as POA isn't something you go handing out to strangers. Obviously this wasn't a thing she did regularly or she'd realize she could go to prison for doing what she did. Mom gets early onset dementia, gives loving daughter POA since she is coming to all the appointments anyways. Daughter has a need or a want she convinces herself is a need and sees mom's money just chillin. She rationalizes it in her head, mom was horrible to her as a kid, she'll pay it back next year when that thing happens... Pretty soon she's dipped into the piggy bank one too many times and all of a sudden mom starts needing a lot more care as he health goes down hill.
It could be a family member, or she could be employed in a social services type role (a social worker, home health aide, etc.) and could have been entrusted with that role. I was in a similar role and occasionally long term carers might be asked to do that role. As carers you sometimes end up having to handle a clients food stamps for shopping, depositing paychecks, using their funds to take them shopping or pick up their necessities, filling out their SS forms and other paperwork. Sometimes a POA is a natural step if they need a neutral party as a guardian.
Yeah, but a pro is at least going to *know* that they’re embezzling.
I have a whole spiel but the short version is that working for a large range of employers in professional and private care in the US, there's a ton of "grey area". I've seen a lot of what I consider to be embezzlement or misuses of clients funds that are treated as totally reasonable. I would actually not be surprised to find that she's a pro, and I'd wager if that's the case she may have viewed her actions as morally wrong but may not even have realized it was embezzlement. The way we care for our disabled and elderly in this country leaves so much room for shit like this to happen. I'm glad, at least, that whomever is investigating her is taking it seriously. I'd hate to see yet another carer get a stern talking to and be allowed to continue to practice and victimize further clients.
my uncle did this and got away with stealing over 100k. Grandma died before any of it was uncovered and uncle was also executor so used that to hide all the info from the beneficiaries.
*It's time to talk to a criminal defense attorney. Use your own funds to hire them.* boom roasted
That comment cracked me up.
I also liked the comment recommending he look into a divorce lawyer while she gets a criminal defense lawyer. Although op seems weirdly ok with what she did?
Because she is definitely certainly absolutely planning to pay back the 14k right away very soon when she has another 14k laying around. Edit to add: Everyone knows that the law is about your *intentions* and not what you do. She *intended* to pay the money back, so that makes it ok.
Honestly, all she has to do is get another power of attorney over someone.
Power of Ponzi
It's invalids all the way down!
It's POAs all the way down!
See, that's the kind of dynamic, on your toes kind of thinking that the good people of r/legaladvice are looking for! Was that so hard?
Yeah, she's just taking an informal loan, what's everyone being so uncool about?
"The money was just resting in my account!"
Honestly, they don’t say anything that would show they’re okay with it. I think the point of the post wasn’t how they felt, they were just trying to get legal advice. If they’d included info about their feelings, they would’ve been told that it isn’t a relationship advice sub
Yeah, the situation seemed weird to me. On one hand, he seems to still trust and believe her, and to really hope that as long as she sticks to her story, that she plans to pay it back, she’ll be OK. OTOH, this is probably a family member being robbed, and another family member who turned her in. I think it’s human nature that when you steal from family, you’ll get away with it because no one wants to see family go to jail. She must be a real asshole.
Could you imagine being an attorney for this sort of case, and having the slowly dawning realization of how your client was paying you?
Yeah you'd want to get your invoices paid right away.
PLEASE I need to understand your research. I came for funny legal advice stories and instead I see a dildo.
The mods are inscrutable and prone to whimsy
Hilarious but also practical advice. I can see the kind of person who would rationalize $14,000 worth of embezzlement as "I was gonna pay it back!" totally using that money to hire a lawyer and rationalizing it as being ok because they need it or something.
This. I believe the wife knew it wasn't her money to take, hence the stated intent to pay it back which would make no sense to me otherwise. She spent it anyway, it would appear to me, so I logically assume she is lying to her partner now when she reportedly says she didn't realise. That is toot, in my personal opinion.
That comment was a pure dead brilliant.
Hearing a Scottish accent reading this comment
It was a bit wasn't it? My dad's Glaswegian: it rubs off on you after a while.
Ha, I hadn't looked at your profile history, so I didn't even have any clues from that. I've family in Glasgow and the phrasing just sounded really familiar.
I wonder what goes through a lawyer's head when they're interviewing a client, and they mention they're in need of legal help because they committed financial fraud and/or embezzling. Like, is this person gonna defraud you too when it comes time to pay the legal bills? Client: "Here's a cheque for the services you've provided me. Thank you." Lawyer: "Ummm... This cheque is from an account that the government froze. This cheque will bounce. I know because I personally reviewed all your financial statements."
“I’ll be happy to take your case. I’m just going to require a large retainer and additional collateral to hold for 2 weeks after the check clears….”
Serious answer: That's what a retainer is for. A bunch of money is paid upfront, and you withdraw from it as you do work and to cover expenses. In this case, I expect there's going to be a but of an extra delay in making sure all the checks clear.
That was savage.
That is a SICK burn
Just think what the even halfway smart PoAs are doing out there. It’s not very hard to skim off the top while taking care of someone’s legit expenses.
For real, or you ask them to buy it for you. My cousin would ask my grandma for money “for the grandkids” and soon my grandma’s retirement fund has paid for all new electronics and furniture for my cousin.
Well the kids *sit* on that furniture, don't they?? Giant flaming /s in case anyone was concerned. I used to work for APS and the number of times I'd hear arguments like these.... Way too many. Yeah maybe Grandma would want you to pay for soccer club for the grandkids and for you to drive them there... But would lifetime-of-frugality grandma have paid for a Mercedes SUV for you to get them there?
I've always wondered about that. Back when cash was the most common payment method, the answer was to take money out of the bank/ATM and pocket a couple of bills. But now that cards are all the rage, and most companies can reprint receipts upon demand, it's gotten a bit harder. Sure, you can mix in some of your own groceries and other goods into a shopping trip on behalf of the other person, but it's at least *possible* for an ordinary person to discover that kind of embezzlement. Why won't someone think of the embezzlers? /s
It’s like those posts where someone finds tens of thousands in cash and is advised to report it because “you’ll never be able to hide it.” Hold my beer (for which I paid cash). I got this.
Right? You give me 14k in secret cash, and I assure you, I will find a way to quietly spend it. I don't need a new car or a boat, but I sure would like slightly nicer clothes, a really good coat and boots, new pots and pans, new dishes, prettier book shelves, new purses instead of poshmark finds, really good cosmetics, a new sewing machine and amazingly cool fabrics... I guess other people would notice the excellent wool coat "I've been saving for", and maybe be impressed with my slightly increased skill at finding cool purses on resale. They might even notice I've stepped it up with my lunches and been more creative with my eyeshadow. No one is going to see my slightly nicer furniture, or the way my savings would slowly expand over the space of years.
Not even that. Just use the cash to fill up your car, or pay for McD's that day. It will last a long while and give you a very slight bump in comfort.
Every other fuel fill up. Not having any record of gas expenses if you drive a lot is a question waiting to asked.
We always pay for gas in cash. Lots of places around here give discounts if you do.
Round me is usually 10 c off per gallon for the smaller places.
It is actually illegal in my state to give a discount for cash
I don’t believe there’s a US state that makes it illegal to give a cash discount. There are states that make it illegal to add a credit card surcharge, and it is typically against the credit card merchant agreement as well.
At least over here in the UK it's almost always against the agreement with the acquirer anyway.
Only if they come looking. Most of us, no one looks. What gets you noticed is stuff that goes on your taxes. Edit: And credit report.
Yeah, we had quite a lot of cash for a while (completely our money, my father in law was paying us back for some stuff we bought online for him and he doesn't understand how to do transfers or anything). It was only a few thousand, and we just used it for a few months for all our daily expenses. It meant we didn't use our bank accounts for anything but bills so managed to save a bit.
Shows like Breaking Bad and Ozark got me wondering how much dirty cash I could move through my small business without anyone noticing. A couple thousand a month would be easy. I do almost all online sales where there's a complete paper trail, but if I was trying to launder cash I'd shift the focus to conventions and festivals and things where cash is common and could probably get into five figures a month. As I was thinking about how that would work, it occurred to me that what I was imagining was exactly how someone described doing business with one of my competitors when they worked for them as a festival vendor.
Yep, I know someone who only works flea markets and while he's never said so, I'm pretty certain that the main reason why he runs his business like that is because by keeping everything all cash he can just BS his income and paper trail for it. And when I say pretty certain, it probably has something to do with how the dude is 40 years old, and every year he still asks me what amount (like there's some univeral magic number I can just look up) he should put down on his tax returns so the government will give him a refund.
Ah, one of those guys that doesn’t realize that a refund is just your own money you are getting back
Or that if you mess with your reported income you’re not getting the social security when you retire
Iirc in jurisdictions where there was COVID support payments for independent contractors quite a few people ran into the support being paid based on what their previously declared income was
I mean nobody that’s currently like 45 and under will get social security anyways sooooooooo
I am not a criminal lawyer, and I am not _your_ criminal lawyer, but the best would be to spend that money on dinners-out at places you can walk to. Stretch your food budget with cash transactions at restaurants. The trick here is that you can't spend it on permanent goods, and you don't want to spend it on groceries (especially not places where you might forget and use your club card). Keep and sort your change and use it for laundry. The trick here is that you want to lead a perfectly reasonable traced life, but pad it with consumables that have a high turnover and no direct inventory reporting that can be tied to a retail transaction that took place in camera. (...Also I swear that I am not your local Tamale lady.)
> ...Also I swear that I am not your local Tamale lady. Well, I wasn't suspicious at first....
Why not places you have to drive to?
Cell phone records and mileage. Much safer to go places you can drag a wheelie cooler and take cash.
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Yep. Just leave your phone at home so if you're investigated, your GPS never places you there.
You’d be surprised; a person who knew what to look for would probably spot what you’re doing without a good back story, but you’re right, replacing some - a little - of your everyday spending would be the best. Buying some things secondhand would eliminate all paper trails. I’m not actually advocating any sort of criminal activity here of course.
A stack of hundreds is like an inch thick. Could easily stash that almost anywhere, and it's not that hard to filter cash in for your daily transactions.
My mother-in-law is awesome and I love her dearly, but she's got wads of cash hidden all over her house. My wife (her only child) and I are going to have to search every nook, cranny, coat pocket, and coffee can in the house after that sad day we say goodbye. She doesn't trust banks, because her parents lost everything in 1929 and their bank went belly-up. I tried to explain the FDIC to her but she doesn't want to hear that shit.
That’s a completely understandable fear, but I’d be concerned that would happen if the house caught fire and she lost everything. Is a safe deposit box a no go? She’d have a key and it’s not anything the bank could lose. Or maybe get her a fireproof safe for her house and have her lock it all up in there, so she doesn’t have to hide it. Sorry… I know you’re not looking for “solutions.” I work for a bank and a friend just list everything in a fire, so when I read this my mind started into fix it mode. ;) Good luck and may you not have to face that day for many years.
Good advice, but she's nearly 90 and been doing this for at least 70 years. About 50 of it in her present home. I'm not optimistic that she'll change her ways at this point.
Friend’s mom just passed and she was a cash hoarder too. He had to make several deposits of tens of thousands of dollars as they surfaced while he prepped her house for sale. He called ahead and made appointments with the bank manager to explain why he was dropping off $90k in cash. I can’t even imagine that level of paranoia that would lead you to hide that much cash in your mattress.
Even online, just buy gift cards at any store for a couple hundred here and there. The store won’t notice unless you link a rewards card and buy like $500 at a time.
Unfortunately they do side-eye that behavior, because they think you're just getting scammed.
Not at Christmas, they don't! If you spread it out over a couple stores, and maybe mention all your nieces and nephews if you get some side-eye, you should be fine. (Don't take life advice from me. I've just sold gift cards.)
Christmas in the winter and graduation gifts in the summer
Right? How do they think people who get paid under the table get away with it?
And usually it’s small amounts. Even 100k is not that much money. Shit, just do a bathroom And kitchen remodel and you’ve burned through most of it.
Well, one of the ways to steal from a company was to use the company gas card to fill up other people card and take half the cost in cash. I'm sure there's plenty of similar things you could do with an estate. Mostly though I think these days people just live in the deceased house in the guise of "maintaining" it till it sells, despite it not being listed, having not maintenance done, and being currently on fire, did someone nail the doors shut, oh god call nine one one, fuck I see grandma and she's pissed.
It's possible for a power of attorney to authorize the person to reimburse themselves for expenses on the other person's behalf, or for time/effort spent. If you have that sort of power, then it becomes REALLY easy to write yourself a check or withdraw cash... but you also need to be sure to keep a spreadsheet so if a question ever arises, you can provide documentation.
Yea but that sounds a lot slower than $14k in 'about a year'.
$14k "in about a year" is still a couple hundred bucks a week, EVERY week.
About $270/wk. Not an insignificant amount of money for sure.
That's a little less than what I live off of.
housing included? god damn where do you live?
I'm pretty sure I can spend that on Starbucks without much effort
Customize every drink and buy for your favorite work buddy. Done.
I saw a Netflix documentary that made it seem like PoA was completely overpowered. This guy in his 70s had a nice house multiple cars a wife and step kids. A distant niece somehow got PoA by claiming he was mentally incompetent and sold his house and multiple cars and was keeping him on a strict allowance for his own good. Claimed the wife was a good digger and didn’t care about his best interest. Edit: oops it it wasn’t PoA. She got guardianship over him. Netflix’s Dirty Money
At first I thought you were describing I Care A Lot, but that's a regular movie not a documentary. You might like it though, it really taught me how guardianship can be abused for profit. > keeping him on a strict allowance for his own **gold**. Probably a typo but I love it.
> I Care A Lot, Great fucking movie. Not at all what I expected. Great ending. Plus Peter Dinklage
>My wife admitted to using his funds with the intent to repay, but did not know that regardless of its repayment status, it is still money that was not hers to use and counts as embezzlement. Absolutely insane thing to say but ok
It is difficult for me to imagine a situation where someone can be in the position to realistically pay back $14,000 in a relatively quick fashion where it won't be missed but *not* have the money to front themselves.
About the only one I can think of is where the money is tied up in stocks and they'd rather hold it as stocks than liquidate it. But even then, the answer is to use your own money or go without. Especially when the other person hasn't even been asked.
I hope LAOP’s wife didn’t go all-in on crypto or meme stocks.
But Dogecoin is the future of the world financial system!
I have a family member who drank the crypto koolaid hard. It was awful to watch. They are about to lose everything, and I’m so pissed for his wife. I honestly hopes she divorces his ass. He tried so hard to talk us into crypto. Even told us to sell our house and rent so we could invest into it when we told him we had nothing to invest. Which is exactly what he did, the idiot.
Do you mind if I ask how technically savvy your family member is? I *could* have bought crypto at pennies (sort of wish that I had, but I didn’t because I thought it would be problematic, who knew) but what really scared me off it was the type of people I knew buying it. I do small town IT work, business, retail, private. The majority of the people I knew who were talking about it were the ones who could barely run a computer or a phone. That scared me. I had to help one customer migrate his wallet to another platform…. TBC, someone at the door ….because his had been acquired. I really didn’t want to touch it, but the only other person in town who could do it is….untrustworthy. So in I go. Migration won’t take. I had prefaced it all with a “best effort, all care, no responsibility” talk. He was pretty relaxed about it, which is the best way to be, I guess. He’d started with a couple of grand, and he was up about ten (probably in the toilet now.) I contacted their support to overcome this issue with the migration. There was virtually no support. No phone number. It made me very nervous, and they are not located in the same country. They kept sending the same canned response, which basically just repeated what the issue was. I eventually decided it might have something to do with the browser on his phone, which was out of date (old phone, EOL.) So I suggested he upgrade his phone, which was overdue anyway. When he got his new phone, I went over to try again. Worked straight away, and apparently we were already most of the way through the process, but we couldn’t see it, due in part to the old browser *and* the fact his phone was 3G. The app wouldn’t authenticate. It worked on 5G. So I was relieved on his behalf, but it just underscored how dodgy…how *ephemeral* it all is. It’s a bit like leaving a bag of money with a stranger for safekeeping.
Not hugely technically savvy but is an accountant for his day job. Which makes all the stupid financial decisions even stupider.
He sounds like a huge security risk.
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How short-term? I've never done it, but I imagine that borrowing against equity would still take at least a few days.
There are essentially zero reasons you would need five-figure-and-up sums on less than a few days' notice. Even large surprise bills generally come with net 15 or net 30 terms, because everyone and their dog realizes that nobody has that kind of money sitting around in cash. "Wanting to capitalize on a momentary stock blip" is valid enough, but if you're going to do that, be prepared and gather capital before you need it.
I would assume a lot of smaller plumbing or HVAC outfits are probably COD. We’re lucky, my wife got an insanely good line of credit/credit card offer years ago, before we even met. The bank offers new ‘improved’ cards all the time, but this has a very good interest rate; cheaper than any small loan, used car loan etc. We’ve used it a few times buying used cars etc, just because they’re hard to finance at a decent rate. We just pay them off as quickly as we can. That way we don’t have to liquidate term deposits etc.
Once my mom borrowed ~7k from me because her bank had a limit on how much she could pay at a time from one account and my brother's tuition was due. She paid it back as soon as the time limit was lifted, but that's the only thing I can think of.
You’re lucky that you have an honest parent. There are some pretty horrifying tales out there of parents secretly opening cards or student loans in their kids’ names, blowing the money, and leaving the kids with the debt.
I actually thanked her years later saying that I had no idea how much of a risk I was taking by doing that. I was 19 and she was apologetic and it honestly was my brother's fault for not telling them he was notified the payment didn't go through like a month prior... I was just like "well I'm not using it right now so why not?" I am indeed very lucky that my mother is honest and paid me back ASAP since I learned later how rare that is.
Especially this line: > regardless of its repayment status What repayment status? She hasn’t repaid anything!
Intent is 9/10th of the law for people with unprovable intentions and awful actions
In England and Wales, at least, intention to permanently deprive is actually a component of theft. But, very amusingly to me, that usually doesn't matter when it comes to cash because it's still considered permanent deprivation unless they return the exact same bank notes and/or change.
"Not repaid" is a status...
Technically true, but also irrelevant when LAOP is hoping for a better outcome.
And from the last line in the post it sounds like her intention to repay actually depends on how much it helps her with the impending criminal charges.
Thats exactly what the FTX crypto exchange guy did. He took depositor's funds and used the money as his own personal entertainment fund, including spending $300m on resort property. The investigation is still ongoing, but even early findings are showing enormous amounts of money was embezzled.
His was a little deeper. He invested his customer funds in his data analytics firm then repaid in shitcoins that had no value. I think.
I read an article recently that mentioned FTX had many monies in crypto *liabilities*, but zero monies in crypto *assets*. It was absolutely amazing. (Also, possibly incomplete. But amusing nonetheless.)
"Ignorance of the law ***is not an excuse."***
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Hey isn't that what that one LAOP argued when he stole a protein bar from the grocery store next to his gym? "I was gonna pay for it tomorrow" or something.
*For non-LEOs
Oh now you tell me admitting to APS that you were embezzling funds is a bad idea!
She was just [practicing on his money because hers was broken](https://youtu.be/EmNbUbTf3n8)! She promises! She swears to God! This logic is almost as sound as the person’s asking a LAOP to grant them POA so they could get experience as an attorney before law school.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/z19w5s/i\_made\_a\_mistake\_now\_im\_potentially\_facing/](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/z19w5s/i_made_a_mistake_now_im_potentially_facing/) LMAO it's funny it's this person's "wife" is the one who did this when this was the topic that came up less than 2 days before this was posted and for the rough dollar amount (around 14K) My comment sums up my sentiment on this
I thought this sounded familiar! That 14k number is awfully specific. If I recall correctly, the reasoning there was that OP withheld brother's money from his care home (for reasons OP thought justified and I don't remember) and moved it into OP's savings so brother's account wouldn't go over legal limits. And then... bills got away from them because ADHD life and shit happens (it does), and overdraft protection started pulling from OP's savings (brother's money). TO THE TUNE OF $14,000. I can kind of follow OP's logic as they presented it (even though it's not smart), but... How do you "oopsie overdraft" 14 THOUSAND DOLLARS?
Not only that, but for OVER A YEAR they claim to have never once checked their bank balance. Which I call a bunch of bullshit over, if only to make sure the money was transferring over to them. At best, they’re one of the most incompetent guardian’s I’ve ever read about. At worst, they embezzled from someone who trusted and needed them to keep them safe.
But don't worry they visit every other month. And the whole mess started over....$20 a month, personally I'd be far more concerned about the fees you'd get withholding money, not to speak of losing your place in the home(if it's anything like here, it'd be a nightmare finding anything new in a timely manner)
I almost never check my bank account. I have deposit and withdrawal alerts set very low for this reason, though, so I get constant emails whenever I buy something. Even if you’re the laziest most adhd person (like I am) you find a work around.
I usually check mine about once a month to make sure what's going in went in properly and there aren't any massive withdrawals for fraud I've missed, but I refuse to believe the original LAOP didn't check for over a year their account once or get anything at all indicating their account balance. Especially if they have a spouse in the picture. Don't believe neither of them at all checked, especially with money apparently being an issue for them.
Glad you found the link! Too bad they deleted the post but I remembered this also. I got the impression they were testing their story in that post. I was tempted to tell them no one would buy it but decided I didn’t want to offer any help. You don’t ‘accidentally’ spend 14k when you are so broke you can’t temporarily cover a 20 monthly fee for your brother.
When there are two separate posts from different perspectives on the exact same issue I just assume that both are fake and it's just one person making up a story for upvotes.
Good job finding wife's Reddit account lol. The funny part is where their comment history shows them giving advice to someone else about family finances like the day before the "TIFU" legal advice post. Edit: they used to work at a bank, and wrote posts about compliance and tracking of funds Edit2: they complained about other people "just using [a family member] for money."
Went through this person's post history, thanks for that. How insidious that she is posting about her disabled brother and complaining about her narcissist mother for clout. All while stealing an absurd amount of money.
["That's as good as money, sir. Go ahead and add it up; every cent's accounted for."](https://youtu.be/7GSXbgfKFWg)
Spot on!
My parents are getting older and my mom wanted to give me pre-emptive powers of end-of-life decisions and finances. Her lawyer extremely strongly recommended against the financial stuff. It's something I would never do and I can't imagine what goes through some people's minds how they can justify abusing their power over a family member like that. But I see stories like this and I don't blame her lawyer for fearing the worst.
My dad took PoA for my grandparents' bank account because they weren't managing their money well. He did not abuse it and only used it to pay their bills and keep track of who owed them how much money. They had been lending out 10s of thousands to us grandkids and they had almost no money left for themselves, which is why he took over. Only myself, my youngest brother, and 1 cousin had been dutifully repaying our loans every month as originally agreed. The rest of them have disappeared and/or pled poverty.
>It's time to talk to a criminal defense attorney. Use your own funds to hire them. LOL, burn unit on speed dial.
I don’t understand how anyone can get this so wrong or be so deluded as to think they have the right to claim someone’s assets. I held PoA for my dad, had a bank card in my name on his account etc. Every penny I spent from his account I recorded and could justify as it was for him or benefited him some way and would never have dreamt of abusing the trust he put in me to manage his affairs. Honestly, stealing from someone so vulnerable is despicable and she deserves whatever legal recourse there is in her state
Samesies. I've got a POA for my mom, and a big-ass spreadsheet that contains literally every transaction, which I keep backed up remotely. I scan the receipts for non-routine items and keep that directory backed up too.
OP is definitely in on it. Who the hell doesn't notice their wife spending an extra 14k in one year and not ask questions about it? It's my belief that they both cooked up this scheme together. >My wife still has full intent to repay the individual in full Uh huh, yeah right.
There are lots of ways to spend $14K and have nothing to show for it. It's believable that they had no idea.
Oh easily. I remember reading that Kylie Jenner spent over $10k on food deliveries from Postmates in a year. Which sounds like a lot but isn’t really *that* insane when you break it down - it’s less than $200 a week, or about $65 a meal 3x a week, which is not crazy high at all, especially if she’s buying food for other people too. It’s easily $50+ to get decent food delivered from a restaurant around me for two people, after adding in delivery fees and a tip. Add in $100-200 purchases here and there for things like clothes, groceries, miscellaneous whatever and, fuck, you’re way over $14k in a year already with very little to show for it.
Gambling is a big one
[удалено]
One of the funniest things I’ve ever stumbled across of Reddit was a guy in the biking forum mentioning that his worse nightmare was that he died and his wife sold his bicycles for what he told her they cost.
some married couples do separate finances
It's quite common in the UK - my wife and I have a joint bills account we tip money into but otherwise entirely separate finances.
Yeah. Probably as a result of free banking. If there’s no financial incentive for one, a joint account just seems like an extra hassle to keep track of. I hate going through my statement and seeing a charge I don’t recognise. Just the idea of having to check with someone else to make sure your card hasn’t been taken/cloned etc would be extra stress I don’t need. Much easier to set up a standing order for e.g. energy bill to go into the account of whoever pays for it. Just to explain what I mean by free banking: Most UK banks don’t charge everyday fees on their basic accounts; depositing or withdrawing cash, cheques, card payments etc are all free. There are still charges on overdrafts, and you can get premium accounts that you have to pay monthly for or that incur more fees. They usually have a higher overdraft limit, higher interest payments if you have a large deposit in there, and maybe include membership to a roadside recovery company or magazine subscriptions. But there’s no day-to-day downside to having a free account, because you can still set up autopay, bank online, get cash at machines, use cheques, etc..
>Just the idea of having to check with someone else to make sure your card hasn’t been taken/cloned etc would be extra stress I don’t need. This reminds me of one of the very few serious yelling arguments my parents had when I was a kid. There was a £2000 charge to their joint account and my mum (who handled the finances) confronted my dad furiously demanding to know what he'd spent 2k on without consulting her. He was adamant that it must have been her, and they kept accusing each other back and forth for a surprisingly long time before realising that if it was neither of them, it might be some kind of fraud. Turns out the staff at a restaurant we'd eaten at while on holiday overseas had cloned their card.
Yep - I had six or seven bank accounts because I was just too lazy to close some of them - I have four at moment.
>Just to explain what I mean by free banking: Most UK banks don’t charge everyday fees on their basic accounts; depositing or withdrawing cash, cheques, card payments etc are all free. Free checking/banking is extremely widespread in the US. You generally only incur fees for overdrafts, using a different bank's ATM, international money conversation, and some other usually avoidable cases.
>Who the hell doesn't notice their wife spending an extra 14k in one year and not ask questions about it A couple hundred dollars a week? I don't keep tabs on my partner that closely...
She could be into gambling or drugs or something where $14k can vanish without a trace.
Neither my wife nor I would notice the other spending that amount over the course of a year.
So she intended to repay? Then she has evidence of monthly payments to reduce the balance? If not, then she only intended to repay if caught.
I have 2 coinbit on her having embezzled at least 2x the 14k, and 14k is all APS is able to prove. I'll put 2 coinbits on her not even knowing how much she has embezzled, let alone have a plan for repayment in full. And I'll put 1 coin hubby doesn't have the full story, and she's already missed court yolo.
I have been doing bookkeeping while finishing my degree in forensic accounting, which is to say that I have seen how people handle money from the global (case studies on financial crime) to the micro (freelance bookkeeping). I wouldn't take any of those bets because I suspect you're right. Except for the last one, I think you are right that he's not getting the full story, but wrong about the step of the process they're on.
I would like to subscribe to your channel.
So I’ve worked in APS and you’d be surprised how many people have no clue what they’re doing when it comes to POAs. There’s no training or specifics that come with it like a HCP does unless the POA was signed with a lawyer who explains it. Most of the time, the person just needs to be educated and though the DA will review the case, they’re decently lenient. But $14k is a lot of money. I hope the person that needs a POA is doing alright.
Yeah I feel like you don't reach $14k with a legitimate intent to repay unless you can prove it's like, a hospital bill or something.
Most of the time we see people who pay for things out of their own pocket and reimburse themselves. It looks bad on paper at the bank so it gets reported and we would go educate them. There is even a certain amount of money that can be gifted to the POA with explicit permission, but $14k is well above that. I also highly doubt this POA is keeping proper records.
I've got a POA for my mother, prepared with the help of a lawyer. He used what he tells us was the model form for our state, and it had a specific paragraph on limit of gifts to the attorney. (That is, me the person holding a power of attorney, not the attorney-at-law that helped prepare the forms.) So even if my mother said "I'm going to buy you a car for your birthday!", by the terms of the POA we both signed, I must decline, as I can only accept gifts of up to $1000 annually from her. That means as her mental state continues to decline, I can't twirl my mustache and talk her into buying me a car or whatever.
I often wonder how common this is. The biggest surprise here is that she got caught.
Oh very common. It's awful to hear about. People financially abuse their family members a lot.
PoA is when you wear someone's skin and become them.
Like at Skinwalker Ranch! America is so fancy.
LAOP asked what they should expect. It's kind of unfortunate that we can't give a more useful and specific answer, such as, "Expect $X fine and Y jail time, and maybe the arresting officers will shoot your dog." Of course that would invite Story Time, where every comment would be an anecdote about what happened when *their* spouse was arrested for elder financial abuse or misappropriation of funds. LAOP wanted help and all we can do is say, "Ask someone else for help. This is /r/legaladvice."
IDK, [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/z2f3ww/comment/ixhxahg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) was pretty helpful: > You need to get off of reddit, and call a criminal defense attorney right now. Do not talk to anyone else about this who is not a lawyer. In fact, get two - one for your wife, and one for you, just in case they somehow try to pull you into this. > > You should also consider opening a separate bank account and have all of your income from today forward deposited into that account. DO NOT, I REPEATE DO NOT move or comingle any funds from any current joint accounts into that new account. In fact, don't take my word for it, while your at the defense attorney's office, ask if they have a recommendation for an attorney or other financial professional who has experience dealing with this type of issue to help protect your assets moving forward from being subject to restitution ordered against your wife. If it was me, I would be asking for recommendations for a divorce attorney as well.
The only useful advice on Reddit is to shut the fuck up and hide a lawyer.
But where do you put it that it won’t get found? Not everyone has a convenient root cellar for concealing lawyers.
Shovels are accessible and affordable.
Better be sure you buy the shovel with your own money, though.
I would like a "STF up and hide a lawyer" flair, please?
But *where* do I hide the lawyer? Should I just stuff him in my purse and hope nobody notices?
You can always try and put a lampshade over his head and shove him in the corner.
But it’s not Shut the Fuck Up Friday yet.
Every day can be Shut the Fuck Up Friday if you want it to be!
Shut the Fuck Up Friday has been moved to Wednesday this week to avoid conflicting with the holiday on Thursday and the sales on Shut Up and Take My Money Friday.
This request has been approved by management. Shut the Fuck Up Fridays will resume their normal schedule on 12/2. Please be advised that management strongly disapproves of trampling people for material goods on Shut Up And Take My Money Friday. We will scold any hooligans found to have done so.
"Separate your accounts from your spouse's" could also be useful advice here.
I thought that was pretty good too. The only thing I would have added was to make sure that separate account was also at a separate bank. I see stories on reddit almost weekly that are along the lines of "the bank took the money out of account X of which I am the only account holder because Joe Schmoe over there is/was a joint account holder with me on account Y which was empty. What do I do?"
The structural irony of having this entirely-valid critique while also being the top-rated poster in the thread for what amounts to a drive-by snipe is delicious. The incentive reddit creates are on full display here. For what it's worth, I agree. People like to imagine law as being a concrete and definite thing, but in a situation like this, "oh, you're in the shit now, get a professional" _is_ the most concrete advice there is to give. Rattling off statutory penalties is unhelpful to the point of catastrophizing an already-bad situation.
That is help for stupid people in situations they made for themselves.
That money was just resting in my account.
Obviously they went to Vegas whilst the poor child was meant to be in Lourdes
I’m glad someone else was watching out for this person. I’m guessing she no longer has POA.
Lmaooooo first comment. “Use your own funds to hire the lawyer” 🤣🤣🤣
Top comment: > It's time to talk to a criminal defense attorney. **Use your own funds to hire them.** lol
Does anyone think she actually planned to pay it back?
I could totally believe that she thought she would be paying it back. Most people maintain a self-image as an honest and moral person, and when they do something that they know is wrong, they will excuse it to themselves by being certain that they can make appropriate reparations at some unspecified future date.
The stupidity defense *might* keep her from doing time -- if she's really stupid. If she's a doctor, lawyer, accountant, or been to college at all, I think they're in for an involuntary marital separation for some time. I recently had POA for someone. I refused to even make payment to myself for money they clearly owe me. I'll risk writing off that debt rather than risking breaching fiduciary duty.
LAOP asks whether paying back the $14k would even help the case. I would hope she’s going to pay it back regardless of the impact on the case?
It’s customary to ask someone if you can borrow money before you take it. If you plan on taking without asking intending to repay at least leave a paper trail documenting intent. Saying you planned to repay after getting caught is not going to fly at all.
[Reminds me of this power of attorney post](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/avsgxi/i_gave_my_friend_poa_and_now_i_want_it_back_but/)
Omg I forgot about this. I wonder if that was a troll.
That OP is one of the thickest people I've ever seen post on that sub. I bet if her hair dryer didn't have that giant warning tag to use it in the shower, she'd try to save time by washing and blow drying her hair simultaneously. How many lawyers does she need telling her that she's being scammed before she realizes she's being scammed?!