Being Accused Of Elder Abuse

Location: Kansas.

This matter starts about 4-5 years ago. At that time I relocated back to my home state of Kansas and started looking for jobs within weeks. My grandmother who I am very close with who has helped me financially in the past with car repairs or just you general couple hundred dollar bail out while figuring life out in the early 20’s lived close by. I had a joint checking account with her because I needed to open one up when I was still under 18.

Over time I spent more and more time with her as her physical state decreased. I eventually quit my job as I was going to move away again but life happened and there were things with her and other issues with my personal life that kept me here years longer. During this time I would do almost everything for her around the house, take her to her Dr appointments, go to the grocery store for her. A lot of day to day things. She recognized this and would pay me for these things.

There were many times where she would log onto her bank account through her phone and notice my balance was negative or close to it and put money in it for me and I would not know any of this until sometimes a day or two later when I seen her and she mentioned it. There were many times where I would simply mention things that I needed to pay for (in no way insinuating I wanted her to help) and she would tell me after she put the money in. All in all I would say she would transfer money to me about 4-5 times a month ranging from 100 to 300 dollars, sometimes more sometimes less. I was appreciative and reciprocated by doing strenuous tasks around the house for her. Occasionally she would lend me her credit card and ask me to spend a little on it. I would ask her why and protest this multiple times and I can’t remember why she wanted me to nowadays, but I would usually spend maybe $100-200 on it.

She is the type of woman who didn’t mind wearing ratty old clothes, didn’t want to update her home. Very frugal about spending on herself, ever since I can remember. That’s just how she is. My uncle P was a dead beat who’s always lived with her and she would completely float his boat. Whatever he asked for monetarily she would do.

Fast forward to about a year ago. I discovered that my Uncle P had been taking advantage of her severely. Taking her debit card to the atm to take out whatever he wanted. Would pressure her into giving him money… committing actual elder abuse. Brought drugs into her home. This prompted me to ask her if I could delve into her finances for this matter alone just by looking at her statements only and she accepted. I discovered that over the years we were looking at well over a quarter of a million dollars stollen/scammed out of her by him. Got him evicted and a TRO put on him. My dad who’s lived there with her as well for 3 years at this point assisted with things.

Once the things with Uncle P were resolved I saw my exit to get out and started looking to get away a move again. However she fell and broke her hip this summer so I decided to stay a little while longer to see how things panned out and help with anything I could and just be there for moral support. Obviously at this point she wasn’t assisting me with some of the things she would normally help me with in return for doing things for her upon her own choices which I was fine with. It’s not her responsibility in the first place. I started looking for part time jobs to get me by in the mean time.

During her stay in the hospital my dad asked me to drive her car so I did. The car had broke down on me and cost me around $600 to get it fixed. I had about 2000 cash of my own money saved back for a rainy day and paid for the repair with this. Talking to her in the hospital the car thing got brought up and next thing I know she hands me her phone with her bank account logged in and told me to transfer $1500 to pay myself back and then withdrawal the rest for her so she would have cash when she gets out. She’s loopy at this point and I wasn’t concerned about getting paid back after everything she’s done for me over the last few years. I obliged but only took $500 just to keep her happy and then set aside $500 of my cash for her. She noticed this a few days later and called me out and told me to do another $1000. Again I only did $500. This happened once more. Now I had $1500 in cash for her.

She’s relocated to a rehab facility where my Uncle Z worked at and was there for about 2 weeks until one day I show up and am talking to her about a job I will be starting in a couple weeks and just chatting. She gets taken away to take a shower and my Uncle Z comes in and tells me to leave and says there’s a lot of money missing and there’s attorneys involved. Taking the hint I just leave. I don’t talk to her for a couple weeks processing that I’m being accused of theft. He had apparently gotten a power of attorney over her finances or something not sure and seen the three $500 transfers and asked her about them and of course she didn’t remember and he jumped to conclusions without talking to me about it. I’m not dumb I know how it looks so I can’t blame him, but still a little ridiculous.

I get notified this week that my bank account has been closed. I call the bank to figure out why and how. They told me that she had closed it and signed for it to be done, along with withdrawing the money I had in it. I called her because it didn’t seem like something she would do and she has no memory of doing anything like that. I just let it go and asked her to please not sign anything pertaining to me in the future without talking to me first as I wouldn’t put it past Uncle Z to hand her something saying I did things so he could come after me idk just being paranoid.

Today I discovered that the nursing home staff called him and said they called DCFS and reported elder abuse claiming that I was verbally abusing her and calling her stupid over the phone. Witnesses corroborating this. I have my own witness saying I didn’t. And I cannot express enough how upset this makes me as I would never dream of being rude to her like this. Never.

I am worried how this will turn out for me. He’s claiming I stole all that money. Every transaction was theft. That I stole money out of her safety deposit box, that I would write on her ledger to change the numbers so she wouldn’t notice money missing, that I stole money out of her dresser drawer. All kinds of financial fraud and theft crimes that I couldn’t even think of doing in my life to anyone let alone her. I didn’t even know the login information to get onto her bank account. My own dad is not speaking to me due to other feuds and he’s the only one I can rely on to set the record straight as he knows all of this is garbage but he told my uncle z he wants to remain neutral and doesn’t have a dog in the fight. I haven’t talked to him in a month and now he won’t answer my calls now that shit hit the fan. I can’t communicate with my grandma as her numbers been changed.

I don’t believe she would ever say “he stole money” or anything like that but with her memory slipping with all the stress in her life I am worried she won’t be able to say what matters and is being manipulated and fed all of his thoughts and conspiracies. I am in the process of recruiting people to speak on my character and the things I’d do for my grandma if the time came to that. This has just been a nightmare