Washington State resident Shirley Crawford, then age 80, had a difficult problem to deal with. She had fallen in 2001 and was hospitalized. Her only child, Anne, was severely mentally disabled and lived in Ms. Crawford’s home. Ms. Crawford needed someone to help her with management of her financial affairs and care of her daughter.

Ms. Crawford turned to a long-time friend and distant relative, Judith Thompson. With the help of a lawyer Ms. Crawford signed a power of attorney form giving Ms. Thompson wide-ranging powers over her finances.

Within three months Ms. Thompson was trying to use the power of attorney to make gifts to herself. The broker where most of Ms. Crawford’s money was held refused to honor the power of attorney for that purpose, saying it did not include gift-making authority.

In the following year Ms. Thompson and her husband secured a new power of attorney from Ms. Crawford — this one specifically allowing them to make gifts to themselves. They sold her house and used more than $300,000 of the proceeds to pay off their own debts and to buy a $200,000 boat for their Alaska fishing charter business.

It took almost three more years before the state Adult Protective Services office and, ultimately, the Washington courts to begin to undo what the Thompsons had done. While investigations and court proceedings were pending, the Thompsons apparently thought it would be helpful to their cause if they had Ms. Crawford on videotape approving of the gifts they had made.

The videotape showed Mr. Thompson telling Ms. Crawford that he had compiled a series of statements from things she had told the Thompsons. The list included such items as “I wanted [the Thompsons] to have my house.” Ms. Crawford was shown nodding and agreeing with the statements as Mr. Thompson read them.

The Thompsons’ videotape never got introduced in the guardianship matter. It did, however, get used in court — in a criminal trial in which Mr. and Ms. Thompson were accused of tampering with a witness. At that trial Ms. Thompson testified that she and her husband had transferred Ms. Crawford’s assets to their name to protect her from thieves, and that the “investment” in their fishing charter business was safer than the stock market.

A jury found the Thompsons guilty of witness tampering, and the Washington Court of Appeals upheld their conviction. The appellate court ruled that the Thompsons had reason to believe that Ms. Crawford would be called as a witness in her own guardianship proceeding, and that they were trying to induce her to give false testimony. State v. Thompson, November 23, 2009.

As often happens in exploitation cases, the Thompsons insisted vehemently that they were following Ms. Crawford's wishes, and that they intended to take care of her developmentally disabled daughter. The facts did not bear out that assertion, however — over the course of their involvement, virtually all of Ms. Crawford's money went to the Thompsons, and none of it went to the care of Ms. Crawford's daughter.

The Thompsons were also charged with (and convicted of) theft. That much makes an all-too-common story of exploitation of a vulnerable elderly woman. It is even common for exploiters to try to enlist their victims in an attempt to whitewash the evidence of misbehavior. What makes the Thompsons' case stand out is their successful prosecution for what that attempt was: tampering with a prospective witness in a contested court proceeding.

Would you like to subscribe to Elder Law Issues? Simply provide your e-mail address and name below, and click "Subscribe". At the same time, you may choose to also subscribe to The Voice, the newsletter of the Special Needs Alliance.

© 1993-2009 Fleming & Curti, P.L.C.
330 N. Granada Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85701
520-622-0400 /  FAX: 520-203-0240