Oak Forest deputy fire chief, wife accused of stealing $350K

Editor's note:  Why are these two crooks any different that the crooks in the Probate Court of Cook County who raped the life savings of Alice R. Gore, a disabled 99 year old ward? This Shark will answer; the Probate Court crooks are lawyers and judges!  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

 

Oak Forest deputy fire chief, wife accused of stealing $350K

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Charles and Michelle Sopko have been charged with theft of governmental property. (Cook County Sheriff's Office / December 19, 2013)

 

By Angie Leventis LourgosTribune reporter

12:47 p.m. CST, December 19, 2013

A former administrative assistant for the Palos Heights Fire Protection District and her husband – a deputy fire chief in Oak Forest - are accused of stealing more than $350,000 from her former employer, officials said.

Michelle Sopko, 45, and Charles Sopko, 47 of Oak Forest were arrested this morning and each charged with one count of theft of governmental property, a felony. They were scheduled to appear for a hearing at the Bridgeview Courthouse on Friday.

Earlier this year, a new Palos Heights Fire Protection District chief noticed discrepancies in the district’s financial records and asked Palos Heights police and the Cook County sheriff’s department to investigate, according to the sheriff’s office.

The agencies found that Michelle Sopko had diverted about $352,000 to a bank account she shared with her husband.

Michelle Sopko had worked for the Palos Heights fire district from October 2008 to December 2012, when she was fired for unrelated reasons, the office said.

Her job had included preparing and issuing payroll checks and paid district expenses.

Nursing assistant charged with taking $350K from client's estate

Editor’s note: What good is it to punish this person when the judges and GALs in the Probate Court of Cook County abuse elders in the same way and go unpunished? Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

 

Nursing assistant charged with taking $350K from client's estate

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Prosecutors say former city engineer Marshall Davies was the victim of a caregiver who abused the power she obtained over his estate. (Nancy Stone, Tribune photo / August 8, 2012)

By Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune reporter

April 6, 2013

Retired city engineer Marshall Davies was nearing 90 when a longtime nursing assistant at St. Joseph Hospital befriended him in 2007 and offered to be his round-the-clock caregiver.
Instead, Cook County prosecutors allege, Carmelita Pasamba obtained power of attorney over Davies' estate and bilked him out of more than $350,000, using the money to remodel her home, enrich family members and buy a new Mercedes.
Davies had been diagnosed with dementia almost a year before Pasamba began to take advantage of him, prosecutors said.
Pasamba, 62, who worked for 15 years as a nursing assistant at St. Joseph, was charged with financial exploitation of a senior citizen, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison, prosecutors said Friday. She was held on a $350,000 cash bail.
Also charged were Pasamba's sister, Jocelyn Vargas Baker, 47, and husband, Edgardo Pasamba, 63, both of whom benefited from her actions, prosecutors said.
The criminal case stems from a 2011 lawsuit filed by Cook County Public Guardian Robert Harris accusing Pasamba of using her position to take advantage of the ailing Davies. The lifelong bachelor had no children and was known to be frugal. Davies, who helped oversee Chicago's traffic light system before he retired, is now 94 and living in a North Side assisted-living facility.
Pasamba, a native of the Philippines, met Davies in January 2008 when he was hospitalized for a hip injury and she cared for him. When he was discharged later that month, Davies needed at-home care and Pasamba offered to work for him, prosecutors said. She also hired her daughter and her sister to help provide 24-hour assistance.
Three months after she began his at-home care, Pasamba hired an attorney affiliated with the Filipino community to draft a power-of-attorney order, a will and a trust document that gave her control over Davies' assets. She made her husband the executor of the will and named herself as trustee, prosecutors said. Her family and charities affiliated with her attorney were listed as the main beneficiaries of the trust, according to the charges.
Within two months of gaining power of attorney, Pasamba wrote herself checks from the estate totaling $55,000, prosecutors charged.
Pasamba eventually sold Davies' Lincoln Park condo for $189,000 but kept $50,000 as a "bonus" for herself, prosecutors said. Over the course of 31/2 years, she also paid herself $170,000 in salary for Davies' care, prosecutors said.
James Burton, a lawyer in the public guardian's office, said soon after Pasamba became Davies' caregiver, she started posting photos on Facebook of the remodeling she was doing at her house and showed up at work with new iPhones, iPads and other electronic gadgets.
"Everyone on her floor (at the hospital) was gossiping about it," Burton said, but no one alerted authorities, as mandated by law.
Burton said Pasamba's bank accounts containing about $30,000 were frozen after the lawsuit was filed, and the Mercedes was seized and sold.
Alphonso Bascos, the lawyer who drafted the power-of-attorney documents, told the Tribune on Friday that Davies seemed lucid on the day he signed the papers, answering yes whenever he was asked directly if he wanted Pasamba to have power over his affairs.
"I asked Mr. Davies if he read the document, if he understood it, and he said, 'Yes,'" said Bascos, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing. "I did what he asked me to do."
Bascos said that it was Pasamba's idea to name several of his preferred Filipino charities as beneficiaries of the estate. He said he heard her explain the idea to Davies and get his approval.
Bascos said he was "surprised and mad" when he learned about the alleged thefts more than two years later.
"But everything I did was aboveboard," he said. "... I followed the instructions of a client, nothing else."
jmeisner@tribune.com

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