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Caretaker charged with stealing $800,000 from elderly client

Posted November 01, 2007 11:00 pm

Sarah Antonacci

A 64-year-old Springfield woman was charged Thursday with financial exploitation of the elderly after she allegedly took more than $813,000 from the 91-year-old woman she's been caring for.

Sandra Gayle, who still resides with the woman but whose control over her finances has been removed, was arrested on a warrant Thursday morning and bonded out by Thursday evening. Her bail was $3,000.

According to the four counts filed against her, Gayle is accused of taking the money from the victim, a retired pathologist with no known heirs and bank accounts worth at least $2.5 million, between Nov. 24, 2004, and April 12, 2007, and all while receiving free room and board at the woman's house and while paying herself $1,344 a week.

Probate court documents describe how Gayle came into contact with the victim, how some of the money was spent and also what tipped off authorities to what was going on.

A June report to the court by Hugh Drake, an attorney appointed guardian ad litem for the victim, indicates that the retired doctor was clear that she didn't want a guardian appointed, that she could care for herself and her finances. If the court were to order one, she'd want Gayle appointed.

"Sondra and I get along very well and we want to be left alone," Drake's report indicates.

Gayle came to work for the doctor through a nursing employment agency in January 2004 and by Dec. 7, 2004, had taken over the woman's finances.

She said she didn't want to go to a nursing home but said she and Gayle had talked about selling the doctor's home and moving to Ohio to be close to Gayle's daughter and family where they'd have the opportunity to live in a "compound" type area.

Financial records indicate that checks in the tens of thousands of dollars had been written to Gayle's family members from the doctor's bank accounts. In fact, checks totaling $335,600 were written to Gayle and her family members in 2006 alone.

Gayle told Drake that the doctor "didn't have good feelings toward Springfield, given that all those close to her have demonstrated themselves to be untrustworthy."

But Drake notes in the report that anyone the doctor had become close to in the past 30 to 40 years had become untrustworthy only since Gayle had come into the doctor's life.

"My concern is that there is a pattern with respect to longtime acquaintances being alienated after the introduction of Sandra Gayle into (the doctor's) life, a mere four years ago. With the continued alienation and control over ever aspect of (her) life, the concern is that (the doctor) is very vulnerable to exploitation," Drake's report states.

The State Journal-Register profiled the victim, whose name the newspaper has decided not to print, nearly 18 years ago. She was a professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and didn't decide to go to medical school until she was 40.

She told the newspaper at the time that attending a puppet show in Chicago when she was a child led to a love of puppets, prompting her to learn to make her own and eventually leading to a lifelong pastime as a puppeteer.

She also made marionettes and performed shows, including in the pediatric wards in several hospitals.

In addition to being a puppeteer, she also was a photographer and had her own darkroom and photography collection.

Financial records included in the probate case indicate that the doctor may have become vulnerable in recent years. Drake indicates in his report that she has problems remembering certain facts, and especially facts dealing with money.

Another court document filed by Kevin McDermott, an attorney appointed by the court as temporary guardian for the doctor and her estate, notes that her personal physician has deemed the doctor incompetent and that she had turned total control of her finances over to Gayle, making her power of attorney.

The document indicates that the doctor was unable to curtail "out of control" spending by Gayle. It says that the years prior to Gayle working with the doctor, the doctor wrote only about 130 checks out of an account into which about $46,000 was deposited.

After Gayle entered the picture, the deposits increased to $133,000 the first year, $180,000 the next year and $541,000 in 2006. In 2006, 465 checks were written on the doctor's account.

If the spree were to continue, McDermott estimates, the doctor's assets would be gone in four to five years.

Finally, on March 20, 2007, Gayle attempted to make gifts totaling $657,000 to herself and her family members, about 24 percent of the doctor's estate. That action raised eyebrows at the investment company where the doctor kept her assets.

The total amount the doctor would have given to Gayle and her family over the course of two years would have fallen about $8,000 short of $1 million if the transaction hadn't been red-flagged.

Gayle is expected to be in court this afternoon.

<span style="font-size: 10pt; color: fuchsia; font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Sarah Antonacci can be reached at 788-1529 or sarah.antonacci@sj-r.com.

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