Man, 75, loses everything in fraud
ST. CATHARINES, Ont. — Leslie Harrison has resigned himself to losing his home. And his car. And many of his possessions.
A fraud artist emptied the St. Catharines senior’s bank account and mortgaged his home, twice, Niagara Regional Police said. An arrest has been made, but Harrison won’t recover financially.
The 75-year-old will have to move into an apartment soon. In all, Harrison was taken for about $200,000, police said.
Harrison lives alone and has called his modest bungalow home for 35 years since moving there with his parents from Montreal. He now has no living relatives, he said.
The home is in foreclosure, police said. His car sits unused in the driveway, waiting to be sold to pay his debts.
Harrison said he had $20 left to his name by the time the fraud was discovered. He survived from April through June with the help of food vouchers from a local church and $400 in travellers cheques he cashed after finding a wallet tucked in a drawer.
“It’s the worst case of elder abuse I have seen — and I have been here a long time,” said Det. Sgt. Paul Spiridi of the Niagara Regional Police fraud squad. “In terms of dollar value, we’ve obviously seen worse, but what happened here is the victim has been left without a place to go.
“I’ve never seen anything like this where someone has taken a vulnerable adult and left them in a state where they are facing foreclosure.”
Spiridi said he couldn’t go into details of how the fraud was perpetrated, because the case is before the courts.
The man charged with fraud over $5,000 and laundering the proceeds of crime, Michael T. Kennedy, 37, of Beamsville, was an employee of Meridian Credit Union from June 2014 to March 30, 2015, the company confirmed.
The credit union eventually discovered what was going on and alerted police.
Kennedy was released on $10,000 bail Saturday.