FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, April 3, 2015
City Adult Protective Services Employee Charged In $214,000 Theft From 94-Year-Old Woman in Her Care
Case Manager Used Online Banking To Steal From Greenpoint Woman’s Accounts
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson and Philip R. Bartlett, the Inspector-in-Charge of the New York Office of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, today announced that a case manager with the city’s Adult Protective Services has been charged with looting her 94-year-old client’s bank accounts of more than $214,000.
District Attorney Thompson said, “This defendant was entrusted by the city to help an elderly woman live safely at home. Instead, she allegedly defrauded the victim in a shameful act of greed and deception against a 94-year old woman.”
Inspector-in-Charge Bartlett said, “The defendant used her position of trust as a Case Worker for Adult Protective Services to allegedly steal from the very person placed in her care. Her alleged conduct is heartless, despicable and will not be tolerated. She will be held accountable for her actions.”
District Attorney Thompson identified the defendant as Cecile Davidson, 50, of 117-21 164th Street in Jamaica, Queens, and of Conyers, Georgia. She was arrested in Georgia, returned to New York and arraigned today before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Jo Ann Ferdinand. In the 51-count indictment the defendant is charged with second-degree grand larceny, second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument and first-degree identity theft. The defendant was remanded. She is to return to court on May 8, 2015. She faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
District Attorney Thompson said that, according to the indictment, Davidson has been employed since July 9, 2012 as a case manager for Village Care of New York, a sub-contractor for Adult Protective Services, a program run by the city’s Human Resources Administration.
The District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, the victim was a client of APS at Village Care from January 10, 2013 to September 13, 2013 and from January 24, 2014 to September 8, 2014, and Davidson was her case manager during both periods.
The District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, online banking was established to access the victim’s accounts at Capital One Bank on July 23, 2013 and a debit card was sent to the residence in Greenpoint. After online banking was established, it is alleged, $105,851.34 in online checks were issued from the account in the name of Davidson and a day care center in Georgia where Davidson previously worked, and mailed to Davidson’s Post Office box in Brooklyn.
Davidson allegedly also used the debit card to withdraw cash from ATMs and purchase Postal Service money orders at U.S. Post Office locations in transactions totaling $67,366.43. The money orders were made out to Davidson’s relatives and other people connected to her in Georgia.
Investigators at Capital One alerted the Postal Service to the debit card purchases of money orders, and a Postal Inspector reviewed surveillance recordings at Post Offices and stores where the victim’s debit card was used and determined that Davidson had used it.
The District Attorney would like to thank Major Case Investigator at Capital One Peter D’Angelo, U.S. Postal Inspector Joseph Marcus and the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force for their assistance.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Karen Turner of the District Attorney’s Investigations Division, under the supervision of Felice Sontupe, Chief of the Frauds Bureau, and William E. Schaeffer, Chief of the Investigations Division.
An indictment is an accusatory instrument and not proof of a defendant’s guilt.