If you have committed financial fraud, assault, battery, robbery, burglary, or any other number of crimes, you may face a felony sentence for your offense. Yet if you committed your crime against an elderly individual that was relatively defenseless, it may cause the prosecution to raise your sentences and punish you harshly. The fact is that the elderly are often not mentally competent to understand a scam or realize that they are being wronged. When criminals seek out these innocent and unprepared individuals, the court considers it a gross crime. According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, criminals often commit telemarketing scams, fraudulent living trust scams, or auto sales fraud against these older Americans.
Sometimes, a man who wants money may call older men and women and claim that they won a sweepstakes prize. After this, they will ask for a deposit in order to claim the item or trip that they won. This is typically a devious scam to steal an elderly individual’s money. Some men and women will go door to door in neighborhoods with older Americans and claim that they are from a landscaping company and have arrived to do necessary work in the yard. Older individuals might permit the landscapers to work on their property, and then give them money when they present a bill for all the work that they allegedly did. Recently in Florida, four men were arrested for using this scam to coerce Florida seniors out of thousands of dollars for work that was never completed.
Seniors are also sometimes victim to sweetheart scams. These occur when a devious individual chooses to befriend a lonely senior in order to eventually swindle that person out of their money. What appears as a sweet friendship is simple a scheme. Typically the criminal will invent a story about a friend or family member who is ailing and needs money for medical bills, or will talk of an effort that he or she wants to donate to overseas. When the generous senior decides that he or she will help, the scammer pockets the money and never visits again. Seniors can also be victim to auto repair fraud, or may be victims of identity theft if they don’t take care of their documents properly.
In other cases, people may be more violent when committing a crime against an elderly person. Elderly men and women can be the victims of abuse, injury, battery, assault, or murder. In 1996, a bill was proposed which would have amended the Violent Crime Control Law Enforcement Act of 1994 so that all courts had to enhance penalties for an offender who committed a crime against an elderly individual or a child under the age of 14. The bill was introduced, reported by the committee, and passed the House of Representatives. It was halted in the Senate and never passed.
Still, some states took it upon themselves to support this proposition and integrate into their state penal code. For example, Texas has a separate penalty for those who cause bodily injury to an elderly individual that is over the age of 65, a child under the age of 14, or a medically diagnosed disabled individual. In any state, the prosecution may lean towards giving you the harsher sentence for your crime based on the age of your victim. This is why you need a hardworking lawyer on your side when you head to court after being convicted of a crime involving a senior. You will want to show the court that you are repentant of the crime and sorrowful of the hurt that you caused in order to try and reduce your sentences with a plea bargain. If you have been wrongly accused or your case has been overly exaggerated, then contact a criminal defense attorney today to help you on your case!
