Mortgage fraud, power of attorney, and elder abuse

This story from San Diego details how a famous Russian composer was apparently duped by swindlers and became a victim of mortgage fraud.  Not surprisingly, a power of attorney (a favored tool of swindlers), combined with a good old fashioned confidence scam, led the composer and his wife into a circumstance where they went from owning a condo outright to a house with over a million dollar mortgage. It is possible the composer's greed and desire for a huge house led him to lower his guard. More likely, he was simply too trusting and failed to carefully read the numerous documents the swindlers had him sign. Consistent with my prior observations, the story notes:

Financial crimes against the elderly have in the past five years supplanted physical abuse in nursing homes as the most commonly thought of crime against seniors, said local elder abuse attorney Linda Robinson. "All of a sudden -- in the last five, six years, predators figured this out that these elderly people have a lot of financial gain, and it just evolved," she said. "Not to say there still isn't a lot of nursing home abuse, that's sadly still continuing. But definitely the evolution has been to this financial sector."

Our firm has been evaluating an increasing number of cases involving allegations of mortgage fraud. Such fraud was apparently quite prevalent in North Texas, particularly in Collin County.  North Texas bank and lender liability lawyers.