RALEIGH, N.C. — With
their elderly parents seated across the octagonal oak table, Donna and Jim
Parker were back in the kitchen they knew so well — the hutch along one wall
crammed with plates, bells and salt-and-pepper shakers picked up during family
trips; at the table's corner, the spindly wooden high chair where a 7-year-old
Jim had tearfully confessed to setting a neighbor's woods ablaze.
It was Christmastime, but this was no holiday
gathering. Now, it was the parents who were in deep trouble, and this was an
intervention.
For the past year, Charles and Miriam Parker, both
81, had been in the thrall of an international sweepstakes scam. The retired
educators, with a half-dozen college degrees between them, had lost tens of
thousands of dollars.
But money wasn't just leaving the Parker house.
Strangely, large sums were now coming in, too.
Their four children were worried, but had been
powerless to open their parents' eyes. Maybe, Donna thought, they'd listen to
people with badges.
And so, joining them at the family table that
late-December day in 2005 were Special Agent Joan Fleming of the FBI and David
Evers, an investigator from the North Carolina attorney general's telemarketing
fraud unit.
The home was littered with sweepstakes mailers and
"claim" forms, the cupboards bare of just about everything but canned
soup, bread and crackers. Charles Parker acknowledged that he'd lost a lot of
money, but expressed confidence that he and his wife would eventually succeed
if they just kept "investing."
Evers and Fleming showed the couple a video of
other elderly scam victims, then played a taped interview of a former con man describing
how he operated. Charles was alarmed by what he was seeing and hearing, but his
wife seemed to be barely paying attention.
With the couple's permission, Evers installed a
"mooch line" on the kitchen phone so they could capture incoming
calls. The Parkers pledged their cooperation.
After gathering up some of the mailings for
evidence, the officers left, encouraged by what seemed a few hours well spent.
But in the coming months and years, things would
only get worse for the Parker family — much worse.
Not naive
The Parkers were hardly unsophisticated people, the type to be easily
fooled.
Born in 1924, Charles Alexander Parker and Miriam
Wilkinson were high school sweethearts back in Pitman, N.J. After Charles
served in the Navy in World War II, they married and embarked on a life of
learning and teaching.
This Thursday, April 19, 2012 photo shows a framed
picture and other mementoes of Charles and Miriam Parker in their Raleigh,
N.C., home.
Charles earned a doctorate in speech
communications, and Miriam received a pair of master's degrees, one in special
education. Along the way, Miriam gave birth to four children: Donna, Jim, Linda
and Carole.
After other teaching stints, Charles Parker took a
position in the English department at North Carolina State in Raleigh, from
which he would eventually retire. In 1966, the couple built a split-level home,
later converting the garage into a classroom for Miriam's special-needs pupils.
Through hard work and thrift, the Parkers were able
to send all four children to college and pay off their home. Between their
savings and Charles' pension, they were looking at a comfortable retirement.
Then the conman entered their lives.
Older Americans lose $2.9 billion a year to fraud,
according to a study last year by the National Committee for the Prevention of
Elder Abuse and the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Tech. Most victims are between
80 and 89, and most are women.
Using the latest technologies, "these
criminals need not defraud their victims face-to-face," David Kirkman and
Virginia H. Templeton wrote in a 2007 article for the journal Alzheimer's Care
Today. From far away, "they can identify vulnerable seniors, contact them,
and induce them to part with their savings."
A slowing down of brain function comes with normal
aging, they noted. The elderly are susceptible to errors in judgment,
particularly in situations where a snap decision is required — such as during a
telemarketing call.
"Experience teaches us that those with mild
dementia tend to be the most vulnerable," wrote Kirkman, an assistant
attorney general in North Carolina, and Templeton, a gerontologist.
The Mayo Clinic defines "mild cognitive
impairment" as an "intermediate stage between the expected cognitive
decline of normal aging and the more pronounced decline of dementia."
The basis for a diagnosis in many cases: falling
victim to repeated scams.
Series of calls
No one can say exactly how the trouble began in the Parkers' case.
They might have made a small donation to some
charity or responded to a sweepstakes letter they got in the mail. Somehow, the
couple ended up on what people in the industry call the "sucker
list."
Then the scammers proceeded to "reload"
them.
You've won this multimillion-dollar lottery, they'd
say. All you need to do is send us money to cover taxes, and we'll send you
your prize.
So on Dec. 8, 2004, Miriam Parker — then 80 — drove
herself to the Wal-Mart down the road to send a MoneyGram to Montreal, Quebec.
Isolation from absent children is often a hallmark
in cases like this. But that wasn't so with the Parkers. Sure, Jim had settled
in Ohio, and Carole was living in Florida. But Linda and Donna were both just
down the road in Cary.
A busy real estate agent and teacher, Donna — the
eldest — popped in as often as she could. But she'd always appreciated her
parents for not trying to tell her and her siblings how to live their lives,
and she did her best to return the courtesy.
In her parents' living room is a plaque that reads,
"Mom's 10 Commandments for a Happy Household." No. 6: "If it
rings, answer it."
And so, over a series of calls, Howard Clark — a
man with a warm voice who called her "dear" and
"sweetheart" — had learned enough personal information about Miriam
to convince her that he was the family's ticket to riches.
This Monday, June 11, 2012 photo shows piles of
official-looking sweepstakes and other mailings spread on a table at the North
Carolina Attorney General's office in Raleigh, N.C. Officials say elderly
people lose nearly $3 billion a year to such fraud. (AP Photo/Allen Breed)
Other MoneyGrams followed. Then, on Jan. 12, 2005,
Miriam sent a Federal Express package to a "Mr. Stewart" on Papineau
Street in Montreal. Inside, as instructed, was a magazine with $12,550 in cash
sandwiched between its pages.
By May 2005, the Parkers had blown through their
savings. They had tapped into their home equity line and had maxed out several
credit cards. They were running out of things to give.
Unwittingly, their children had contributed to the
problem. When Miriam asked Donna for a $7,000 loan, the daughter thought little
of it.
Through most of their marriage, Charles Parker had
taken care of the couple's finances. But in 1989, shortly after his retirement,
he suffered a heart attack. That was followed by colon cancer. As her husband's
health declined, Miriam stepped to the fore.
Faced with mounting debt — and clinging to
assurances that a big payday was coming — she was determined to right their
financial ship.
That's when she became a "money mule."
Family intervention
Howard told Miriam that she'd been "hired" by the Canadian
sweepstakes company.
On May 5, 2005, a package from Bloomingdale, N.J.,
containing $8,275 in cash arrived at the Parkers' home. Others followed and in
about a week, Miriam Parker would receive and repackage $60,000 in cash for
delivery to Mr. Stewart.
Sometimes, there would be two stacks of bills
tucked into magazines. The smaller pile was Miriam Parker's
"commission."
Howard said she wasn't to tell her children about
their dealings. But the kids had already become alarmed by changes in their
mother's behavior.
During visits, Jim noticed that she would race him
to the phone, then prevent him from listening to the conversations.
And then there was the need for loans. When Donna
asked what for, her parents were evasive.
When the children finally persuaded their mother to
get a credit report, the news was jaw-dropping. Their thrifty parents were
nearly $200,000 in debt.
Miriam Parker insisted that their ship was about to
come in, and that she would soon repay the loans. So Donna gave her a deadline.
In an email to the other siblings, she explained:
"I told her that if the money was not there by Wednesday, July 6, the
family would be forced to do things we do not look forward to."
The money, of course, did not come. It was time to
get authorities involved.
Donna went to the state Attorney General's Elder
Fraud Unit. Around that same time, she received a call from the FBI — her
parents had popped up on their radar. It became apparent to authorities that
the Parkers weren't truly willing participants in the scam. So they staged the
December family intervention.
Donna allowed herself to hope that the people who'd
ripped off her parents would be caught — and that they might even get some of
their money back.
But a frantic phone call a couple of weeks later
dashed those hopes.
"They're going to turn the gas off," her
mother told her on a day with temperatures forecast to plunge into the 20s.
Eventually, the children were having to buy their
parents' groceries.
Attorneys Donna contacted could offer no help — the
elder Parkers hadn't been deemed incompetent, and it was their money.
In April 2006, Jim Parker and his wife Susan came
to town for Donna's wedding. They were sitting in his parents' kitchen when the
doorbell rang.
The FedEx driver handed Jim a crinkly envelope. He
knew without opening it what was inside and turned it over to Kirkman, manager
of the Elder Fraud Prevention Project in the AG's office.
When authorities opened the envelope, they found an
old issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine. It contained $5,725 in cash from a
Visalia, Calif., widow.
Kirkman called a contact at Federal Express, who
ordered a stop on deliveries and pickups at the Parker home.
But the crooks just switched to United Parcel
Service.
And now, in addition to money, they were delivering
and picking up car tires and custom rims, and laptop computers worth thousands
of dollars — all purchased by other elderly victims.
That's when state and federal authorities reached
out to their counterparts north of the border.
Credit union
On Aug. 2, 2006, officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Surete du
Quebec paid a visit to Dave Stewart.
The Jamaican native acknowledged accepting numerous
packages from the American lady on behalf of a man whom he knew as
"Roger." Stewart said he was paid $100 per package.
Professing ignorance of any illegal activity,
Stewart agreed to cooperate.
This undated photo provided by the Edgecombe County
Sheriff's Office shows Clayton Atkinson.
Howard, meanwhile, gave Miriam a new address to
which she should forward items.
On Aug. 17, 2006, laptops valued at more than
$7,200 arrived from Hayward, Calif. She sent them to a "Joseph Reid"
in the Montreal borough of Verdun. Parcels kept coming — from Texas and
Massachusetts, South Carolina and Washington, Missouri and Maine.
In December 2006, the Parker kids persuaded their
parents to grant Donna a limited power of attorney. A month later, she
accompanied them to the credit union, where they took out a 30-year, $179,000
mortgage on their home.
Caught red-handed
Miriam Parker had become a cog in Howard Clark's
fraud machine. The FBI's Fleming decided to turn the tables on him.
On April 3, 2007, Miriam phoned him — this time
with Fleming recording.
"Howard?"
"Yes, dear," he replied sweetly.
As the conversation went on, Howard grew testy
about her failure to send her packages quickly. In one case, he noted, trucks
had left a UPS office just before an important package arrived from her. Send
everything next-day air, he demanded.
When she asked whether she should go back to her
former shipper, Howard cut her off: "No, you can't never go there
again."
When she suggested that the person at the store was
just trying to save her some money, Howard told her that was not their concern
and to do as instructed. "I'm giving you the money to pay for this."
Perhaps sensing he'd been too hard, he changed his
tone.
"Not to say that YOU are making the mistake,
but maybe they are," he said. "And we can't afford for you OR them to
make the mistake."
But this time it was Howard who'd made the mistake.
The FBI determined the pitch calls were coming from
Montreal, and Mounties soon had a real name for "Howard Clark" — he
was Clayton Atkinson, who had 13 convictions for assault, theft and weapons
possession.
On April 13, 2007, officers from the RCMP raided
Atkinson's apartment and caught him with the "pitch phone" in his
hand.
In Raleigh, a federal grand jury handed up a
35-count indictment against Atkinson and two co-defendants — Dave Stewart and
Jamaal McKenzie, aka "Joseph Reid." The three were charged with one
count each of conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property,
seven counts of wire fraud and 26 counts of mail fraud.
Mentally incompetent
Even then, the trouble wasn't finished for the Parkers.
A Western Union office called Donna to say her
parents had been in a couple of times in one day to wire money to "relatives"
in Jamaica. They were clearly a marked couple.
Donna suggested it was time they let her take over
their affairs.
"I am NOT mentally incompetent," her
father protested.
But in May 2008, she filed a petition, and the
court appointed local attorney David T. Watters guardian ad litem. The Parkers
were "charming and personable," but hopelessly blind to their
predicament, he wrote to the court.
Miriam was his main concern.
"Incredibly, Respondent fails to recognize
that the family is the victim of a cruel financial scam," he wrote.
"In two conversations, she indicated that she felt that she was working
with a better quality of person at this time, and that these people would live
up to their promise to provide money to Respondent."
The court appointed Donna Parker guardian of their
estate.
Blight on society
The criminal case ground slowly along, and last
year Atkinson and Stewart pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy and
mail fraud. (McKenzie is awaiting trial in Canada on an unrelated assault
charge.)
When Atkinson appeared for sentencing at U.S.
District Court in Raleigh on March 15, Miriam and Donna Parker were there.
Charles Parker had died just a month earlier.
When the time came for victim impact statements,
Donna Parker rose. She told Judge Terrence W. Boyle of having to take her
parents to court, and of the lingering resentment it had caused.
"Scammers who prey on the elderly," she
said, "are a blight on society."
Atkinson said he hoped to one day return to Canada
to care for his aging father.
Seizing on this, the judge asked: "Can you
imagine if somebody like you was doing this to your family? Could you imagine
how shocked and outraged you'd be?"
"I can't sit in front of you and give an
excuse for it," Atkinson said.
Boyle sentenced Atkinson to 12½ years in prison,
Stewart to 6½. He also ordered them to pay $840,705 in restitution — $84,350 of
it to Miriam Parker.
Responding to an interview request, Atkinson, 34,
sent The Associated Press a three-page letter, cursing America's
"corrupted justice system."
"my life is (expletive) ruined now," his
unpunctuated reply said. "you think i care about the parkers"
Smart kids
Miriam Parker kept her home, but she's lost most of her independence. Each
month, Donna sends her a debit card with $500 on it, to pay for food and
personal expenses. The daughter still screens the mail and pays the other bills.
On a recent day, the two sat at that familiar oak
table, a Lazy Susan piled with junk mail between them.
Shuffling envelopes, Miriam told a reporter,
"As I look back on it, it was a good bit of stupidity on my part."
She said she knows better than to respond to junk mail now.
"I'd better not," she said, casting a
glance at her daughter. "Or they would've been on my back, right?"
"Yes, ma'am," Donna replied.
"Which is all right," the mother said.
"I have very smart kids."
"We had to be," her daughter said.
