An elderly millionairess was conned out of her fortune and abandoned to die penniless and alone by her ‘despicable’ caretakers, a heartbreaking lawsuit alleges.
Former National Security Agency staffer Geraldine Clark should have been sitting on a lucrative blue-chip stock portfolio worth $9million when she died in March 2023, aged 91.
Instead, the ailing retiree had less than $200 to her name after she was callously dumped in the emergency room three months earlier in a ‘horrid and despicable illustration of elder abuse’.
The complaint, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, claims San Francisco stalwart Geraldine was betrayed by her trusted, longtime caretakers who exploited her dementia to forge checks and drain her funds.
‘Older adults are targets for financial exploitation due to their income and accumulated life-long savings and thus, fraud targeting their savings has proliferated over the last decade,’ wrote lawyers for Heather Yarbrough, a trustee appointed posthumously to locate Geraldine’s missing fortune.
‘Unfortunately, Geraldine was the victim of such abuse, Geraldine’s caregivers stole millions of dollars by selling off her investment portfolio, leaving her destitute.’
Keen investor Geraldine had prepped meticulously for her old age by amassing stock in major firms including Apple, IBM, and Johnson & Johnson, according to the 21-page complaint filed in California Superior Court.
The nest egg would ensure the childless divorcee could spend her senior years in ‘physical and financial comfort’ and stay in the Financial District apartment where she lived frugally for more than 35 years.
Geraldine Clark’s caretakers are accused of draining her multimillion-dollar investment account for years up until her death in March 2023. Three of the four caretakers Lilia Galdo, Marina Suriao, and Milagros Alinas (circled from left to right) with Geraldine and her family
Her fourth caretaker, Elsie Curameng is accused of writing inflated checks and swindling a total of $5million in assets from the elderly woman
In 2010 Geraldine hired caregivers Elsie Eclevia Curameng, Milagros Alinas, and Lilia Galdo, paying them $15-per-hour to help with everyday tasks such as bathing, dressing, and eating.
A fourth caregiver, Marina Suriao, was added to the staff and the team provided round the clock care to both Geraldine and her longtime boyfriend William Clement, who was in his 90s and lived in the same building.
The arrangement took a sinister turn in 2015, the suit claims, when Geraldine started taking increasing doses of Vicodin, a brand name of Hydrocodone, an opioid mixed with acetaminophen, for pain management.
‘Studies have shown that Hydrocodone is especially harmful for elderly people with dementia and causes worsening confusion and sedation,’ the suit says.
‘Elsie thereafter sought regular renewals of Geraldine’s Vicodin prescription for up to 150 pills per month for a sustained period.
‘According to medical records, around this time Geraldine was also diagnosed with dementia, a fact the caretaker defendants hid from Geraldine’s extended family.’
By 2016 Geraldine was well into her 80s, immobile, and suffering from cognitive decline.
The income generated from a ‘G70’ trust brokerage account she had opened about a decade earlier, should have been more than enough to meet the costs of 24-hour care.
In a complaint filed against the four caretakers earlier this month, Geraldine’s appointed trustee Heather Yarbrough claims the woman’s trust brokerage account, valued at $5million, had been completely drained to less than $200 by 2022
One of her caregivers, Elsie Curameng is accused of writing ‘inflated’ checks to her fellow co-workers, turning $900 payments for vacation or overtime into $2,900 or $4,900 with the stroke of a pen
Geraldine was diagnosed with dementia around 2016 which her caretakers allegedly hid from her extended family
Monthly dividends were paid into The Geraldine Clark Living Trust, a Wells Fargo bank account where the money could be legitimately accessed by her care team.
‘Sadly, Geraldine’s trust (and her extended family’s trust) in the caretaker defendants proved to be a tragic mistake that robbed her of her financial assets, home, comfort, and dignity, in her final years,’ the suit claims.
‘As Geraldine’s physical health and competency began to decline, the caretaker defendants began stealing from Geraldine in obscene amounts by liquidating her G70 Account and directing ACH (bank to bank) transfers to the WF (Wells Fargo) account in addition to, and in amounts much greater than, the monthly dividend transfers by ACH that Geraldine had instructed years prior.’
Once the money reached Wells Fargo, Curameng allegedly wrote ‘inflated’ checks to co-workers, turning $900 payments for vacation or overtime into $2,900 or $4,900 with the stroke of a pen.
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, she’s said to have coerced an increasingly isolated Geraldine into signing blank checks which she wrote out to herself in ‘staggering’ amounts of up to $78,000 per month.
‘Thereafter, the abuse accelerated and the asset and cash drain from the G70 account rapidly increased each year,’ the suit adds.
‘In 2019, nearly $1,300,000 was liquidated and withdrawn; in 2020 more than $1,300,000 was liquidated and withdrawn; and in 2021 more than $1,500,000 was liquidated and withdrawn.
‘By 2022, the G70 Account that had an asset value of over $5million throughout 2016 and 2017 had been completely drained to less than $200’.
Geraldine, seen here in her youth, had invested meticulously so the childless divorcee could spend her senior years in San Francisco in ‘physical and financial comfort,’ according to the complaint filed in California Superior Court
Geraldine spent her 90th birthday in 2022 with a nephew and his family. For several yeaars she had been immobile, and suffering from cognitive decline
Heather Yarbrough, the trustee appointed to oversee Geraldine’s finances, claims the four women stole their patient’s assets before dumping her at a hospital
Curameng is said to have personally pocketed $1.75million from the scam as she and her alleged accomplices isolated Geraldine and blocked her from speaking to relatives in Southern California and France over the phone.
With the portfolio ‘liquidated’ and their employer’s net worth reduced to virtually zero, the suit says the defendants did the unthinkable.
‘After they stole substantially all of Geraldine’s assets saved throughout her life in preparation for paying expenses into old age including home care and rent for the apartment that had been her home for decades, the caretaker defendants dumped Geraldine at a hospital emergency room, in November 2022,’ it says.
‘Without meaningful money left and without the means to live her remaining days in the comfort of her own home, Geraldine was then transferred to a government facility, where she spent her remaining weeks.’
Yarbrough, who was appointed trustee of The Geraldine Clark Living Trust to investigate the dead woman’s missing finances, is seeking damages in excess of $27million for assorted claims including fraud, elder abuse and theft.
DailyMail.com understands that the alleged wrongdoing was reported to both the San Francisco Police Department and the FBI. To date nobody has been arrested or prosecuted.
Yarbrough’s attorney Paul Levin of Mark Migdal & Hayden told DailyMail.com: ‘Geraldine’s case is an abhorrent example of how an elderly person’s trust can be so shockingly abused.
‘As the criminal justice system has utterly failed to redress the crimes committed, my client is dedicated to condemning these actions in the strongest terms and will use every legal tool in our arsenal to rectify these outrageous acts of exploitation and punish the wrongdoers.
‘Our goal is not only justice for Gerry and her family but to hopefully protect others from similar fates in the future.’
Suriao told DailyMail.com she didn’t know about the suit and therefore couldn’t say anything. None of her fellow defendants could be reached for comment.
