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On July 7, 2006, Michael Pasquarelli was sentenced to thirty years in prison for racketeering and other crimes against the elderly. In return for his testimony against Pasquarelli, his cohort in crime, David "Vic" Andrews' sentence was capped at ten years. That will probably be life for both of them. One can only hope. |
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When I was in grade school in Dearborn, Michigan, I remember a local television station's ten-o-clock PM insert, “It's 10:00. Do you know where your children are?” We have always been attuned to what our children were up to. Now our generation has literally switched roles; we are the parents and our parents are the ones we are looking out for. Or at least we should be.
If this is not your first visit to my website, you'll find a big change. While you can still contact me for counseling services, I'm using my website to address an issue that has become very important to me, and I have been guided to share my experience with as many people as I can reach in an effort to keep it from happening to anyone else. While I'd like to use the old addage, "If I can help save just one person from the hands of a con artist, then all the time, effort, and expense I am putting into this journey will be well worth it," I don't hope to help one person. I hope to help the masses learn to identify and avoid con artists and their scams. Then all the time, effort, and expense I am putting into this journey will be well worth it.
Elderly exploitation has become a very serious issue in recent years. I live in Florida, which has been a hotbed of scams, frauds, and con artists, especially with regard to crimes against our senior citizens. We have, however, made great strides in prosecuting those who have committed such heinous crimes, thanks to former Florida Attorney General, the State Attorney's office, and the advocates, the journalists, and state departments that are working so hard to stop the con artists and to protect the people who call Florida their home.
I want to share a harrowing experience with ballroom dance studio con artists, Michael Pasquarelli and David "Vic" Andrews who took my mother for nearly $300,000.00, which represented almost all her life savings, before I could stop them. I only lived ten miles away from her and I knew exactly what was going on, but I was powerless to stop them. I finally happened upon a power of attorney my mother had the presence of mind to sign after my father's death making me her agent. With that in hand, I transferred what was left of her assets to other accounts so the con men could no longer drain her accounts. But not before they had taken most of her money. They worked very quickly and accomplished this theft in less than thirty days.
Why did she allow them to do this? In a cult-type of process, they brainwashed her, gave her alcohol, and drugs were also involved. The combination of alcohol and the anti-depressants and sleeping aids that had been prescribed by her doctor caused brain seizures. Within a month of becoming involved with The Dance Place, my mother suffered irreparable brain damage resulting in dementia and short-term memory loss. She had no idea what she was doing or spending, or what she was supposed to be getting for her money. She often appeared to be catatonic. At one point she was bruised so badly that her entire right arm was black and blue all the way down to her fingers, as were her legs and feet. As close as my mother and I had always been, Pasquarelli and Andrews managed to turn her against me. They had convinced her that I had taken all her money. She had even seen an attorney so she could sue me to get it back. Of course, I didn't have any of her money. I had only transferred it to new accounts so Pasquarelli and Andrews couldn't get at it anymore. But my mother was so "out of it" that she didn't even realize that she could still freely access those accounts. All she seemed to believe was that Michael Pasquarelli, who had convinced her that he was the only one who cared about her, was going to marry her! Many times ballroom dance teachers wine, dine, and lavish their students with flowers, gifts, and compliments, making them feel that their students are their reason for living. My mother, in her vulnerable state, fell for their con game, and fell hard.
What concerns me tremendously is that more and more senior citizens are moving away from their children to warmer climates such as Florida, Arizona, the Carolinas and other temperate weather states. Senior citizens are more vulnerable than they realize and have become prime targets for con artists and their scams. Too often they are embarrassed about being taken advantage of and do not report it to anyone. They would never even consider telling their children, lest they be "put away" in a nursing home, which I've found is their greatest fear. Yet con artists prey upon the elderly every day for everything from water conditioners to insurance fraud. And all too many of them fall for these scams and fraudulent activities.
I moved to Florida in 1981 and my parents and brother soon followed. My parents enjoyed their retirement in a large retirement community on the west central coast of Florida. It had all the amenities any retirees could wish for, including twenty-seven holes of golf which my dad played often. My parents were avid ballroom dancers. It was practically their life. On November 17, 2000, my father passed away. My mother had remained active in the clubs in which she was an officer, director, or member so she had a huge support system and many friends, but she missed my father's company tremendously. So all it took was an invitation to a local ballroom dance studio to suck this lonely, vulnerable, ballroom dance lover into their craw.
Throughout my mother's ordeal, I kept a journal which was used by the prosecutors to help paint a picture of the control and manipulation of the victims involved, and in the prosecution and sentencing of the owners of that ballroom dance studio. David "Vic" Andrews pleaded guilty and did not have a trial. In return for his testimony against Pasquarelli they capped his sentence at ten years. He had previously served a five-year sentence for the very same crime, had violated his terms of probation, and became a fugitive when he learned that there was a warrant out for his arrest in this matter. The judge in the previous case admitted he erred in not only ordering that Andrews never own another dance studio, he should have ordered that he never again become involved in the dance business. Michael Pasquarelli, his co-hort in crime, was tried and found guilty by a jury of his peers. On July 7, 2006 I attended his sentencing hearing and was able to make my statement to the judge, along with other victims, asking for the stiffest penalty, in order that Mr. Pasquarelli would never be able to take advantage of anyone ever again. The judge sentenced him to thirty years in prison for racketeering and other crimes against the elderly.
I'm in the process of writing a book about my mother's experience and ultimate downfall. This website and my book are intended for those whose parents and elderly loved ones live a distance away from them, so they might learn the signs that their loved ones are being conned, scammed, taken advantage of, or even abused. However, this site is also intended for our senior citizens, themselves, so they may become aware of the kinds of people out there who might take advantage of them, as well as the scams they might fall prey to.
I hope to encourage victims of con artists that there is nothing to be ashamed of. The scam process is, as I mentioned earlier, a process of brainwashing beyond your control. My advice is to stay away from dance studios, sad to say, at a time when ballroom dancing has become a very good and popular source of fun and exercise. There are many places to find ballroom dance classes. Contact your local municipality and area schools and colleges for classes. In most places, you don't even have to have a partner, and you will learn to dance for a fraction of the cost. Some independent ballroom dance studios are reputable and only charge by the lesson or for a small group of lessons. They don't make you feel guilty or badly about yourself for not spending more money. They don't lock you in a room where you will not be released until you sign a contract. Reputable studios do not have contracts! There is absolutely no reason to buy "lifetime" memberships in anything, nor reason to spend thousands of dollars for dance lessons.
I would be very grateful if you would share your stories and experiences of elderly exploitation. I will post them on this site (honoring everyone's anonymity, of course) and print them in my book with the express permission of those of you who submit your stories. Please email them to me, putting "story" in the subject line, and if you would include your telephone number only for my use in confirmation or if I have any questions, I would appreciate that, also.
With kind regards,
Cheryl Smeed
