Step aside Bonnie and Clyde, enter Bonnie and Bonnie Jr.
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark announced last Thursday that a woman and her daughter were sentenced to pay more than $500,000 in restitution and spend five years on probation for defrauding 92-year-old Eladia Perez for $840,000 — most of which came from the sale of her Bronx house.
Maria Garcia, 75, and her daughter Mara Garcia, 39, are ordered to pay $680,000 to Perez’s estate — as she died in December 2022 — after they pleaded guilty on April 21 of third-degree grand larceny and third-degree criminal tax fraud. The pair most recently lived in Florida.
The investigation from the DA’s office states that the Garcias knew Perez through their practice of Santería, which the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom describes as an Afro-Cuban religion “rooted in the religious practice of the Yoruba people, who were brought as slaves to Cuba from the Congo Basin and West Africa.”
The investigation states that the Garcias conned the elderly woman into signing “numerous documents and multiple powers of attorney,” which allowed the mother-daughter duo to access and control her bank accounts “and other financial instruments” from 2017 to 2021. The DA’s announcement states that part of the theft also included Perez’s Soundview home — for which the women sold for $760,000 and never paid taxes on.
And what the pair did with the money parallels some white-collar crime tropes played out on TV — Maria Garcia paid off a $102,000 refinance on her home, and Mara Garcia paid off an $18,000 credit card bill and then went to Europe.
According to the investigation, both women acknowledged their tax liability: Maria Garcia estimated at $58,000 and Mara Garcia estimated at $155,000. As part of the plea agreement, the Garcias had to return $225,000 in cash, as well as an executed confession of judgment for $456,000. They were also sentenced to 500 hours of community service.
“We must do more to educate our seniors about power of attorney scams, while stepping up to prosecute criminals who prey on our most vulnerable,” Clark said. “The victim in this case was a 92-year-old woman, and she lost her home while they refinanced a home, took a European vacation and paid off their credit card bills.”
And while white collar crime seems under the radar in the Bronx compared to reported violent crime, it still happens.
Just last month, Bronx FDNY firefighter Sylus McKenzie was charged for allegedly stealing his dead patient’s credit card information and charging more than $1,000 in expenses — including for a pair of Apple AirPods — at different Bronx stores. He apparently nabbed the credit cards after responding to a 911 call of an unresponsive man in Manhattan, and other first responders noticed multiple cards were missing from the apartment while sealing off the scene.
Bronx FDNY firefighter indicted for allegedly using credit cards of deceased patient
Grand larceny in the Bronx is only down about 3% from this time last year, according to data from the NYPD — from 4,084 year-to-date in 2022 to 3,959 this year.
Reach Camille Botello at cbotello@schnepsmedia.com. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
