Elder fraud: One couple's losses and hard lessons

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 -- Donna, Jim, Linda and Carole -- were worried, but had so far been powerless to open their parents' eyes. If they wouldn't listen to their kids, Donna thought, maybe 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 to their guests 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.

The officers explained they were there to ask for the Parkers' help in catching these predators. With their permission, Evers installed a "mooch line" on the kitchen phone so they could capture incoming calls.

Charles, a war veteran, was tickled at the notion of being part of an undercover operation. He and his wife 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.

The ‘sucker list'

Older Americans lose $2.9 billion a year to fraud, according to a study conducted 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.

In the Parkers' case, no one can say exactly how the trouble began. 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."

And once they were marked, the scammers proceeded to "reload" them.

You've won this multimillion-dollar lottery, they'd say. All you need to do is send us the money to cover the taxes, and we'll send you your prize.

So on Dec. 8, 2004, Miriam Parker -- then 80 -- drove herself to the Walmart down the road to send a MoneyGram to Montreal, Quebec.

Isolation from absent children is often one of the hallmarks in cases like these. 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.

With three kids to raise, Linda wasn't able to look in on their parents all that often.

A busy real estate agent and teacher, Donna 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.

And so, over a series of calls, Howard Clark -- a man with a warm voice who called her "dear" and "sweetheart" -- had learned enough information about Miriam to convince her that he was the family's ticket to riches.

After her Dec. 8 MoneyGram, other wires followed Dec. 13 and 16.

On Jan. 12, 2005, she 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.

The Parkers had quickly become what authorities refer to as "super victims."

Though trusting, Miriam asked Howard repeatedly when they would receive their winnings. One day, he called to say he was on his way to deliver the prize in person -- only to call back to say he'd been detained at the border, and that he needed her to send $200 so he could defray things. She sent him the money.

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.

Faced with mounting debt -- and clinging to the assurances that a big payday was coming -- Miriam was determined to right their financial ship.

That's when she became a "money mule."

Repackaging money

She can't remember whether it was in a phone call or a note. But Howard told her 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. It was followed five days later by a FedEx packet with $10,000, then three days after that by an envelope stuffed with $25,000.

In just over one week, Miriam Parker would receive and repackage $60,000 in cash for delivery to Mr. Stewart of Papineau Street, Montreal.

Having the money hopscotch from one victim to another complicates things for would-be investigators.

Sometimes, there would be two stacks of bills, one much thicker than the other, tucked into magazines. The smaller pile was Miriam Parker's "commission."

If someone sent her a check, she was to convert it to cash and send that along, Howard said -- and 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, and then prevent him from listening to the conversations.

She stopped going over to Linda's house to help with the baby-sitting. And when the couple would go to the mountain house, they'd only stay the day -- because Miriam was expecting a call and had to be home to get it.

When the kids finally persuaded their mother to get a credit report, the news was 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 all the loans.

The money, of course, did not come. It was time to get authorities involved.

Raleigh police told Donna there was nothing they could do unless the perpetrators were local, and so she went to the state attorney general's Elder Fraud Unit. Around that same time, Donna received a call from the FBI -- her parents had popped up on their radar in connection with another case.

It became apparent to authorities the Parkers weren't truly willing participants in the scam. So they staged the December family intervention.

That kitchen-table gathering ended promisingly, with Miriam assuring Fleming and Evers that she would not forward any more packages. Charles told them he felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted.

Even then, Miriam remained convinced that Clark was her friend. At one point, she invited him to the family's mountain retreat to meet her kids. The Parker siblings sardonically referred to him as "our other brother Howard."

Attorneys Donna contacted could offer no help -- the elder Parkers hadn't been deemed incompetent, and it was their money.

And the envelopes just kept coming -- from San Jose and Hayward in California, from East Liberty, Ohio.

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. From the outline, he knew without opening it what was inside. He sneaked downstairs to his old bedroom, pulled out a business card with a gold seal on it and dialed the number.

"I've got this package," he said. "What do you want me to do with it?"

He and David Kirkman, manager of the Elder Fraud Prevention Project in the AG's office, met at a gas station. 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 UPS.

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.

Subpoenaed records

The FBI subpoenaed records from the courier services Miriam Parker was using and found the address in Montreal. On Aug. 2, 2006, officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Surete du Quebec paid the occupant a visit.

Dave Stewart acknowledged accepting numerous packages from the American lady on behalf of a man whom he knew as "Roger." Stewart, a native of Jamaica, said he was paid $100 per package.

In all, Miriam Parker had shipped 119 packages totaling more than $606,000 to Stewart. Professing ignorance of any illegal activity, Stewart agreed to cooperate.

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" on Sixth Avenue in the Montreal borough of Verdun.

Parcels kept coming -- from Texas and Massachusetts, South Carolina and Washington, Missouri and Maine.

By December 2006, with the Parkers' credit card debt topping $70,000, the family held another kitchen-table intervention.

This time, they persuaded their parents to grant Donna a limited power of attorney. One of the first things she did was change their phone number -- though too late to stop them making $650 in calls to Jamaica in one month.

In January 2007, she accompanied her parents to the credit union, where they took out a 30-year, $179,000 mortgage on their home.

But it was like shoveling sand against the tide. Late that spring, Donna Parker got a call from a grocery store near her parents' home. Her mother had been in five times that day to wire money.

She remembers one particular evening, sitting around the kitchen table, attempting to help her parents draft a budget. About an hour and a half into the visit, she realized they hadn't been paying attention.

"Why aren't you listening to this?" she asked.

"We're waiting for the phone call," her mother replied. They were expecting delivery that night of a new Mercedes, another supposed reward that would never come, of course.

Exasperated, Donna storm-ed out.

Trap and trace

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.

It might have been her fault, Miriam began, that they'd had trouble with some shipments lately.

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.

Using "trap and trace" technology, the FBI determined the pitch calls were coming from Montreal, and Mounties soon had a real name for "Howard Clark" -- he was Clayton Atkinson.

Atkinson had 13 convictions for assault, theft and weapons possession stretching back to 1994.

On April 13, 2007, three officers in blue flak vests arrested Atkinson.

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.

‘Answer me!'

The criminal case ground slowly along, and last year Atkinson and Stewart pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy and mail fraud. (Jamaal McKenzie is awaiting trial in Canada on an unrelated assault charge.) The plea agreement listed 31 individuals who'd been defrauded of a total of $840,705.

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.

Miriam Parker had imagined Howard as much older, perhaps with gray hair. Standing before them was a 33-year-old man, his dark hair cropped close.

The judge asked Atkinson: "Can you imagine if somebody like you was doing this to your family? Could you imagine how shocked and outraged you'd be?"

Atkinson stood mute.

"Answer me!" Boyle thundered.

"I can't sit in front of you and give an excuse for it," Atkinson said.

Boyle sentenced Atkinson to 12 1/2 years in prison, Stewart to 6 1/2. He also ordered them to pay $840,705 in restitution -- $84,350 of it to Miriam Parker.

No money has been recovered, Fleming told the judge.

Responding to an interview request, Atkinson sent The Associated Press a three-page, expletive-laced letter, cursing prosecutors, his lawyer and America's "corrupted justice system."

"i am angry and miserable everyday," he wrote in his unpunctuated, ungrammatical reply. "my life is [expletive] ruined now you think i care about the parkers."

Lost independence

Today, Miriam Parker seems conflicted about the man she refers to as Howard.

"He was always very nice," she said.

She managed to keep her home, but she's lost most of her independence. The court appointed Donna Parker guardian of her parents' estate.

Each month, Donna sends her a debit card with $500 on it, to pay for food, prescriptions and gas -- soon to be 88, her mother still drives. The daughter still screens the mail and pays all the other bills.

"As I look back on it, it was a good bit of stupidity on my part," Miriam Parker said, her voice dropping. "I just felt that I had really been a real sucker -- I really had."