Man Goes Door-to-Door Scamming Elderly Out of Money
According to a report from KHON news channel 2 in Hawaii, a man was charged with theft after he was arrested for going door-to-door claiming he would assist elderly individuals with their yard only to take their money without cleaning their yard. Vilisoni Mafi took over $2,700 from elderly victims claiming he would help them.
Police arrested Mafi and charged him with 10 counts of theft in connection with the incident that occurred from July to September 2010. According to statistics from the Elder Abuse Team at the Prosecutor’s office, they handled 57 cases of elder abuse in 2009 and 102 last year. In the two months of this year, the team saw over 25 cases of abuse. Mafi was sentenced to 5 years in prison following the incident.
This incident of elder abuse further emphasizes the fact that most elder abuse cases occur because the victim often places a high amount of trust in the perpetrator of the crime. In this case, these people were looking for someone to care for their yards, perhaps because they were unable to do so themselves. Instead of receiving this assistance, they were victimized, financially exploit, and robbed of their money. The worst part of this incident is that it went on for two to three months before police were able to stop Mafi. The elder abuse statistics provided by the Elder Abuse Team in the Prosecutor’s Office demonstrates how serious elder abuse really is. In the last three years the team has seen a total of 184 cases of elder abuse. Unfortunately, that is only a small portion of the number of cases that occurs throughout the nation.
