Lankan jailed in US for swindling money off 82 year-old woman
April 7, 2010 10:26 am
Asoka Perera makes his first appearance from the Polk County
Jail Annex before Circuit Judge Robert L. Williams in Bartow Tuesday. Perera is
charged with multiple counts of fraud and swindling to obtain property, grand
theft, money laundering, and writing bad checks. April 6, 2010. The
Ledger/Michael
After 31 years teaching fourth-graders in the
In January 2008, Smith befriended Asoka Perera, a Sri Lankan
native here on a temporary visa, who during the next two years systematically
swindled Smith, now 82, out of her life savings of nearly $300,000, an arrest
affidavit said.
Perera, 45, was arrested Monday and was charged with multiple
counts of fraud and swindling to obtain property, grand theft, money laundering
and writing bad checks. Besides Smith, his victims include six banks.
During first appearance Tuesday afternoon, Polk County Judge
Robert L. Williams Jr. found probable cause to hold Perera and set bail at $93,000.
If he makes bail, Perera must prove that the money was obtained legally, said
Wayne Durden, an assistant state attorney.
All told, Perera is suspected of stealing $563,085, beginning
in 2005, when he opened accounts at several banks then made cash withdrawals
and wire transfers on insufficient funds, a Polk sheriff’s affidavit said. Of
the banks Perera is suspected of scheming to defraud, Washington Mutual was the
biggest loser at $114,439. He took Wachovia for nearly $4,000 and Trustco for
about the same, the affidavit said.
Passing himself off as a tea merchant, Perera is accused of
bilking supply houses and customers out of more than $150,000.
Smith, the retired teacher, lost the most, beginning with a
loan of $43,581, money Perera told her he needed to buy a home, investigators
said. A few months later, Smith lent Perera $109,034 to allegedly pay for his
mother’s surgery.
Smith loaned Perera thousands more for his tea exportation
business, according to investigators.
“The man was an expert at fraud and I was one of his victims,”
Smith said Tuesday. “I should have been more aware, perhaps. That money was to
put me in a care-giving place for when I’m really old,” she said with a laugh.
Smith said she was taken in by Perera and his wife after they
advertised services for helping the elderly with driving and errands. She said
the
“You’re (open) to friendships when you’re all alone,” Smith
said, “so they just buttered it up. They take you out to eat, bring you flowers
on Mother’s Day. They’re good at what they do.”
Smith said that eventually she began to listen to friends who
suspected she was being duped out of her savings and reported Perera to the
Polk Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators said in the affidavit that Smith fits the
profile “of an elderly individual who can be easily confused, misled and
exploited by an individual for whom they have developed a relationship they
perceive to be based on trust and confidence.”
Prosecuting such crimes are tricky, Durden, of the Polk state
attorney’s office, said, especially when the victims appear sane and lucid and
freely gave away their money. “It’s hard to prove they stole anything,” he said.
It’s unclear what happened to Smith’s money, Durden said. In
the affidavit, Perera told investigators that he invested the money he borrowed
“in hopes that he would be able to repay Smith with dividends.”
Preying on the elderly is big business in
“It happens more frequently than the public really knows,”
said Joe Rowland, a deputy director with Seniors vs. Crime, a volunteer
organization affiliated with the Florida Attorney General.
“Older people have one thing going against them, that’s the fact
that they are lonely,” he said. “They (scam artists) gain their trust and they
get taken.”
Smith said she’s fortunate to be mortgage-free and receiving a
pension income, which “just pays the bills.” She said her 27-year-old house is
showing signs of age.
“I need an air conditioner,” she said. “I can pay taxes on the
house but I can’t make any improvements. I don’t have my (savings). That’s the
big thing.”
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