Massachusetts Man Gets 2 To 4 For Again Ripping Off Elderly Stepfather; Earlier Swindle Caused Victim To Lose Home To Foreclosure

In Peabody, Massachusetts, The Salem News reports:

• Confronted by a Peabody police detective with evidence that he'd once again ripped off his elderly stepfather, Steven Fishman, 22, tried to explain himself. "It wasn't drugs or any of that," Fishman told Detective Robert Church. "It's kind of, I kind of get a thrill out of doing it."

• Fishman pleaded guilty [...] to six counts of identity fraud and one count of felony larceny from a person over 60 and was sentenced to two to four years in state prison by Salem Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley. That's less than half the time sought by prosecutor Marcia Slingerland, who explained to Feeley that it wasn't the first time Fishman had stolen from the 77-year-old man.

• In fact, Fishman was on probation at the time for another series of thefts that emptied his stepfather's bank account — and cost him his home, when he could no longer make the mortgage. Despite the crimes, which forced the elderly man to move to an apartment [...], he took Fishman back in to live with him after Fishman was let out of jail in 2008. Fishman repaid his stepfather by again bleeding the elderly man's bank account dry, stealing nearly $10,000 with a series of electronic transactions that were discovered only after the victim got an overdraft notice from his bank.

For more, see Man gets 2-4 years in prison for thefts from his stepfather.