Niece Gets 14-84 Months In $92K Home Equity Ripoff Of Now-Deceased, Dementia-Stricken Aunt; Scammer's Son Triggers Probe Leading To Mom's Imprisonment

In West Chester, Pennsylvania, Local Daily News reports:

• Mary Ellen Ashton has had a problem with housing. Over the years, she has defaulted on two mortgages – one in Chester County and another in Montgomery County – and ultimately stole more thousands of dollars from an aging and senile aunt to pay rent at a Chester Springs home.

• Her housing concerns, however, are settled now -- at least for 14 to 84 months. [...] Common Pleas Court Judge William Mahon sentenced Ashton, 57, formerly of Phoenixville, to that amount of time behind state prison bars for the scheme that defrauded her aunt, the late Margaret Voytowicz, of $92,000 and nearly cost the woman the home she had lived in for more than 50 years.

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• According to court records and testimony at her trial in July, the case against Ashton began in 2006, when Ashton’s son, Michael Ashton, who lives in California, learned that his great aunt, Voytowicz, was facing eviction for failure to make any payments on the $92,000 mortgage she had taken out with Chase Manhattan Bank. Voytowicz had told him that Ashton convinced her to take out the mortgage, even though she did not need it or want it. Ashton needed it, Voytowicz said, “because her son was being injected with the AIDS virus.”

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• Michael Ashton and attorneys hired by Voytowicz’s family were able to save her from eviction after settling the mortgage account with Chase Manhattan for $50,000 in 2008.

• At the same time, officials at the Chester County Department of Aging hired Exton psychologist Bruce Mapes to assess Voytowicz’s mental state at the time that the mortgage had been taken out. Mapes found that although Voytowicz lived alone and appeared able to fend for herself in some ways, she was suffering from early stage dementia. [...] Voytowicz died in November 2008 at the age of 84.

For more, see Woman gets jail for stealing from elderly aunt.