Elderly Woman Duped Into Borrowing Against Home By Convicted Con Man Now Fears F'closure; Cops Bag Suspect On Grand Theft, Elder Embezzlement Charges

In Riverside County, California, the Press Enterprise reports:

• A Menifee man charged with conning two women in their 70s out of tens of thousands of dollars — using tearful pleas that he needed the money for lifesaving surgeries — was convicted years ago in Orange County in a similar scam, authorities said.
  
  “This guy is a creep,” said Investigator Glenn Johnson of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. “His whole life is conning women.”
  
  Frankie Jay Szabo, 55, who lives in the Sun City area, pleaded not guilty Wednesday, Aug. 15, to two counts each of grand theft and embezzlement from an elder, court records show. He was being held with no bail amount set, jail records show.
  
  Szabo is accused of convincing a 70-year-old Homeland woman to take out a loan on her house to fund a surgery that was supposedly necessary to save his stepfather’s life, Johnson said.
  
  In the second case, Johnson said, Szabo took $10,000 from a 71-year-old Lake Elsinore woman on the pretense that it was, again, a loan for a life-saving surgery, this time for himself. The woman took the money out of her retirement fund, he said. Szabo promised both women he would pay them back.
  
  In fact, neither man was in need of surgery. The money was used to purchase a Mercedes, meals at restaurants and shopping trips, Johnson said. “It’s financing his lifestyle,” he said.
  
  One of the women fears she may lose her house to foreclosure, Johnson said. “She’s petrified.”

For more, see ELDER FRAUD: Convicted con man faces new charges (Frankie Jay Szabo, 55, is jailed, accused of bilking two women in Homeland and Lake Elsinore).