Caregiver charged with fraud

A woman hired as a caregiver for an 80-year-old Huntington Beach man faces charges of forgery, grand theft, elder abuse and making false financial statements after allegedly selling the man’s home and stealing thousands from his retirement funds, according to police.

For almost two years, Della Eames, 54, of Silverado Canyon, allegedly withdrew pension and Social Security funds from Salvatore Valenti’s bank account while he was in her private care, authorities said.

Valenti, a retired 30-year New York Transit Authority worker, came under the care of Eames as his health steadily declined following his wife’s death in 2004.

According to police, the man’s son, his only relative living on the West Coast, hired Eames to care for Valenti in his Westminster mobile home after he suffered a stroke and lost his eyesight.

The first thing Eames did was take Valenti’s wallet, making a man who was trying to feel independent reliant on someone else, Huntington Beach Det. Aaron Smith said.

In his wallet, Valenti carried his Social Security card, driver’s license, and cards for the Braille Institute, NYC Transit Authority retirement and drug prescription programs, and Medi-Cal. Eames could assume the man’s identity with those cards, Smith said. She used Valenti’s ATM card to buy groceries, gas and even a skateboard for one of her two sons, Smith added.

“She says she didn’t realize it was stealing at the time, but she does now,” Smith said. “She said she had never seen that much money before in her life, and she just went nuts.”

In May, Valenti’s health worsened so that he required specialized nursing. So he signed into Sea Cliff Heath Care Center on North Florida Street, which was to be paid for with Valenti’s pension and Social Security checks, Smith said.

In June, Sea Cliff employees saw a woman speaking with Valenti, but she left before they could meet her, Smith said. Police believe that woman was Eames having Valenti sign over power of attorney to her, Smith said. After that, she sold his Westminster home for $20,000 and told Valenti’s neighbors that he had died, police said.

Office Manager Vanessa Le and facility social services worker Kim Blank first noticed the missing funds while helping Valenti reapply for Medi-Cal. Keeping thorough documentation on her involvement in his finances, Le noted that Eames denied any knowledge concerning Valenti’s bank account information.

“We asked her where his funds went, and she said she didn’t know,” Le said.

The two women took the issue to the facility’s Executive Director Mike Williams, who directed them to speak with the ombudsmen for the Council on Aging. The center’s staff did not want the issue to be construed that they were seeking to get Valenti’s money if they went straight to the police, Williams said.

“We felt it would be better if we had an independent source to look at the information before we contacted the police,” Williams said, adding that having the outside source review the possible fraud would provide an unbiased opinion, before notifying police of the bank account discrepancies.

After a long search for Eames, detectives arrested her Friday after convincing her to go to the Huntington police station for an interview, Smith said.

“We see a lot of fraud victims,” Smith said. “It touched us all how cold she was and that she left him all alone in the [health care] center,” Smith said. Valenti had two boxes of tissues clenched in his arms when police recently went to interview him at the health center — the tissues were almost all he had left, Smith said.

Smith and his co-workers were so moved by Valenti’s situation that the department’s entire Bunco Forgery Unit, bearing Italian food from local restaurant Civellos and loads of gifts, celebrated the holidays with him on Thursday at Sea Cliff.

The whole group chipped in and bought CDs, sweatsuits, T-shirts, socks, slippers and other goodies to replenish what Valenti lost. But it was the wad of cash the group gave the 80-year-old that made Valenti smile and nearly brought his benefactors to tears.

“Is this real?” Valenti asked as he pulled out a stack of bills from a card.

Eames was being held on $100,000 bail at the Orange County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned on Jan. 3 in the West Court Justice Center in Westminster.

Huntington detectives found Eames’ house two weeks ago, just a day before it was scheduled to be demolished. Since then, investigators have combed through Eames’ financial records but have not found the money from the house sale. “That money is gone,” Smith said.

For this reason, a motion was filed against Eames so she has to prove where the money is coming from before she can be released on bail.

“She gained his trust, became like his only friend,” Smith said. “She recognized how isolated he was.”