CONFRONTING SENIOR ABUSE FORUM ADDRESSES SCAMS AND MISTREATMENT OF ELDERLY.

Byline: Eric Leach Staff Writer

SIMI VALLEY - Senior citizens who find Ventura County an attractive place to retire face a growing threat from financial scams and other forms of elder abuse - the county's fastest-growing crime, according to state and local law enforcement officials.

Even though Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks typically rank among the safest communities in the nation with populations over 100,000, criminals increasingly target senior citizens in such affluent communities because they have money, their guard is down and they tend to trust other people, officials say.

``Here the elderly population is growing faster than elsewhere because of better weather, more retirement communities, more social services and recreational opportunities,'' said Richard Shaw, manager of the Ventura County Human Services Agency, Adult Protective Services.

But he said there has also been a dramatic increase in reports of elder abuse.

From July 2003 to July 2004 there were about 1,700 cases of elder abuse reported in Ventura County homes, up 30 percent from the same period a year earlier, he said. And those figures do not include the unreported cases, which officials fear are growing as well.

``We believe only one in five cases is reported. Elder abuse is a dramatically underreported crime because it's often committed by other family members and people in positions of trust, like caregivers,'' he said.

Shaw said his agency has three offices, including one in Ventura, one in Oxnard and one in Simi Valley where county officials are able to respond to reports of abuse and neglect.

Shaw was one of a number of speakers assembled at a forum sponsored Wednesday by the California Attorney General's Office to raise awareness in Ventura County about elder abuse.

State officials at the forum said more than 225,000 Californians are victims of elder and dependent-adult abuse each year, and more than two- thirds of abusers are family members.

The state established a toll-free hotline at [phone] for the reporting of suspected cases of elder or dependent-adult abuse and received more than 6,700 calls on the hotline since May 2003.

The hotline is set up to directly connect individuals wishing to report abuse to their local Adult Protective Services Agency or the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Crisis Line.

A number of speakers at Wednesday's forum referred to the case of Jane Edwards, an 85-year-old Moorpark woman whose body was found in February, covered in filth, two days after her death in her mobile home. Officials said Edwards' son, Robert Young, was charged with elder neglect resulting in death and scheduled for trial in June.

Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten said that one in every 20 of elders is likely to be a victim of some sort of abuse, and he called it the fastest-growing crime in Ventura County.

Deputy District Attorney Shirley Hayton said her unit handled about 70 elder abuse cases last year in Totten's office and had a conviction rate of more than 90 percent.

She said some victims lose hundreds of thousands of dollars and want financial restitution more than anything, so prosecutors try to get their money back by seizing the defendants' financial assets.

Sometimes what appears to be intentional abuse is just miscommunication, said Alicia Montoya, an outreach coordinator for the Long Term Care Services of Ventura County. She met an elderly woman in a nursing home who complained of being served food that was so hot it burned her mouth.

Montoya said it turned out the woman had been asking over and over for hotter food, meaning more spicy, but the nursing home staff misunderstood and kept increasing the temperature instead.

Speakers warned of identity theft and urged residents to shred important papers and to beware of giving out personal information, like Social Security numbers.

They urged the elderly audience members to beware of unlicensed and uninsured contractors and never pay cash or pay for work that has not been completed.

A number of audience members said the forum made them more concerned than ever about talking to strangers.

One member of the audience, who did not want to give her name, said her mother-in-law had been conned into sending money recently to someone who claimed she had won a Canadian lottery and needed a fee to send her the prize.

One of the forum speakers, Joan Virginia Allen, coordinator of the Financial Abuse Specialist Team in Ventura County, said the foreign lottery scam was a common one, and that con artists even call seniors and pose as border patrol agents or offer to help them regain money they have lost through other scams.

She and other speakers stressed that elder abuse is a crime, not a civil dispute, and that more and more police agencies are making arrests.

Allen's group offers a wide variety of advice to help senior citizens protect their money and identities, including arranging for automatic deposits and bill paying, and safe check-writing methods.

She said her office has 45 consultants ready to help people in Ventura County, where she said senior citizens are lucky to have a district attorney committed to helping.

``The District Attorney's Office has been amazingly supportive,'' she said.

People in the audience brought up a variety of personal problems.

One 84-year-old woman in the audience complained a friend of the family had tried to remodel her kitchen at a cost of $11,000 but wound up destroying it.

An 80-year-old audience member, Margaret Tatum-Potter of Oxnard, drew applause when she told of taking her landlord to court to win back a security deposit he refused to return.

There are more than 3.7 million Californians 65 or older, and that population is expected to grow to 6.3 million by 2018. The fastest-growing segment of California's population is individuals over the age of 80.

Nearly a quarter of a million Californians are victims of elder and dependent-adult abuse every year, and most of the victims are females age 75 and older, officials say.

Eric Leach, [phone]

eric.leach(at)dailynews.com

HOW TO HELP

To report elder abuse, call the toll-free state hotline: [phone]. Other helpful agencies include the Ventura County Adult Protective Services Simi Valley office at [phone], the Financial Abuse Specialist Team at [phone], or the long-term care ombudsman at [phone].

HURTFUL WAYS

Four general categories of elder abuse:

--Physical Abuse: Assault, battery, unreasonable physical constraint, prolonged or continual deprivation of food or water, and sexual assault.

--Emotional Abuse: Fear, agitation, confusion, severe depression or other forms of serious emotional distress that is brought about by threats, harassment or other intimidating behavior.

--Financial Abuse: Taking or appropriating money or property of an elder or dependent adult.

--Neglect: The negligent failure of a caregiver of an elder or dependent adult to assist in personal hygiene or in the provision of food, clothing or shelter.

Source: California Attorney General's Office

CAPTION(S):

photo, 2 boxes

Photo:

(color) Jeanine McCullen, right, talks to Susan Miller, left, and Jocelyn Peterson, from senior programs, about an ailing grandparent.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

Box:

(1) HOW TO HELP (see text)

(2) HURTFUL WAYS (see text)