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Trusting 92-Year-Old Conned Out Of Cash Having seen our article last week regarding "deception" crimes, a woman stopped in our office this week and told the story of her 92-year-old mother who was duped in a similar scam recently. She was embarrassed, but not injured. "I just want people to know how it happened so it might not happen to them," the elderly victim's daughter said. It seems the younger woman had to go to the store one morning, leaving her mother alone in the two-story, frame house on East 96th Street. "I was only gone about a half-hour," said the woman, who asked that her name and other personal particulars not be revealed. "And when I got near the house, I saw my mother standing on the front steps looking a little confused." Her mother told her that, as soon as she left, a "young man" came by, knocked on her door, and said, "Hi! Remember me? I used to live around here a few years ago. How are you?" The woman stammered for a moment, certainly not recalling a thing about the man, and she told him so. He explained that he used to do some work in the yards around the neighborhood and did some landscaping and construction work for her late husband. She had no reason to disbelieve him, she said, although she decided to talk with him on her porch, instead of letting him in the house. During the course of her conversation, the fact that certain "things" had to be fixed up around her house came up; "things" that he used to do for her husband and things at which he was an expert. One subject led to another and she finally hired him to come and fix some cement cracks in her driveway. But first he would need some cash so he could buy the necessary materials to do the job properly. The elderly lady went into the house and got $100 in cash and gave it to him. "He wanted $200," she told her daughter, "but I didn't have enough cash around, otherwise I would have given it to him." The man left, saying he'd be "right back," and she hasn't seen him since then. The daughter called the 69th Precinct and was told to call 911. "When I called," she said, "they told me the local precinct would send somebody over to take a report and see if they could help." According to policies stipulated under Captain Ralph Monteforte, commanding officer of the local precinct, two officers came to the woman's house and took the report, including a description of the man: white, about 50, weighing about 160 lbs. Captain Monteforte said cases like this happen now and then, and "what we do at this point is tell people to be more careful. "One good thing is that the woman didn't let the man into her house, but talked to him on her porch. We don't know what would have happened if he had gotten inside."
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