Florida nurse scammed Holocaust survivor, husband of lifetime savings worth more than $100,000
A Florida woman who was working as a nursing assistant to an elderly couple, one of whom was a Holocaust survivor, has been arrested and charged for allegedly scamming them out of their life savings.
Odalis Lopez, 56, first began dipping into the savings of Rella Herman, 93, and her 91-year-old husband Leonard Herman, as far back as 2011, according to a description on a GoFundMe page set up by the couple's grandson, Micha Herman.
Micha said Lopez started out by stealing small amounts of money before completely taking advantage of them after Rella's only son passed away from cancer four years ago.
NBC Miami reported that Lopez had been given access to the credit cards to purchase groceries and handle drug prescriptions, but went on to abuse the trust she had slowly garnered over the years to extravagantly spend the elderly couple's money.
Micha said the 56-year-old used the money for parties, margaritas, restaurants and gift cards. He said these exorbitant fraudulent charges were unknowingly paid off by his grandmother, effectively stripping her off her retirement funds, and that the abuse was only discovered after family members noticed suspicious transactions on the bank records.
He said that the Florida state forensic investigators had estimated Lopez had spent over $100,000 - an arrest warrant obtained by WSVN stated that transactions linked to the supermarket chain Publix alone totaled $116,322 - of his grandparents' money, most of which had come from Holocaust reparation cheques from the German government
"Rella is a 93 year-old Holocaust survivor," Micha wrote. "Not only has she had to endure the trauma of the concentration camps and losing her own mother at Auschwitz, but now she is the victim of elderly exploitation and grand theft."
Lopez was booked into the Miami-Dade County Jail last Friday, Aug 2, on multiple charges, including theft from an elderly person and financial exploitation.
Speaking about the case, state attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, who is now prosecuting the case, said, "This one is really all about greed. Selfish indulgence, it seems like, based on the purchases that we've seen."
She was released from jail after posting bond and is scheduled to make her next appearance in court on September 3.
Micha has appealed to the masses for help for his grandparents, who are financially destitute because of Lopez's actions.
"While the caretaker has been arrested, Rella and her ninety-one-year-old husband have been left reeling and can't afford even the most basic home care," he wrote. "Any help you can provide will go a long way towards providing them stability in the twilight of their lives."
He said that his grandmother "remains in good spirits" despite the recent trauma.
The campaign has raised $2,759 of a $100,000 goal at the time of writing.