[Missouri-l] Two charged with exploiting 90-year-old blind woman

[Chip Hailey]

Two charged with exploiting 90-year-old blind woman
BRAD BUCK
Staff Writer
CLERMONT -- A Clermont man and his ex-wife are accused of exploiting a 90-year-old
legally blind woman out of thousands of dollars, police say.
The two are charged with cashing unauthorized checks or running up credit card bills
to the tune of more than $50,000.
Corey Michael Payton, 31, was charged Tuesday with 34 counts of grand theft, 34 counts
of theft from a person over 65, 26 counts of fraudulent use of a credit card, eight
counts of forgery, eight counts of uttering a forged instrument, and one count of
exploitation of an elderly person, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Payton remained in the Lake County jail Wednesday on $206,000 bail, online jail records
show.
His ex-wife, Stacey Lynn Brown, 37, was charged in May with 15 counts each of theft
from a person over 65 and grand theft by fraud, and 14 counts each of uttering a
forged instrument and forgery, along with one count each of exploitation of an elderly
person, scheming to defraud, fraudulent use of a personal ID for more than $50,000
and fraudulent use of a credit card.
Brown is out of jail after posting $104,000 bail.
The woman -- whose name is not disclosed in police or court documents -- lives alone
in her house, and has lived there for 37 years, police said. Her home was in disrepair
and "bordered on being uninhabitable," a probable cause affidavit said.
The elderly woman told investigators she considered Brown a friend and trusted her.
Brown knew the elderly woman because the woman was a friend of her mother's. Since
2005, Brown had been taking care of various financial matters for the woman, police
said.
But what caught the attention of police was repair work that Payton claimed to do
at the woman's house. He claimed he had done work on her bathroom, door frames, floors
and had painted the interior.
He charged one bill after another for those repairs, but the work either wasn't done
at all, or wasn't done properly, police said.
Brown would fill out the checks, and the blind woman would sign them, using a gadget
she placed near the signature line, police said.
While Payton was doing alleged repairs, the elderly woman's food expenses starting
increasing dramatically, investigators said. Brown told them that was because the
woman was no longer receiving Meals-on-Wheels.
Additionally, while Payton was allegedly doing repairs, the elderly woman stayed
at Brown's home. Unbeknownst to the woman, Brown charged her for rent and food, police
said.
All this happened in 2009 and early 2010, court documents show.
The irregularities in the woman's financial records prompted the woman's son to take
her into his home in Missouri in mid-March of this year, police said. The matter
was then reported to the Department of Children and Families and then turned over
to Clermont police.
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