A 52-year-old woman was found guilty of stealing $400,000 from her mother with dementia in Oregon, prosecutors said.
She was sentenced to 29 months in prison after being found guilty of two counts of aggravated theft and two counts of criminal mistreatment, according to an April 24 news release by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.
In 2020, the woman stole over $400,000 from her ill mother, who could “no longer able to care for her affairs,” according to the release.
The woman checked her into a care facility in November 2020 and “claimed that her mother had enough money to privately pay for her end-of-life care,” according to the release.
Two months later, she told the facility that her mother had run “out of money,” prosecutors said. On the same day, the daughter bought a $24,500 car.
The mother was left with $5.64 in her savings account, officials said.
By February 2021, the woman had spent $325,000 of her mother’s money, prosecutors said. Investigators found no evidence that the money was used toward the mother’s care.
Although the woman had no criminal history, this “is a mandatory prison case because of elder abuse,” prosecutors said.
She will serve her sentence at the Oregon Department of Corrections, according to the release.
Multnomah County is in northwest Oregon. Portland is the county seat.