Today Judge Donald Segerstrom sentenced Cheryl Delaney-Rizzo, 55, to 13 years 8 months in state prison for financial elder abuse of her mother, Dolores Delaney, aged 85. Delaney-Rizzo’s boyfriend David Garrett, 59, was sentenced to prison for 4 years 4 months for related conduct. Delaney-Rizzo was previously convicted of financial elder abuse of her mother in 2004 in Los Angeles County. In August of 2014 Assistant District Attorney Eric Hovatter, who handles all elder abuse prosecutions for the Tuolumne County District Attorney’s Office, filed twenty felony counts charging both defendants with violations including First Degree Residential Burglary, Theft from an Elder, Identity Theft, and Second Degree Commercial Burglary. Hovatter indicated that in 2013 Mrs. Delaney moved up to Tuolumne County to be closer to her daughter and immediately both defendants moved in to assist Mrs. Delaney with day-to-day activities. Ms. Delaney-Rizzo then gained access to financial information from different institutions located out of Tuolumne County and began to remove money from those accounts. Late in 2013 Garrett assisted Mrs. Delaney in the opening of an account in a local bank and money deposited into that account by Mrs. Delaney was immediately pilfered. Most of the money lost by Mrs. Delaney, estimated as anywhere from $40,000 to over $100,000, was spent at Chicken Ranch Casino and Black Oak Casino. Part of the conduct by Delaney-Rizzo involved her attempting to impersonate Mrs. Delaney, a representative of Adult Protective Services and a doctor via the use of e-mails and letters in an effort to authorize withdrawals from Mrs. Delaney’s accounts. At one point Garrett was asked to send a valuable ring, belonging to Mrs. Delaney, to her relative and when the ring was not received it was discovered that Garrett had placed the ring in his safety deposit box with the explanation that he didn’t have the money to pay for insurance. The ring was recovered when the safety deposit box was drilled open. None of the money has been recovered.
