A new legal team in the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office is solely dedicated to prosecuting crimes against senior citizens.
“If you target our senior citizens, you will be held accountable and you will be brought to justice,” said Sen. Wayne Langerholc, the Republican chair of the Senate Aging & Youth Committee.
The attorney general’s office says 27% of Pennsylvanians are over the age of 60. With the senior citizen population on trend to keep growing— elected officials recognize the need to ensure they have access to justice.
The newly launched Elder Exploitation Section has lawyers and investigators who specialize in elder law.
“Society should be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable members,” said Dave Sunday, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General.
The new section launched just a few weeks ago, but already has around 30 cases its working on. Pennsylvania’s Department of Aging applauded the new team as pivotal in filling gaps of expertise and time at local levels.
“Our resources are all so stretched that some of these cases can’t get to the prosecution level they deserve to be,” said Jason Kavulich, secretary for the Dep. of Aging.
A 2023/24 report from the depatment shows that self neglect is the most common confirmed abuse in senior citizen cases. Second and third is caregiver neglect and financial exploitation.
In Pennsylvania, the fastest growing alleged abuse reported is financial exploitation.
“These cases are extremely complex. There’s tons of financial information. You have to go through bank records oftentimes,” said Dave Sunday, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General.
Financial exploitation and scams often go unreported.
“It’s a complicated situation often,” Kavulich said.
Some seniors don’t report scams or exploitation because of embarrassment. For others, personal relationships are at stake. Different from scams senior citizens might experience over the phone or online, victims of financial exploitation often know the person taking advantage of them.
“A grandmother who’s exploited by her grandchild doesn’t want to see her grandchild in trouble do that,” said Kavulich. “That emotional piece weighs heavily on those who would report.”
Advocates today urging seniors to report issues—and put this new team to use.
“Your money is worth it. That’s money that you worked for your entire life. And so it’s worth it to make that call,” Sunday said.
Speakers today emphasized that falling for a scam is not an embarrassement, as tricks are growing so sophisticated that law enforcement can struggle to discern if they are scams or not.
The sooner that financial crimes are reporter, the higher the chance that officers can recover some of the money involved.
If you or anyone you know needs to report something, call the area agency on aging in your area.