{"id":37995,"date":"2025-11-18T22:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/37995\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T22:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:26:09","slug":"elder-exploitation-section-launched-in-attorney-generals-office-harrisburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/37995\/","title":{"rendered":"Elder Exploitation Section Launched in Attorney General\u2019s Office | Harrisburg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new legal team in the Pennsylvania Attorney General\u2019s office is solely dedicated to prosecuting crimes against senior citizens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you target our senior citizens, you will be held accountable and you will be brought to justice,\u201d said Sen. Wayne Langerholc, the Republican chair of the Senate Aging &amp; Youth Committee.<\/p>\n<p>The attorney general\u2019s office says 27% of Pennsylvanians are over the age of 60. With the senior citizen population on trend to keep growing\u2014 elected officials recognize the need to ensure they have access to justice.<\/p>\n<p>The newly launched Elder Exploitation Section has lawyers and investigators who specialize in elder law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSociety should be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable members,\u201d said Dave Sunday, Pennsylvania\u2019s Attorney General.<\/p>\n<p>The new section launched just a few weeks ago, but already has around 30 cases its working on. Pennsylvania\u2019s Department of Aging applauded the new team as pivotal in filling gaps of expertise and time at local levels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur resources are all so stretched that some of these cases can\u2019t get to the prosecution level they deserve to be,\u201d said Jason Kavulich, secretary for the Dep. of Aging.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pa.gov\/content\/dam\/copapwp-pagov\/en\/aging\/documents\/publications\/annual-reports\/ps%20report%202023-2024%20final.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2023\/24 report from the depatment<\/a> shows that self neglect is the most common confirmed abuse in senior citizen cases. Second and third is caregiver neglect and financial exploitation.<\/p>\n<p>In Pennsylvania, the fastest growing alleged abuse reported is financial exploitation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese cases are extremely complex. There\u2019s tons of financial information. You have to go through bank records oftentimes,\u201d said Dave Sunday, Pennsylvania\u2019s Attorney General.<\/p>\n<p>Financial exploitation and scams often go unreported.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a complicated situation often,\u201d Kavulich said.<\/p>\n<p>Some seniors don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA grandmother who\u2019s exploited by her grandchild doesn\u2019t want to see her grandchild in trouble do that,\u201d said Kavulich. \u201cThat emotional piece weighs heavily on those who would report.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Advocates today urging seniors to report issues\u2014and put this new team to use.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour money is worth it. That\u2019s money that you worked for your entire life. And so it\u2019s worth it to make that call,\u201d Sunday said.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The sooner that financial crimes are reporter, the higher the chance that officers can recover some of the money involved.<\/p>\n<p>If you or anyone you know needs to report something, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pa.gov\/agencies\/aging\/local-resources\/area-agencies-on-aging-\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">call the area agency on aging<\/a> in your area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new legal team in the Pennsylvania Attorney General\u2019s office is solely dedicated to prosecuting crimes against senior&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2288,136,138,137,37,5929],"class_list":["post-37995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-bureau","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-harrisburg","tag-pennsylvania-capitol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}