My mother will be 93 this year. Her husband (not my father) is 93 and suffers from Alzheimer's. She is a very trusting church going person who is fairly slow when it comes to realizing not everyone is as honest as her friends at church.

About 4 years ago, they had some work done on their house. They said the contractor's bid was not the lowest but they decided to go with him. From what I've seen the quality of the work was excellent.

After the work was done, my mother mentioned this contractor (he owns the company) kept coming around bringing food gifts and whatever. It immediately raised a red flag.

I really didn't think she would loan this person any money, but she did. When I visited in October 2012, she divulged the existence of the loans to me. My first question to her was "do you have a promissory note?" She told me no, he had given her post-dated checks, dated for the dates the loan would be due. The purpose was to finance a construction project, which somewhat later it was found out, never happened.

At this point, I had to document the loans by getting copies of the checks she had written and due dates taken from the post-dated checks he had written her.

Fast Forward to Mother's Day, 2013...
Since I was put up for adoption as an infant, I had only found my mother in 1999. We have had a good relationship. I wanted to make this Mother's day special for her since I'd never spent a Mother's Day with her. When I arrived at her home, I noticed an elaborate floral display, From "John"

Anyway, we were scheduled to visit her attorney on a matter unrelated to this. I asked my mother if, while we were there, she wanted to get some legal advice on this particular matter. She told me she didn't want to but also that she had loaned him an additional $60K after both I and her husband's niece told her, "No more loans."

Given this, I had no choice but to bring this to the attorney's attention. After we concluded the matter we had come for, I brought up the loans, showing the spreadsheet I'd put together and pictures I had taken of the flowers he had sent. The attorney was very upset by this noting that it is serious, even criminal. When I showed her the picture of the flowers, she said it was part of the abuse.

She said she didn't handle such matters, but an associate in her office did. So,, a couple of days later it was back to see another attorney. He suggested doing a search for any real estate holding and putting a lien on a property. My mother balked at possible $30-40K in legal fees and also wasn't happy at the $700 attorney bill for the consultation. Go figure.

In a way I feel somewhat responsible for not being more guarded and when she started bringing up John's name.

I did my own criminal investigation on him and found out he has a lengthy record and doesn't obey traffic laws. I've forbidden mom to go anywhere in a car with him. One of the charges was for assault with a deadly weapon against two police officers. He plead "no contest" and they changed the wording from "car" to "metal object".

I have so much on him at this point, If I went to the authorities I think it would be good case, however this is California, where criminal penalties are lax. I secretly wished the cops would have shot him, but then again, this is California, not Texas.

In the meantime, he is making payments. I've asked he refinance the loans, which basically means scam someone else to pay back my mother.

This has caused me a tremendous amount of stress. In the time I've known my mom, I've never asked her for money or a hand for anything. She has put me in the will, although "John" got an advance on my inheritance.

Forgive me, because I'm just blowing off steam. I would say to anyone, if something like this presents itself with elders in your family, don't hesitate, investigate right away.