When I was in grade school in Dearborn, Michigan, I remember a local television station's ten-o-clock PM announcement, “It's 10:00. Do you know where your children are?” We have always been attuned to what our children were up to. Now our generation has literally switched roles; we are the parents and our parents are the ones we are looking out for. Or at least we should be.
I have been guided to share a harrowing personal experience involving my elderly mother with as many people as I can reach in an effort to keep it from happening to anyone else. If I can help save just one person from the hands of a con artist, then all the time, effort, and expense I am putting into this journey will be well worth it.
Elderly exploitation has become a very serious issue in recent years. I live in Florida, which has been a hotbed of scams, frauds, and con artists, especially with regard to crimes against our senior citizens. We have, however, made great strides in prosecuting those who have committed such heinous crimes, thanks to the Florida Attorney General's office, the State Attorney's office, and the advocates, the journalists, and state departments that are working so hard to stop the con artists and to protect the people who call Florida their home.
This experience involved ballroom dance studio con artists, Michael Pasquarelli and David "Vic" Andrews, owners of The Dance Place. They took my mother for nearly $300,000, which represented almost all her life savings, before I could stop them. I only lived ten miles away from her and I knew exactly what was going on, but I was powerless to stop them. I finally happened upon a power of attorney my mother had the presence of mind to sign after my father's death making me her agent. With that in hand, I transferred what was left of her assets to other accounts so the con men could no longer drain her accounts. But not before they had taken most of her money. They worked very quickly taking nearly $170,000 in just the first few days.
Why did she allow them to do this? In a cult-type of process, they brainwashed her, gave her alcohol, and I have reason to believe drugs were also involved. The combination of alcohol and the anti-depressants and sleeping aids that had been prescribed by her doctor caused brain seizures. Within a month of becoming involved with The Dance Place, my mother suffered irreparable brain damage resulting in dementia and short-term memory loss. She had no idea what she was doing or spending, or what she was supposed to be getting for her money. She often appeared to be catatonic. At one point she was bruised so badly that her entire right arm was black and blue all the way down to her fingers, as were her legs and feet. While I was taking her to one of many emergency hospital visits, she turned to me and said that Michael Pasquarelli was the only one who cared about her.
As close as my mother and I had always been, Pasquarelli and Andrews managed to turn her against me. They had convinced her that I had taken all her money. She had even seen an attorney so she could sue me to get it back. Of course, I didn't have any of her money. I had only transferred it to new accounts so Pasquarelli and Andrews couldn't get at it anymore. But my mother was so "out of it" that fortunately she didn't even realize that she could still freely access those accounts. All she seemed to believe was that Michael Pasquarelli, who had convinced her that he was the only one who cared about her, was going to marry her!
Many times ballroom dance teachers wine, dine, and lavish their students with flowers, gifts, and compliments, making them feel that their students are their reason for living. They offer promises of friendship, companionship, marriage, and even stardom. My mother, an active, vital, intelligent woman, in her vulnerable state, fell for their con game hook, line, and sinker. There was nothing that my brother or I could tell her to change her mind. Our objections were taken as "ruining her fun" and shattering her dreams. It was her money and she could spend it however she wished. That may have been true, but when a person is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ballroom dance lessons, something is clearly amiss, only apparent to outsiders. The victim has already been brainwashed and the damage is done.
Ballroom dancing has always been a popular pasttime and has become even more popular in recent years. Dancing provides excellent exercise and is loads of fun. I taught ballroom dancing for a large franchise while I was in college. However, I was fired for refusing to "sell" students more lessons after they had just paid $10,000 for the basic program. I was a teacher. I wanted to teach my students how to dance. Isn't that why they were there? That did not sit well with the management who decided (thankfully for me) that I did not fit in. But the premise was the same--sell, sell, sell--while dancing around with the student for 55 minutes, not necessarily teaching them anything. Get them back into the studio every day, if possible. The more often they come in for "lessons" (a/k/a "high pressured sales pitch"), the more of a chance we have to sell them more lessons and dance activities, parties, and other events, all neatly tied up in a package called "fun." Sure it's fun. It's fun for the dance studio owners who are spending all this money faster than it's coming in. I later worked for a small independent dance studio. We sold lessons individually for $75, as well as in blocks of ten lessons for $600. That was 35 years ago, but those prices have not risen much since, and some charge even less than that in today's market.
There are many independent studios that actually teach people to dance, but The Dance Place was also a small, independent studio. If a dance studio requires that you sign a contract for dance lessons, get out of there. Of course, they will likely close you in a room with the "manager," teacher, and possibly another sales person who will "double-team" the student which is highly illegal. It is nearly impossible to get out of that room without signing a contract. These studios do not take "no" for an answer. They guilt the victim into signing a contract for thousands of dollars with, "Don't you feel you deserve it?" "Aren't you worth it?" There is absolutely no reason why anyone needs to sign a contract for dance lessons. No reason whatsoever!
So why did I sign a contract with my fitness center? To lock in an unbelievably low monthly fee with a major franchise that has been in business forever, and even if they went out of business, I'd only be out the balance of that year, as I only pay for a year at a time. That's reasonable. Signing a contract for tens of thousands of dollars for lifetime dance lessons is not.
What concerns me is that more and more senior citizens are moving away from their children to warmer climates such as Florida, Arizona, the Carolinas and other temperate weather states. Senior citizens are more vulnerable than they realize and have become prime targets for con artists and their scams. Too often they are embarrassed about being taken advantage of and do not report it to anyone. They would never even consider telling their children, lest they be “put away” in a nursing home, which I've found is their greatest fear. Yet con artists prey upon the elderly every day for everything from water conditioners to insurance fraud. And all too many of them fall for these scams and fraudulent activities.
I moved to Florida in 1981 and my parents moved down the following year. My parents enjoyed their retirement in a large retirement community on the west central coast of Florida. It had all the amenities any retirees could wish for, including twenty-seven holes of golf. My parents were avid ballroom dancers. It was practically their life. Then on November 17, 2000, my father passed away. My mother had remained active in the clubs in which she was an officer, director, or member so she had a huge support system and many friends, but she missed my father's company tremendously. So all it took was an invitation to a local ballroom dance studio to suck this lonely, vulnerable, ballroom dance lover into their craw.
I kept a journal, which I am going to post on this site. The journal was used by the prosecutors to help paint a picture of the control and manipulation of the victims involved, and in the prosecution and sentencing of the owners of that ballroom dance studio. David "Vic" Andrews pled guilty and did not have a trial. In return for his testimony against Pasquarelli they capped his sentence at ten years. He had previously served a five-year sentence for the very same crime, had violated his terms of probation, and became a fugitive when he learned that there was a warrant out for his arrest in this matter. The judge in the previous case admitted he erred in not only ordering that Andrews never own another dance studio, he should have ordered that he never again become involved in the dance business. His co-hort in crime was tried and found guilty by a jury of his peers. On July 7, 2006 I attended his sentencing hearing and was able to make my statement to the judge, along with other victims. Michael Pasquarelli was sentenced to thirty years in prison for racketeering and other crimes against the elderly.
I'm in the process of writing a book about my mother's experience and ultimate downfall. This website and my book are intended for those whose parents and elderly loved ones live a distance away from them, so they might learn the signs that their loved ones are being conned, scammed, taken advantage of, or even abused. However, this site is also intended for the seniors and the elderly, themselves, so they may become aware of the kinds of people out there who might take advantage of them, as well as the scams they might fall prey to. I will also be posting information and resources you may find helpful in the protection of your loved ones, no matter where they live.
I would also love to hear your stories and experiences of elderly exploitation. I will post them on this site (honoring everyone's anonymity, of course) and print them in my book if it is OK with those of you who submit your stories. Please email them to me, putting "story" in the subject line, and if you would include your telephone number only for my use in confirmation or if I have any questions, I would appreciate that, also.
Thank you for visiting.
Cheryl Smeed
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