Woman arrested after scamming disabled man

Woman arrested after scamming disabled man

Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon announced recently that a Patchogue woman has been arrested for preying on a disabled man, defrauding him out of close to $50,000 between September 2001 and August 2003.

Francis L. Gaffney, age 48, is charged with grand larceny in the third degree, a Class D felony punishable by up to seven years in prison. The district attorney’s office gave this account:

"Following up on information developed during a guardianship proceeding for the victim, Dillon’s office determined that in September 2001, while working at a fast food store in Massapequa Park where the victim was a customer, the defendant began her scam. She falsely convinced the victim that he was facing criminal charges as the result of a verbal dispute with workers at another fast food chain. She told him she had contacted a lawyer who, for $850, could get the charges dropped. The victim gave her the money.

"Thus began a two-year scheme in which Gaffney kept demanding more money from the victim, under various false stories: that he owed more money in fines for the original (non-existent) offense; that she had paid some of that money out of her own interest-bearing accounts, so that he now owed her the money plus the interest; that new charges had arisen against him; that a new judge assigned to this case wanted to put him in jail," said Dillon.

Dillon expressed his thanks to Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Elaine Jackson Stack and court-appointed guardian Terry Scheiner for bringing this case to the District Attorney’s attention.

Gaffney was arraigned in First District Court, Hempstead, where she was held in lieu of $100,000 bond or $25,000 cash bail. The charges are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.