[StBernard] Caregiver steals thousands from elderly Kenner man, police claim

[Westley Annis]

Caregiver steals thousands from elderly Kenner man, police claim
by Mary Sparacello, The Times-Picayune 
Wednesday April 01, 2009, 3:53 PM
A caregiver for a 71-year-old Kenner man has been arrested for siphoning
almost $100,000 from his checking account and credit cards during four
months last year, Kenner police said today. 



Shantel CastonShantel M. Caston, 35, from Chalmette, allegedly opened two
credit cards in the victim's name and defrauded him of more than $80,000 he
received from the Louisiana Road Home, said Lt. Wayne McInnis, Kenner Police
Department spokesman. She was booked with theft greater than $500. 
Caston obtained power of attorney over the man who had memory and language
problems and then took out the credit cards in his name. On one she charged
$6,000 and on the other almost $8,500. She charged at gas stations, grocery
stores, restaurants, clothing stores, a Destin, Fla. scuba shop and $5,000
at A1 Appliance in Chalmette, McInnis said. 

She also wrote numerous checks either to cash or made out to herself on his
checking account, in which he had put the Road Home money, McInnis said. 

The largest check was for $30,000. 

"She was living the high life on somebody else's money," McInnis said. 

The theft continued from about May to August of last year when the man's
out-of-town niece visited him and looked through his bills.

With a warrant for her arrest, Caston turned herself in Monday to Kenner
police, McInnis said. 

A daughter of a friend of the victim, it's unknown how long Caston was
acting as the man's caregiver. She was released from the Jefferson Parish
Correctional Center in Gretna Tuesday on a $5,000 commercial bond.