Sandra K. Reabuck
sreabuck@tribdem.com
EBENSBURG —
A Cambria County jury took only an hour Wednesday to find a part-time handyman/caregiver guilty on all counts for misappropriating $668,518 from 2000 to early 2008 from an elderly woman who thought of him like a son.
The victim, now 94, had testified that she had trusted Frank A. Solensky, 55, of Windber, and made out the checks to him without realizing that she was being ripped off.
Prosecutors had maintained that Solensky had greatly inflated the costs of supplies and material that he said had been used for repairs and improvements to the woman’s home and property.
But Assistant District Attorney Michael Carbonara, in a closing argument to the jury, said that house – built in 1950 – should “be the Taj Mahal” by now with the supposed improvements rather than the $145,000 present day value set by a real estate appraiser.
Solensky, who maintained his innocence when he testified earlier in the day, appeared to be stunned by the verdict. He brushed aside questions from news reporters as he left the courtroom with family members.
He maintained that he had not stolen or obtained the money illegally in the 268 checks the woman had written out to him in those years
His $50,000 bond was increased to $100,000 by Judge David Tulowitzki.
But the defendant was allowed to return home and ordered to pay the increased bond by 9:30 this morning or face going to jail while awaiting sentencing.
Carbonara asked for bond to be revoked because the defendant faces a prison sentence, but defense attorney Thomas Dickey said that Solensky is not a flight risk and has always appeared for court hearings in the past.
The prosecutor said that Solensky faces an eight- to 16-year term and possibly longer if the judge imposes consecutive sentences.
The defendant was convicted on 18 counts of theft by deception, with two counts for each of the years involved. The jury found that on all counts the amount of theft involved more than $2,000.
The victim – who has been in the courtroom each day in a wheelchair – said after hearing the verdict, “I feel relieved. After two years and four months (since the fraud scheme was discovered), I got justice.”
Asked how she now feels about Solensky, she said, “It’s a terrible disappointment. To have that much reliance (on him) and the help he gave me, he did all this to me intentionally.”
The woman, a widow, lived alone, while her only child – a daughter who lives in California – made trips east to visit her mother.
The $668,518 does not include other checks written out by the woman to Solensky for wages totaling $96,000 during that same period nor for additional money she had given him as gifts. It also does not include $15,000 she had loaned to him and which he had repaid in services, prosecutors said.
Carbonara said he felt the main factor in the jury’s conviction “was the large amount (Solensky had) taken over the years. It’s hard to dismiss that.”
Assistant District Attorney Wayne Langerholc, who also prosecuted the case, said, “It’s good to bring some closure to the victim and her family.”
Dickey, while expressing disappointment with the verdict, said that he believes there are several potential appeal issues that will be raised when the defense seeks to have the conviction overturned.
He said the defense was hampered because “we didn’t have the records and documents to show where the money went.”
Solensky testified that the check notations written by the victim on the memo line – usually only one word or a brief phrase – included a lot of work to be done. Several work slips – which he handwrote on a small slip of paper about the size of a business card – included some detail, he pointed out.
He said that he had done whatever work the woman wanted done.
“I was not stealing from her,” he said as he detailed some of the work he had done, including using shovels to dig up – with the help of a worker – along the outside foundation of the house to put in pipe to waterproof the basement in February 2002. A construction expert had testified earlier he had found no evidence of any waterproofing work that had been done either inside or outside the house.
Solensky said that he thought of the woman – for whom he had done work since 1992 – “as a mother, a nanny, a close relation. It (the accusations) distraught me. I can’t believe this is happening. Even today, I think of her as a wonderful woman.”
In closing to the jury, Dickey contended that the case had been built on flimsy evidence with the prosecution not calling any witnesses to rebut Solensky’s testimony. The police and prosecution, he maintained, failed to do thorough investigation, including never getting Solensky’s bank records or producing the missing work slips.
Dickey portrayed his client as a caring person who was “at her beck and call” and willing to help the woman night and day.
Carbonara urged the jury not to be distracted by “red herrings” raised by the defense. Rather, he said, the evidence shows that Solensky preyed upon an elderly victim “who was an easy target.” The amounts taken by Solensky “got larger and larger” over the years, he said.
