Editor’s note: This story was updated Jan. 25 after Caldwell pleaded guilty.
A former Chicago banking executive pleaded guilty Tuesday to swindling her elderly clients out of nearly $1.5 million by using her influence to persuade them to invest in her private movie deals.
Helen Grace Caldwell, 58, who until 2021 was a vice president in the Michigan Avenue offices of Citibank, agreed to pay back everything stolen from her clients and was released on a $10,000 bond after pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud, according to federal court records filed in Chicago.
Wire fraud carries a maximum prison sentence of up to 20 years, her plea says.
Caldwell’s case was featured prominently in an Injustice Watch series, Exploited Elders, which in August detailed gaping holes in Illinois’ safety net intended to thwart a skyrocketing number of fraud cases targeting the old and frail.
According to the plea, signed by acting U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual, Caldwell persuaded her elderly Citi clients to invest in movies being produced and promoted by her private film company, Canal Productions LLC. She told her clients they would share in the profits. Caldwell “knew that those representations were false,” the plea said.
Read More
Citi wealth adviser accused of steering older clients into money-losing film projects
The horror film producer is accused in court docs of soliciting investments from elder clients, part of what experts say is a growing national trend of financial professionals preying on older Americans and their bank accounts.
Caldwell transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars of her victims’ film investments from the Canal bank accounts into her personal bank accounts. She then used that money for “construction work and painting” on her home, refurbishing her classic car, liquor, and entertainment purchases, purchases of home goods, décor, clothes and apparel, and even her parking tickets, the plea agreement said.
Neither the victims nor Citi were named in the plea, which referred only to victims A, B, and C and bank A.
In separate federal actions late last year, Caldwell was barred from working in the securities industry by the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and prohibited from working in banks by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Caldwell and Citi were also sued by Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, who alleged the Fortune 500 company failed to adequately police Caldwell’s conflicts of interest.
Golbert’s office wants the banking giant to repay the savings lost by Priscilla Eddings, one of Caldwell’s older clients who is now living in a nursing home with dementia.
“I am pleased there will be justice in the criminal forum and I am looking forward to justice in the civil forum and Citi returning the money its vice president stole,” Golbert said. “The restitution is fantastic but it will be difficult to collect from Caldwell.
“Citi remains liable, and we are still aggressively pursuing Citi.”
Citibank and Citi Global – the banking and investment arms of Citi where Caldwell worked as a ‘dual hat’ employee – did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
In court filings, Citi lawyers have argued the bank is not financially liable for Caldwell’s actions.
According to internal government documents, Citi first reported Caldwell to the Adult Protective Services division of the Illinois Department on Aging in March 2022 – four months after Caldwell left her job there.
Illinois officials did not take action because the client “was not being exploited by a family member, roommate, or caregiver,” Citi wrote in Cook County probate court documents.
Since publication of the Injustice Watch investigation, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a new law to exempt the Department on Aging from investigating cases of frauds and criminal activity by strangers. The law shifts the burden of investigating such frauds to the Illinois Attorney General.
Several experts said Illinois’ new law, which took effect Jan. 1, represents a step backward in fighting the growing problem of elder financial exploitation.
The new law was written “to help certain people in the bureaucracy to do less work, to the detriment of the public. I don’t see it furthers the interests of any single person that might be victimized by this crime,” said McHenry County state’s attorney Patrick Kenneally.
Fraud against older Americans in investment schemes accounted for nearly a third of all $3.1 billion in elder financial exploitation nationwide last year, up from less than 10% just three years ago, according to an Injustice Watch analysis of FBI data.
Reported losses from investment scams against older Americans have increased tenfold in the past three years to nearly $1 billion in 2022.
Read the charging documents:
Republish this article for free under a Creative Commons license.
