On January 6, 2020, someone cashed a check for sixty cents.
It was the last sixty cents in Arnold Rosenblatt’s trust account. He was 96 years old. The account had held more than two million dollars — money his older brother Herbert spent a lifetime building and left to him. When Herbert died, Arnold was alone and grieving, and the next person who was kind to him became the person he trusted with everything.
She emptied it. And then she went back for the change.
Maybe you’re reading this because your parent’s bank account has been drained, because the person who moved in to “help” is suddenly in the new will, or because the money that was supposed to cover care has gone somewhere and the explanations keep changing. California law gives victims and their families real tools to fight back — but the window narrows fast as records disappear and assets move.
Contact The Daily Jones and Company for a free consultation before more is lost.
What California Law Defines as Financial Elder Abuse
Under California Welfare and Institutions Code § 15610.30, financial elder abuse occurs when any person takes, secretes, appropriates, obtains, or retains the real or personal property of an elder for a wrongful use, with intent to defraud, or by undue influence. It reaches outright theft, fraudulent transfers, misuse of a power of attorney, and manipulating a vulnerable person into rewriting an estate plan.
Note the word “retains.” In Mr. Rosenblatt’s case, a trust-owned building was leased to the perpetrator’s nonprofit for $4,200 a month. Over 106 months, not one dollar of rent was ever paid — $445,200. Nobody stole that money in a single dramatic act. It was simply never collected. Sometimes the taking is what didn’t happen.
Who Commits Financial Elder Abuse
The U.S. Department of Justice Elder Justice Initiative documents that most elder financial abuse is committed by people the victim knows: adult children, siblings, caregivers, trustees, agents under a power of attorney, and financial professionals. It is almost always someone who was welcome in the house.
Families hesitate to sue a relative or caregiver who “was there when nobody else was.” California law draws no such exception. An adult child who empties a parent’s accounts, a sibling who redirects assets through a power of attorney, and a caregiver who steers a vulnerable elder into a new estate plan all face the same liability under the same statutes.
Warning Signs Families Overlook
According to DOJ elder abuse research, financial exploitation affects more than 10 percent of adults over 65 annually, yet most cases are never formally reported. Red flags worth investigating:
- Sudden or unexplained changes to bank accounts, beneficiary designations, or estate documents
- Unusual withdrawals, wire transfers, or credit card activity
- A new person in the elder’s life with growing control over finances
- Bills going unpaid despite adequate assets
- Missing valuables, financial documents, or account statements
- A recently executed power of attorney, trust amendment, or will departing from prior plans
- Isolation from longtime friends, family, or advisors
- The elder cannot see their own accounts — no access, no statements, no visibility
That last one ran underneath the entire Rosenblatt case. The trust’s brokerage accounts were opened in the fiduciary’s name. Arnold Rosenblatt was not a signatory. He received no statements. For roughly seven years, the man whose money it was could not look at it. That condition is what every other warning sign grows inside of.
Civil Remedies: What California Law Actually Provides
California’s civil elder abuse statutes go significantly beyond ordinary fraud or theft claims. A successful plaintiff may recover stolen assets, double damages under Probate Code § 859, treble damages under Penal Code § 496(c), mandatory attorney’s fees, punitive damages where conduct was malicious or oppressive, injunctive relief, and constructive trusts to claw back specific property.
The multipliers are the point. They stack on the same underlying loss and make it economically viable to pursue a theft that would otherwise cost more to litigate than to absorb.
The Claim Most Families Never Hear About: Penal Code § 496(c)
California lets a victim sue for three times what was taken, in civil court, with no criminal charge required. Three elements must be proven (Bell v. Feibush (2013) 212 Cal.App.4th 1041, 1049): the property was stolen or obtained by theft; the defendant received, concealed, or withheld it; and the defendant knew it was stolen. Element three is the fight — everything else is usually visible in the bank records.
Penal Code § 484(a) defines theft to include the consensual but fraudulent acquisition of property. That matters because the elder usually signed something. Consent obtained by fraud is still theft. The statute also reaches whoever ends up holding the property — in Rosenblatt, the nonprofit that received $471,823.21 in donations and occupied trust-owned property rent-free was held liable under § 496(c) in its own right.
What That Looked Like in a Real Judgment
In Amendment & Complete Restatement of the Arnold Rosenblatt Revocable Living Trust, Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. 20STPB03748, James D. Daily and Michael R. Jones tried a Probate Code § 850 cross-petition to judgment. Mr. Rosenblatt prevailed on every cause of action. Judgment entered December 30, 2024:
| Kaplan | Voice for the Animals | |
| Compensatory damages | $1,792,756.06 | $917,023.21 |
| § 859 double damages | $3,585,512.12 | $1,834,046.42 |
| § 496(c) treble damages | $5,378,268.18 | $2,751,069.63 |
| Attorney’s fees | $4,375,592.04 | $2,200,855.70 |
| Subtotal | $15,132,128.40 | $7,702,994.95 |
Plus $76,636 in costs — $22,911,759.35 total, roughly 8.5 times what was actually taken. The court ordered title to the house bought with trust funds transferred back to the trust free and clear and expunged the lis pendens recorded against Mr. Rosenblatt’s home of more than thirty years. It declined prejudgment interest and found the defendant guilty of “oppression, fraud, and malice” but awarded no punitive damages because the record lacked sufficient proof of her net worth.
You do not win everything. You win what you can prove.
Financial Elder Abuse vs. Voluntary Gifting
This is the fight in almost every one of these cases. The money moved — nobody disputes that. The question is whether the elder freely gave it. California draws the line at the elder’s mental state, the circumstances of the transaction, and whether undue influence was present.
In Rosenblatt, $746,147.78 in trust funds went to the down payment on a house the fiduciary titled in her own name, lived in, and paid nothing for. Her accounting called the money a gift. The court’s answer was one sentence: there was “no independent testimony nor any documents to verify this claim of a substantial gift.” A gift of three-quarters of a million dollars leaves a trail. When the only evidence is the word of the person who received it, courts look very hard at everything else.
What to Do Immediately
The single most useful document at the Rosenblatt trial was the perpetrator’s own accounting — and it only existed because a judge ordered it. Once it existed, it fell apart across three different numbers. People also say the quiet part into voicemail. In Rosenblatt, a transcribed voicemail went into evidence: “I have power of attorney. You’re not gonna be able to change that… I have a signed paper that’s also notarized that says you can do nothing without my permission. Period.” Keep the voicemail.
Practical first steps: preserve bank statements, wire records, and cancelled checks; contact financial institutions to flag suspicious activity; save all texts, emails, and voicemails involving the suspected perpetrator; preserve any power of attorney, trust, will, or beneficiary designations; report to California Adult Protective Services; and consult an attorney before confronting anyone or signing anything.
California courts also issue elder abuse restraining orders that can stop further financial dealing while litigation proceeds.
The Attorneys Who Handle These Cases
James D. Daily, Esq.
James Daily has spent more than 30 years representing victims of financial elder abuse and fiduciary exploitation. He tried the Rosenblatt matter to judgment and argued the Penal Code § 496(c) civil theft claim that produced the treble damages award.
Michael Jones, Esq.
Michael Jones focuses on fraud, theft, and breach of fiduciary duty, with a decade of experience in state and federal courts. He was co-counsel of record in the Rosenblatt trial. His background includes working alongside local law enforcement, district attorney offices, the FBI, and U.S. Marshals on financial misconduct matters.
Alexandra Jarvis, Esq.
Alexandra Jarvis brings fiduciary litigation experience and sophisticated real estate expertise to the firm’s elder abuse practice. Before joining Daily Jones and Company, she practiced business litigation at Call and Jensen and represented luxury real estate clients across Orange County. Her focus includes undue influence, financial elder abuse, and complex real estate matters. She earned her J.D., with distinction, from UC Irvine School of Law and has been admitted to practice in California since 2019.
Contact The Daily Jones and Company
Arnold Rosenblatt got his house back, his title cleared, and a judgment for more than $22.9 million. He did not get any of it because the other side came around. It started because somebody finally asked for the records — and a judge was asked to look.
These cases move fast in the wrong direction. If you believe a parent or vulnerable family member has been financially exploited, contact The Daily Jones and Company for a free consultation before more is lost.
Frequently Asked Questions
What qualifies as financial elder abuse in California?
Under California Welfare and Institutions Code § 15610.30, financial elder abuse includes taking, secreting, appropriating, obtaining, or retaining an elder’s property through fraud, undue influence, or wrongful intent. It also covers failing to collect what the elder is owed — in Rosenblatt, nearly nine years of uncollected rent counted as property “retained” for wrongful use. The victim must be 65 or older.
How much can be recovered in a California financial elder abuse case?
Substantially more than what was taken. Compensatory damages restore the loss. Probate Code § 859 doubles it. Penal Code § 496(c) trebles it. Attorney’s fees are mandatory on both. In Rosenblatt, $2,709,779.27 in compensatory damages produced a total judgment of $22,911,759.35. A judgment is not a collection — what you recover depends on what can be traced and reached.
What is a Penal Code § 496(c) claim?
It gives a victim a private civil action for three times actual damages plus attorney’s fees, with no criminal prosecution required. The key element is knowledge: the defendant knew the property was stolen when they received, withheld, or concealed it. In Rosenblatt, the court reserved that claim for months after ruling on all others, only finding in the victim’s favor after supplemental briefing established the defendants showed “a clear comprehension of the illicit nature” of their conduct. That claim alone added more than $8.1 million to the judgment.
What if the elder has dementia?
Cognitive impairment does not prevent a claim — it is frequently central to one. In Rosenblatt, a court-appointed geriatric psychiatrist concluded Mr. Rosenblatt had full testamentary capacity when he removed the fiduciary — and the court still found financial elder abuse, writing that “cognitive capacity does not always imply a high level of judgment.” An elder can be legally capable and still be exploited.
Can a caregiver be sued for financial exploitation?
Yes. Caregivers face civil liability under California’s elder abuse statutes and potential criminal exposure. California Probate Code § 21380 also creates a presumption of undue influence when a care custodian is named as a donee in a document they helped procure.
How long do I have to file a financial elder abuse claim in California?
Financial elder abuse claims are generally subject to a four-year statute of limitations, though the clock can run differently depending on when the abuse was discovered. Move promptly regardless — financial records, account histories, and witness memories degrade every month you wait.
