It's a nightmare scenario for many people with an aged, widowed parent.
What happened to an 87-year-old Waterford man, according to his daughters, shows a dark side of hiring a live-in care-giver. The two offspring, who live in Minnesota and North Carolina, share haunting details with Paul Egan of the Free Press:
Frank Calcaterra was in his 80s in 2008 when his family hired a home care company to help the former metro Detroit funeral home owner look after his ailing wife Jonnie, who had dementia.
The company — Kentucky-based ResCare — sent Tangie Coleman, who, at the time, had a warrant out for her arrest, records show.
Jonnie’s jewelry soon began to disappear, as did Frank Calcaterra’s sizable fortune. Estimates from court filings put the loss at anywhere from more than $500,000 to more than $1.5 million. When Jonnie Calcaterra died in a nursing home in January 2012, Coleman and her mother were living in Frank Calcaterra’s lakefront home in Waterford and he was sleeping in the basement.
A few months later, Coleman married Calcaterra in Ohio without his family’s knowledge.
At the time of that hush-hush wedding, Coleman was 35 -- more than 50 years younger than the retiree she was hired to serve.
In May of this year, an Oakland County judge appointed a conservator for Calcaterra, citing fraud and financial exploitation, which Coleman denies. . . .
Calcaterra’s court-appointed conservator, is seeking to annul the marriage, alleging it was a fraud Coleman perpetrated “solely for her financial gain.”
Coleman wouldn't speak with Egan.
