Man charged with bilking 96-year-old of $600,000

A White Center businessman who presided over the liquidation of an elderly woman's $1.5 million estate was charged with felony theft Thursday, three years after her friends discovered she was penniless and days away from foreclosure.

Tyrone Dash, 59, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of stealing from Frances Joy Taylor, a 96-year-old widow with Alzheimer's who went bankrupt after turning her financial affairs over to Dash, according to charging documents filed by the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

Dash said Thursday he was unaware of the charges, and added, "I have nothing to say."

Dash allegedly took more than $600,000 of Taylor's money for his own benefit, tapping into her bank accounts, mortgaging her assets, selling off investments and properties, and using her credit cards "until she had nothing left to take," the charging papers state.

Prosecutors charged Dash with one count of felony theft, treating his handling of Taylor's finances as one continuous act of theft spanning five years.

The Seattle Times chronicled Taylor's financial collapse in articles last year, and raised questions about Dash's role, as well as that of financial institutions that profited from Taylor's financial and physical decline.

In interviews with The Times, Dash said he earned the money he is accused of stealing. He said Taylor gave him permission to withdraw cash and rack up credit-card debt as compensation for his services. The hefty amounts reflected the all-encompassing role he played in the Seattle woman's life as he went from business consultant to personal representative overseeing such things as doctor appointments and financial negotiations, he said.

The charging papers acknowledge that Dash did aid Taylor, but allege that his plans to help her quickly morphed into plans to help himself.

"While Dash may have played a useful and cost-beneficial role in Frances' life during the first year he worked with her, he soon was creating such a drain on her assets that her ultimate financial ruin became inevitable," according to the charging papers.

Calling his spending "relentless," the document alleges that "clearly it was not just Frances' cash needs but also his own that drove Dash to liquidate her assets."

The case is unusual both in its complexity and in the financial devastation that befell Taylor, an otherwise-frugal woman who enjoyed traveling and donating to her church. She was remarkably independent, but as her dementia progressed, she turned her personal and financial affairs over to Dash, withdrew from longtime friends, and became increasingly secretive and unkempt, according to the 192-page document filed Thursday.

Dash knew Taylor had a history of dementia, and he took advantage of her confusion and memory lapses to enrich himself, according to the charging papers.

"Given Frances' markedly declining mental faculties, Dash knew she was not capable of either understanding the nature and scope of Dash's takings or consenting to such taking," the document states.

The charges are the result of a three-year investigation led by Ivan Orton, senior deputy prosecutor with the complex prosecutions and investigations division. It began in March 2005 when Taylor's friends discovered that two apartment buildings Taylor owned had been sold, and her house was in foreclosure. Those friends helped Taylor file bankruptcy to stave off the foreclosure, and began piecing together the circumstances of her financial downfall.

During his five-year association with Taylor, Dash allegedly obtained more than $150,000 in cash from ATMs and credit-card advances, and charged more than $200,000 on the cards, according to the charging papers. To obtain the funds, prosecutors allege, Dash mortgaged and then sold two apartment buildings Taylor owned, cashed in a life-insurance policy, liquidated a valuable stamp collection, and mortgaged her house with loans she never stood a chance of repaying.

The charging papers estimate that Taylor's net worth was about $1.5 million at the time she met Dash.

Taylor, whose home was sold in bankruptcy proceedings last year, now lives in an adult family home in Lake Forest Park. She has no memory of Dash or the spending he says she authorized.

Susan Kelleher: 206-464-2508; skelleher@seattletimes.com.