1:59

was explaining it to me, she said, kind of like Britney

2:02

Spears. I think a lot of people

2:04

are familiar with Britney Spears'

2:06

situation with the conservatorship, but

2:08

the people that this nonprofit served were

2:10

actually wards of the

2:12

state. So the nonprofit provided

2:15

guardians, kind of like case managers,

2:17

to come in and help them with their finances,

2:20

pay their bills, get them groceries, things

2:23

like that. And it was run by

2:25

this woman, Susan Harris, who

2:28

ended up becoming Lindsay's boss.

2:30

Lindsay started at a super,

2:32

you know, entry level, but quickly got

2:35

promoted. So here we go.

2:38

And so I took over for the previous

2:40

guardian because she had to leave. So

2:42

I took on this caseload of clients, and like

2:44

I said, a lot of them had different needs. Some

2:46

of them had dementia, some of them were

2:49

in nursing homes, some of them

2:51

just had family that couldn't or didn't want

2:53

to be responsible for them. So

2:55

I had a bunch of people all over the

2:57

board, really.

2:58

And so with being a guardian,

3:01

a lot of the responsibility falls on managing

3:03

their money.

3:05

But I just noticed some things

3:07

were off, and I couldn't really put my finger on

3:09

what those things kind of added

3:11

up to at the time. But I'd

3:14

go and I'd look for a client needed something

3:17

like some groceries, and I'd go to

3:19

their account, and the money

3:21

wouldn't be there. And I'm thinking, okay,

3:24

well, that's really strange. It's

3:26

the state, it's the government, the money comes in

3:28

on time every month, it should be there.

3:31

And so I would ask Susan about it. Hey,

3:33

this person is short, or this person's

3:35

check doesn't look like it's been deposited. I'm

3:38

kind of wondering why, because I'm the only one that should have access

3:40

to this money to take care of these things. And

3:42

there would always be a reason. Oh, sometimes

3:44

the state runs behind, sometimes they get

3:46

these things confused. Oh, maybe it got

3:49

lost in the mail, that was a big one. And

3:51

so then it's like a couple of days later, oh,

3:53

magically the money would be there. But

3:56

it was always like that, there was always these clients

3:58

where,

3:59

look for something and it just magically wouldn't

4:02

be there and then when you called it out,

4:05

then all of the sudden, oh hey, the money you showed

4:07

up, there it is, you know. And

4:09

then there was these little things

4:11

that kept coming up that just sort of kept nagging

4:13

at me and made me realize like

4:15

maybe, you know, maybe there's more going on

4:18

than I'm totally aware

4:20

of or maybe there's more under the surface that I'm

4:22

not seeing. She would

4:24

go and have meetings a lot of

4:26

the time in the afternoons and then the

4:28

receptionist, we were really good friends. So

4:30

she would come in and say, well,

4:33

Susan's in a meeting and you know what that means and

4:35

I'm like, I don't know what that means, you know, please tell me.

4:38

And she'd say, oh, well, she's going to get Botox. And

4:41

it's funny because at the time, again, this is, you know,

4:43

early 2000s, Botox was still something that

4:45

was sort of expensive for people. So it wasn't

4:47

something people just did all the time. You

4:50

know, it wasn't like a common procedure. It was like, if you

4:52

have the money, then you do that.

4:55

It wasn't just Botox. There were also times

4:57

when Susan wouldn't come back to work and

4:59

Lindsay would hear that she had spent the afternoon

5:02

at the casino and then there were the luxury

5:04

vacations and the nice cars.

5:07

And then Susan started hiring her family

5:10

members and Lindsay noticed that they

5:12

were all driving nice new

5:14

cars and living in really nice houses.

5:17

And

5:18

Lindsay just said all of this was a little surprising

5:20

because they

5:21

all worked at a nonprofit and it wasn't

5:23

like they were making loads of money.

5:27

It's not the kind of career

5:29

where you're going to make a lot of money or you're going to

5:31

have all this extra income to put towards

5:34

living like a really lavish lifestyle, which

5:37

is what she was doing. You

5:39

know, there was box tickets,

5:42

I think to the final four even is something

5:44

that she had paid for at one point.

5:46

Finally, you know, because I kind of started to keep track on

5:48

my own. She

5:51

had asked me one day, hey, I need you to

5:53

sign these case notes. And

5:57

I went back and I was looking at them.

6:00

And I was like, these

6:02

aren't my notes. I didn't write

6:04

this. And she was like, well,

6:06

I know, I know. But just in case we get audited,

6:09

just sign them. And I was like, no, I'm

6:11

not going to do that. But it was really odd because

6:14

even the dates on the case notes that she wanted

6:16

me to sign were dates that I hadn't

6:18

even worked there yet. They weren't even my

6:20

clients yet. And so she got

6:23

a little flustered with me. And then she said, fine, fine. I'll

6:25

just take care of it. And I remember thinking that

6:27

was really odd, that she would ask me

6:29

to do that, but then she would get upset that

6:32

I wouldn't. Because I feel like, ethically,

6:34

why would you ask that

6:36

of somebody? Lindsey

6:37

told me, Susan had a way

6:39

of making you feel like she was smarter

6:42

than you, while simultaneously

6:44

trusting you with great responsibility,

6:47

bringing you in on something. She made you feel

6:49

small, but at the same time, you

6:51

were special. And Susan always

6:54

had an excuse or an explanation when

6:56

things went wrong. But after being

6:58

there about a year, Lindsey says she

7:01

was reaching her breaking point. She started to just feel

7:03

sick to her stomach with some of the things

7:06

that had happened. And then there were two

7:08

instances that were basically

7:11

the final straw for her, and she decided

7:13

to walk away. The first one was

7:15

when one of her clients, an elderly

7:17

woman in a nursing home, passed away.

7:20

I still remember this. It was kind of traumatic.

7:23

She had

7:23

passed away, and the nursing

7:25

home called me, and they said, we need

7:28

you to send us some money, because we

7:31

can't get her account

7:33

cleared out. And I was like, well,

7:35

there should be money in her account. The

7:37

last time I checked, there was

7:39

enough.

7:39

And they said, well, there's not. There's nothing in here.

7:43

And it was very odd, because I had been over to

7:45

see her maybe a week prior, and

7:47

her account was fine. And then

7:50

this Saturday, not even a week later,

7:52

everything was cleaned out, which I thought was

7:54

really strange, because she's an elderly woman in a

7:56

nursing home. She's not spending money. There's

7:59

no reason for it. to be gone. And so I

8:01

had called Susan about that and I said, Hey, you know,

8:04

this person passed away the nursing home is

8:06

calling me and they're telling me we need to finish

8:08

paying out her bill and they're really

8:11

upset. And she kind

8:13

of just shoved me off like, Oh, well, we'll just

8:15

deal with it on Monday. And I'm like, No, I don't think

8:17

you understand like they're calling me and

8:19

because I'm her guardian, they're wanting they

8:22

want their money. And she just kept

8:24

giving me you know, excuses, we'll deal with it on Monday,

8:26

it must be a huge, oh, you know, maybe

8:28

they had an error in their accounting and in

8:30

every excuse, right.

8:32

And I just remember thinking, No, that's, that's

8:35

not right. And I know that's not right. And so do you. And

8:38

then this happened again with another client who

8:40

had passed away. And the really

8:42

sad thing is this woman was an incredible

8:44

woman. She was a Holocaust survivor. And

8:47

she was in a nursing home and she was elderly

8:49

and she passed away. And again,

8:51

I had to deal with some things I was trying

8:53

to put together a memorial service for her. And

8:57

the nursing home said, Well, there's no money. And

9:01

I was like, What do you mean there's no

9:03

money? Like, there should be money

9:05

in the account. I'm the only person managing

9:08

that account and I haven't taken it out. So like,

9:10

what do you mean?

9:13

Lindsay told me they were finally able to get

9:15

money for this woman's memorial service, but

9:17

it was the last straw for her. She put in her notice

9:20

and walked away. Then a few years later,

9:22

she was watching the news and she saw

9:25

her old boss, Susan Harris.

9:27

I was watching the news and I saw

9:29

her face pop up and I was like, Oh my God,

9:32

that's Susan like that's my old boss. And

9:34

my husband was like, Oh, wow, what

9:36

she's doing on the news? And I was like, Hold on, like, let me just listen.

9:38

I can't. And so I was listening

9:41

and they were saying, you know, that she had been arrested for

9:43

money laundering and fraud and stealing

9:45

like $11 million from

9:48

victims.

9:49

And it was her and her husband who also worked

9:52

at the guardianship firm and then her partner

9:54

as well and her son who actually I did work

9:56

with. He was a guardian as well when I

9:58

was. was arrested for

10:01

some fraudulent activity too. So

10:04

it was really interesting because I saw it on the news. Wow.

10:08

It's a good thing you didn't sign those forms that

10:11

you wanted to sign. I think

10:13

about that all the time, actually. I

10:15

mean, I would never do that, but I

10:17

just think about, like, what if my name was on that?

10:19

Or, you know, like, no thanks.

10:21

In 2017, all of this came

10:23

crashing down for Susan Harris, who was running

10:26

this fraud. It turns out that

10:28

she and her husband, William Harris, were

10:30

doing this along with another woman, Sharon Moore.

10:33

They were embezzling

10:34

money through Ayudondo Guardians,

10:36

and they had taken more than $11

10:39

million of their client's money over

10:41

a 10-year period.

10:43

An indictment was filed in December

10:45

of 2017. It charged Susan and William

10:47

and Sharon, along with

10:50

Susan's

10:51

son, Craig Young, with

10:53

various financial crimes, including

10:56

conspiracy to defraud the United

10:58

States, mail fraud,

10:59

aggravated identity theft, and money

11:02

laundering. Susan pleaded

11:04

guilty in 2019, but then in 2020, she and her husband

11:06

did not show up to

11:10

their sentencing hearing. And it turns

11:12

out they were on the run. They left

11:14

New Mexico, and they were hiding out in

11:17

my home state of Oklahoma. They

11:19

were in Shawnee, Oklahoma, but

11:22

they were found and arrested in April

11:24

of 2020. It basically came

11:26

out that Susan was

11:29

the brains behind this whole operation. She was

11:31

CEO, and she came up with this whole plan.

11:34

She was 95 percent owner of Ayudondo,

11:36

and then Sharon Moore was

11:39

the chief financial officer and a 5

11:42

percent owner. And, you know, evidence

11:44

showed that they engaged in a pattern of criminal

11:47

conduct. They, you

11:49

know, they commingled client money

11:51

with their money. They were just taking

11:54

money out of clients' accounts, willy-nilly.

11:57

They were writing bad checks. They were fabricating.

12:00

forms, and they

12:03

were living extravagant lifestyles. A

12:05

lot of this money was going toward the purchase

12:07

of homes, vehicles, luxury

12:10

RVs, and cruises, as well as

12:12

they had a private box at

12:14

the pit at the University of

12:16

New Mexico, and they were racking

12:19

up bills there. The

12:21

stolen funds were also used to pay for

12:23

more than $4.4 million in American Express charges

12:26

incurred by the defendants and their families. This

12:28

is from Justice.gov. And

12:30

then finally, in July of 2021, Susan, who was 74 at the

12:32

time, was sentenced to 47 years

12:38

in prison, followed by three years of supervised

12:40

release. And her husband, William

12:43

Harris, who was also

12:45

charged, not as steeply because he wasn't

12:49

as involved with the scheme,

12:51

although he knew about it and he did help, he

12:54

was sentenced to 15 years in prison, followed

12:56

by three years of supervised release. They're

12:59

supposed to pay the entire amount of stolen funds

13:02

as restitution to the victims, but

13:04

that has not happened. After

13:07

we spoke, Lindsay sent me a follow-up voice

13:09

note, which I want to play part of, because

13:12

she said the reason that she wanted to tell

13:14

the story and thinks it's important for people to

13:17

hear it is that it's

13:19

not an isolated incident, that people

13:22

who are under guardianship

13:23

or conservatorship get taken advantage

13:25

of, and they're a

13:27

vulnerable population. And

13:30

so we all need to be aware. And if

13:32

you think something's wrong, report it.

13:35

You know, even when these clients do come forward and

13:37

they say something like, you know, I

13:40

think I'm being taken advantage of, or something doesn't

13:42

make sense, society is not

13:44

likely to believe them because, oh,

13:47

they have a mental illness. Oh, they have a guardian. Oh,

13:50

you know, they can't take care of themselves.

13:52

You know, so why would we believe them? So

13:54

we automatically assume that these people are either

13:56

making it up, or they're not sure, or maybe

13:58

they're mistaken. But the reality

14:00

in this situation is that they were being taken advantage

14:03

of and

14:03

people didn't listen. Thank

14:05

you so much, Lindsey, for sending in

14:07

this story. Um, it was

14:10

a really interesting one. If you want to check

14:12

out Lindsey's podcast, it's called What's

14:14

Up ABQ. And it's a podcast

14:16

all about

14:17

ibacurkey.

14:18

I hope you enjoyed this mini episode

14:21

and I hope that you will write to

14:23

me, send me your voice notes. Let

14:25

me know if you want your voice to be on the podcast

14:28

or not. And if you want your name included at Hannah

14:31

podcasts on Instagram or

14:33

Twitter. Thank you so much and

14:35

keep an

14:35

ear out for two more episodes.