A federal grand jury in the Northern District of Texas indicted four people in two related fraud cases connected to unlicensed boarding homes for elderly and disabled residents, prosecutors announced this month. In one scheme, three defendants allegedly used power of attorney over a 79-year-old woman to sell her longtime home and divert more than $156,000 in proceeds. In the second, a fourth defendant allegedly kept collecting a deceased resident’s Social Security payments for months after the resident died. All four defendants are presumed innocent unless convicted, and the charges described below are allegations contained in the indictments.
Power of attorney and a $156,000 home sale fed the first scheme
The indictment names Donella Locke, Suekya Whitney and Shakoya Crenshaw on one count of conspiracy to make false statements to a financial institution and four counts of making false statements to a financial institution. The defendants allegedly obtained power of attorney over a 79-year-old woman identified in court records only as W.S., who lived at one of their unlicensed boarding homes. According to the indictment, they arranged for W.S.’s longtime home in Garland to be sold to Whitney and Crenshaw, with more than $156,000 in proceeds moved through multiple accounts before $147,000 landed with Locke.
Locke allegedly used that money to buy another home while telling the lender it was a cash gift from her daughter. As Dallas Express reported from the indictment, prosecutors allege the defendants told Capital Fund 1 and CrossCountry Mortgage that the real estate transactions were conducted at arm’s length and that the gift funds were legitimate, when the money actually traced back to the sale of W.S.’s property to two of the same defendants. If convicted, each faces up to five years in federal prison on the conspiracy charge and up to 30 years on each false-statement count. Prosecutors are also seeking forfeiture of property they allege is connected to the offenses. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elise Aldendifer and Chad Meacham of the office’s fraud section are prosecuting both indictments.
“The FBI remains committed to investigating those that engage in fraudulent schemes that target the most vulnerable members of our communities,” FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge R. Joseph Rothrock said of the case, which his office investigated.
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A related indictment accuses a caregiver of taking a resident’s benefits after death
The second, related indictment charges Krystle Locke — also known as Krystle Edwards and Krystal Locke — with four counts of theft of government money and one count of aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors allege she operated John Thomas Residential Care Home and other unregistered boarding homes, and that in December 2022 a resident identified as S.T. granted her durable power of attorney. According to the indictment, Locke then applied for Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income on S.T.’s behalf and redirected the payments into her own bank account.
Social Security Administration records cited in the indictment show more than $44,000 in deposits in October 2024 alone. S.T. died October 19, 2024, and prosecutors allege Locke kept withdrawing money after learning of the death and did not return the funds when instructed to do so, with the total amount taken exceeding $50,000. If convicted, Locke faces up to 10 years in federal prison on each theft count, plus a mandatory consecutive two-year sentence on the aggravated identity theft charge.
Both indictments describe residences that were not licensed as care facilities in the first place. Prosecutors say the boarding homes at the center of both cases operated outside the state licensing system that typically applies oversight and inspection to facilities housing elderly or disabled residents, which is part of why family members and outside regulators had limited visibility into either arrangement until the alleged financial activity surfaced in banking and Social Security records.
Both cases turn on the same vulnerability: control over someone else’s money
U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould, whose office is prosecuting both cases, framed the pattern directly: “Social Security is not a personal piggy bank to exploit at the expense of the American taxpayer.” The Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General, the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General and the Texas Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigated the benefits case, while FBI Dallas investigated the alleged mortgage fraud. The involvement of three separate inspector general and state fraud units across a single set of related boarding homes points to how many different government payment streams — a mortgage lender’s underwriting file, a Social Security direct deposit, a state Medicaid record — can run through one person’s control when that person also holds power of attorney over the residents living there.
Both indictments describe a caregiver or boarding-home operator gaining power of attorney over a resident, then using that authority to move money in a direction the resident could not see or stop. The indictments were returned by a Northern District of Texas grand jury on August 26, 2026, and the case remains at the charging stage. As Dallas Express noted in its report on the filings, an indictment is only an allegation, and all four defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
When The Person Holding Power Of Attorney Is The Risk
Both indictments describe fraud that ran through an ordinary legal tool — power of attorney — inside a caregiving arrangement, not an outside scam call. The article does not answer what a family checks before signing that authority over, or what to do the moment a caregiver’s paperwork or spending stops adding up.
The Senior Fraud Defense & First-Hour Recovery Kit includes the family code word and a fraud evidence and report log, alongside the first-hour recovery plan.
Set up the safeguards in The Senior Fraud Defense & First-Hour Recovery Kit.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by The Money Overview editorial team before publication.
