Scheme Targeted the Elderly

Five people across metro Atlanta are wanted on racketeering charges in connection with a sales scheme to defraud more than 30 elderly people out of various amounts of money.

Between March 8 and Dec. 9, 2012, investigators with the Governor's Office of Consumer Protection said the suspects made "cold contact" with elderly victims as part of a sales scheme to promote and conduct exterior home cleaning services and repairs.

The suspects initially quoted to the victims a price of $59 or $69 to clean gutters, fascia, soffit and siding. But when the work was finished, "the accused informed the victim they used a certain number of gallons of the cleaning product and thus owed $59 or $69 per gallon, which drastically increased the costs," according to Cobb County criminal warrants.

At least 11 elderly couples and 20 individuals indicated that they could not pay that amount due to limited finances. That's when the negotiations "to lower the price if the victim could pay by cash" would begin, according to the warrants.

Negotiations would end when both parties settled on the "most amount (they) could obtain from each victim whether by check or cash and combinations thereof. All checks were payable to one of the accused and cashed at various check cashing facilities throughout metro Atlanta."

Shawn Conroy of the Governor's Office of Consumer Protection could not be reached for comment today. However, warrants identify the suspects as Nicholas Mitchell of Duluth, Rocky Mitchell of Lithonia, Helen Johnson of Norcross, Larry McGill of Norcross and Gidget Williams of Lithonia.

All allegedly "performed two or more acts of racketeering activity, including but not limited to, theft by taking, theft by deception and theft by conversion, through the establishment and use of a device, scheme, or artifice to engage in any act, practice or course of business that operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon a person," according to warrants.

According to Cobb County jail records, Johnson and McGill were arrested Thursday. They are being held there without bond.