Cramento Count Semper Justitio Sacramento County District Attorney's Office Thien HO District Attorney July 2, 2025 The*

The Grand Jury finds the DA's Elder Abuse Unit does not prosecute financial abuse cases unless accompanied by physical abuse, allowing many abusers to avoid consequences. The District Attorney's Office disagrees with this finding. The District Attorney's Office does prosecute elder financial abuse cases regardless of whether accompanied by physical abuse. Although prosecutors in the Elder Abuse Unit may primarily handle physical cases, including assaults, neglect, attempted murders and murders involving the elderly, those prosecutors also handle financial abuse cases. The District Attorney's Office additionally assigns felony elder financial abuse cases to our Special Investigations Unit in which highly trained prosecutors who specialize in financial crimes prosecute the cases. Furthermore, our Real Estate Fraud Unit also prosecutes financial cases involving elderly victims. The additional portion of the finding that the District Attorney's Office allows "many abusers to avoid consequences" is disputed. The District Attorney's Office filed 81% of elder financial abuse cases submitted for review. The overall filing rate for all cases involving all crimes is around 66%. Not every case submitted by law enforcement is filed because prosecutors must sacda.org 901 G Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 | p: 916.874.6218 | f: 916.321.2201 evaluate each case individually and file only when supported by sufficient admissible evidence. Elder financial abuse cases are not rejected for lack of prosecution staffing. Our filing rate on elder financial abuse cases demonstrates the District Attorney's Office commitment to prosecuting such matters when charges are supported.

The Grand Jury finds the DA's Financial Crimes & Real Estate Fraud Units prosecute only when the dollar amount is high or multiple victims are impacted, allowing many abusers to avoid consequences. The District Attorney's Office disagrees with this finding. The Special Investigations Unit and the Real Estate Fraud Unit in the District Attorney's Office do not prosecute cases only when the dollar amount is high or multiple victims are impacted. Although the Special Investigations Unit typically handles cases exceeding a certain loss amount, cases assigned to that unit do not necessarily require a specific dollar loss. The Real Estate Fraud Unit does not have any threshold financial amount. Neither unit requires multiple victims on cases. Moreover, the fact that some cases are not assigned to these units does not mean that the cases are not prosecuted. Regardless of the dollar amount or number of victims, the District Attorney's Office filed 81% of elder financial abuse cases submitted to the District Attorney's Office. The overall filing rate for all cases involving all crimes is around 66%. As such, the finding that the District Attorney's Office allows "many abusers to avoid consequences" is disputed.

The Grand Jury finds the DA's elder abuse unit [sic] does not have a prosecutor and investigator who are trained and specialize in prosecuting elder financial abuse, so many financial abuse cases are not being prosecuted allowing abusers to avoid consequences. We agree that the deputy district attorneys assigned to the Elder Abuse Unit have not received specific training on financial abuse cases. However, the District Attorney's Office has assigned a 28-year veteran deputy district attorney as the supervisor of the unit. Further, an additional prosecutor with nearly three quarters of a decade of experience as a litigator is assigned to the unit. Both have extensive experience handling theft cases. Moreover, attorneys and investigators assigned to the Special Investigations Unit and Real Estate Fraud Unit do receive extensive and ongoing training in financial abuse crimes. These personnel are available as a resource in all financial crime cases, including those involving elder victims. We do not agree that this division of cases results in financial crime not being prosecuted allowing abusers "to avoid consequences." As noted, the District Attorney's Office filed 81% of all elder financial abuse cases submitted to the District Attorney's Office. The overall filing rate for all cases involving all crimes is around 66%.

The Grand Jury finds The DA's office [sic] no longer has a dedicated victim advocate who specializes in working with elderly victims of either physical or financial abuse, thereby leaving victims without proper support. For nearly 10 years, the District Attorney's Office received a grant from the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) that was dedicated to funding a victim advocate for all forms of elder abuse. This funded an advocate and allowed the District Attorney's Office to partner with the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) and Sacramento Regional Family Justice Center (FJC). CalOES entirely dissolved the Elder Abuse grant in 2024. We sought replacement funding as part of the FY24-25 budget from the Board of Supervisors to allow us to continue this position, but funding was not obtained. Despite this, the District Attorney's Office has continued to maintain a dedicated elder abuse victim advocate by reallocating staffing within the Victim Witness Unit to support the Elder Abuse Unit. The District Attorney's Office disputes that victims are left "without proper support." The District Attorney's Office continues to do more with less. Advocates are available for victims of elder financial abuse and will continue to be supported through the court process.

The Grand Jury finds the DA lacks enough funding to create and fill elder financial abuse prosecutor, investigator and victim advocate positions, to be able to prosecute more cases of elder financial abuse. For the last three fiscal years, to aid in our ability to prosecute criminal activity, the District Attorney's Office requested additional funding in the budget process for positions for additional attorneys, investigators, advocates, and paralegals. We did not receive approval for funding for the vast majority of those positions. Despite limited resources, as previously noted, the District Attorney's Office filed 81% of elder financial abuse cases submitted to the District Attorney's Office. The overall filing rate for all cases involving all crimes is around 66%. If law enforcement submittals increase, the District Attorney's Office agrees that additional funding would be needed to be better able to prosecute more cases of elder financial abuse.

The Grand Jury finds Sacramento County has no active Financial Abuse Specialist Team (FAST), therefore there is inadequate coordination between agencies to combat the growing problem of elder financial abuse and protect elderly victims. The District Attorney's Office agrees that there is no active Financial Abuse Specialist Team (FAST). FAST began in approximately 2004. It was co-chaired by APS and the McGeorge Elder Legal Clinic. In Sacramento, it functioned as a meeting that featured presenters and a multidisciplinary review of complex financial abuse cases. However, the Covid pandemic, staffing changes, and resource issues resulted in the team pausing. We disagree that there is inadequate coordination between agencies to address elder financial abuse. In spring 2025, APS, WEAVE and the District Attorney's Office formed an elder abuse financial crime working group to evaluate how to achieve best practices for these types of cases.

The Grand Jury finds that there is insufficient community outreach by agencies within Sacramento County to educate elder citizens and their families and caregivers about financial abuse, so the signs of abuse may not be recognized. Through our Community Collaboration and Legislation Bureau, participation in Elder Death Review, Elder Abuse MDT, Domestic Violence Prevention Cabinet and other community-based outreach, the District Attorney's Office strives to provide the community with information relating to all crimes, including elder financial abuse. Partner agencies and community-based organizations, such as WEAVE and the Family Justice Center, also provide outreach. However, the District Attorney's Office agrees that with additional resources all partners could achieve additional outreach.