By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A purported financial consultant swindled a 98-year-old wheelchair-bound veteran lawyer out of $330,000, prosecutors said Friday.
Harry Abrams, 76, used money he took from the elderly Emanuel Baetich to pay for a trip to Puerto Rico, and also to make payments to Jenny Craig, Costco and Lands' End, prosecutors said.
Abrams also used the funds to support what prosecutors described as his "failing" businesses, which he ran out of his 230 Park Ave. office, according to prosecutors.
Baetich, a semi-retired estates lawyer, is now in a nursing home recovering from a broken hip, according to the DA.
Because Baetich and Abrams were long-time friends, the alleged victim was working in Abrams' office rent free.
Abrams had full-access to the older man's financial data and opened an account in Baetich's name, prosecutors said. He also put the victim's name on other documents pertaining to his companies in order to conceal that the funds were not his own, the lawyers said.
"He moved money around a lot and one of the accounts he used was in his deceased wife's name," said Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Loewy, who is handling the case.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said his office prosecutes about 500 elder abuse cases annually, most of which are economic crimes.
Vance said his office makes routine efforts to alert elders, caretakers and banks about the crimes committed against the older generation.
"It is a particularly vulnerable group of people who are increasingly being preyed upon," Vance told reporters.
Abrams was turned himself in Friday morning and was released in the afternoon after posting a $175,000 bail bond.
He is expected to return to court in January.
