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Day In Court Arrives For Caretakers Accused Of Theft

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By TODD LESKANIC

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 30, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY - Eloise Mudway was 83 and facing the prospect of living the rest of her life alone when she let Cynthia and Joseph Clancy move in to her Hilltop Drive home.

That was 2001.

Four years later, authorities charged the Clancys with stealing all of Mudway's assets, including her house. The couple go on trial Tuesday in Pasco County Circuit Court, each charged with exploitation of the elderly and grand theft from a person 65 or older.

The first-degree felony charges each carry a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. The trial could last three days.

The Clancys, who live in the house on Hilltop Drive, have pleaded not guilty. Assistant Public Defender Dean Livermore, who represents Cynthia Clancy, couldn't be reached for comment.

New Port Richey lawyer Mark Goettel, who is Joseph Clancy's attorney, said any transactions between Mudway and the Clancys were done in Cynthia's name.

"That gives strength to our position that Joseph Clancy didn't do anything wrong," he said.

Livermore, Goettel and Assistant State Attorney Mary Handsel have agreed to allow Circuit Judge Jack Day to decide the case in lieu of a jury.

In all likelihood, Day will hear a tangled set of facts that have given rise to the criminal charges, an unresolved civil lawsuit and accusations of wrongdoing from both sides.

The saga started in June 2001 when Rex McClure, a longtime friend of Mudway, died of cancer. McClure had begun living with Mudway a few months after her husband, Edward, died in 1989.

As McClure lay dying, he told Mudway he didn't want her to be alone. McClure suggested Cynthia Clancy as a possible companion. In her deposition, Mudway said she knew Clancy because she had managed doctor's offices where she and her mother had been patients.

The Clancys moved in an hour after McClure's death. In her deposition, Mudway said she lived in fear of Joseph Clancy from the beginning but was too scared to say anything about what was happening.

Investigators said the Clancys pressured Mudway into giving Cynthia Clancy power of attorney and that Mudway eventually agreed. That authority was used to write fraudulent checks and to drain Mudway's bank account of thousands of dollars, investigators said..

"I don't see where it benefited Ms. Mudway," Pasco County sheriff's Detective Darcy Ganter said in a deposition. "I see that her mortgage ended up not being paid as soon as Cynthia Clancy said she was going to take care of paying those bills; but then, all of a sudden, the mortgage isn't paid and the house is in foreclosure."

Three years into the living arrangement, Mudway signed a quit-claim deed, conveying the Hilltop Drive property to Cynthia Clancy. Prosecutors contend the Clancys coerced her into signing and that she didn't know what she was signing.

The couple then took out a mortgage on Mudway's house and used the money to pay off their own house, which was in foreclosure, said Handsel, the assistant state attorney. Meanwhile, they were charging Mudway $1,000 a month to live in her own house.

Mudway said in her deposition that in 2005 she was left at the home of Jeffrey Kores, an acquaintance of Cynthia Clancy, after Clancy told her she could no longer take care of her. Mudway, now 91, has since lived with Kores, his wife and children.

She couldn't be reached for comment.

Mudway filed a civil suit against the Clancys in 2005. She wants her house back and damages totaling more than $15,000.

Brett Geer, the Tampa attorney defending the Clancys in Mudway's civil claim, tells a different story. He said Mudway was handling her own finances and that she stopped paying her bills at some point.

When her house went into foreclosure, she and the Clancys agreed she would sell the house to them so she wouldn't lose it, Geer said. He said Mudway executed the disputed quit-claim deed as part of the agreement and was advised to do so by an attorney.

"My clients' position is that this was an agreement and everyone understood it," Geer said.

Geer said the Clancys had Mudway move in with the Kores family because she had been sick and was told she needed 24-hour care, something the Clancys couldn't provide. The allegations of theft and exploitation came shortly after the move, Geer said.

That has prompted Geer to file a civil counterclaim against Mudway and Kores, seeking damages on behalf of his clients.

"It is Mr. Kores who is really driving this, as far as we know," Geer said. "Ms. Mudway is, unfortunately, we believe, being unfairly manipulated by Mr. Kores in this whole regard."

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (727) 815-1084 or tleskanic@tampatrib.com.

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