Lynn man pleads guilty to scamming elderly resident

SALEM – A Lynn man pleaded guilty in Superior Court Monday to scamming more than $50,000 out of an elderly, wheelchair-bound man while caring for him in his Maple Street home in Lynn from 2005 to 2007.Antonio Zappa, 49, pleaded guilty to charges of larceny over $250 from a disabled person, identity fraud and credit card fraud over $250. The maximum penalty for his charges is 10 years in state prison, according to the District Attorney spokesperson Carrie Kimball-Monahan.At the hearing, Assistant District Attorney Karen Hopwood told Judge John T. Lu that between Sept. 1, 2005 and Aug. 31, 2007, Zappa was the caretaker of Eugene Nelson, now deceased, who was wheelchair bound, had suffered a stroke and had diabetes and eye complications, and that he bilked Nelson out of over $50,000 of his assets during that time.Hopwood said Zappa lived in the elderly man’s home with his wife and mother in-law at 112 Maple St. and was responsible for caring for him and helping him pay his bills. Nelson’s health problems prevented him from being able to read, Hopwood said.”Nelson asked (Zappa) to write the checks and he would sign them,” Hopwood said.Instead of paying Zappa’s bills, which he kept hidden, unpaid, in a part of the house Nelson couldn’t get to, Hopwood said he took out numerous credit cards in Nelson’s name, and used them to pay his wife’s car insurance, his cellular phone bills, personal items and airline tickets, including a trip to Italy for he and his family, which cost $5,760, Hopwood said.”This also implies he took trips and left Nelson alone and uncared for,” Hopwood said.Zappa got Nelson to transfer his home to him for $1 in March 2006, and took out a $250,000 life insurance policy in Nelson’s name, naming himself the beneficiary, Hopwood said. He used Nelson’s checking account to pay the premiums.Hopwood said the victim did not realize money was being withdrawn from his savings for Zappa’s personal use and that his credit cards were also being used by him. At some point, Zappa disabled the ringer on the only phone in the house, making the man unaware that his family was trying to reach him, Hopwood said.When the victim’s daughter, who lived in Utah at the time, could not reach Nelson, she came to Lynn, where she found bags of unopened mail hidden upstairs along with the silenced phone, Hopwood said.Zappa is not due to be sentenced until Aug. 2. As part of his terms of release until that time, Zappa must give Nelson’s two surviving daughters $15,000, which he agreed to do, and must check in with probation once a week, Hopwood said.Taylor Provost can be reached at [email protected].