Caretaker Gets 3-Year Term for Taking $118,000 : Theft: The conviction is the fourth in a county crackdown on crimes against senior citizens.

A Lake Forest woman who bilked an 86-year-old woman out of her life savings was sentenced Wednesday to three years in state prison, the toughest penalty handed down in a string of four recent court cases involving caretakers who preyed on blind, elderly clients.

Lanna Reynosa, 47, pleaded guilty in South County Municipal Court for stealing $118,000 from Mildred Cobbledick to finance trips to Hawaii and buy jewelry and a condominium.

“This is the height of greediness,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Rosanne Froeberg said. “You can’t go much lower than this.”

Combined, the four swindlers took $370,000 from visually impaired senior citizens who depended on them for daily chores ranging from cooking to bill paying.

Like the other caretakers, Reynosa took advantage of the Leisure World resident’s blindness to either forge checks or alter them, Froeberg said. In one case, she filled out a check for $30, had the elderly woman sign it, then added enough zeros to boost its value to $30,000.

But unlike the others, who received two-year prison terms, Reynosa’s sentence was stiffer because she has a history of stealing from the aged. In two separate incidents, in 1983 and 1985, the mother of three children was put on probation for stealing a combined $6,000 in jewelry and other property from two Leisure World residents.

“She obviously didn’t learn anything when she was caught stealing from elderly people before,” Froeberg said.

In a jailhouse interview last February, Reynosa tearfully told The Times that she picked on Cobbledick because she was the “easiest” target and begged for her forgiveness.

“It was an awful mistake,” Reynosa said. “I hope she forgives me; she has always been a wonderful lady.”

Cobbledick’s relatives said they were pleased that Reynosa was going to prison. The loss of the frail senior citizen’s nest egg devastated her financially and emotionally, they said.

“At first, Mildred didn’t want to believe what that woman did to her, even when the sheriffs told her,” said Erwin Solloway, whose wife Louise is a cousin of Cobbledick. “She is finally coming to grips with her loss now. What that woman did will affect (Cobbledick) the rest of her life. She’ll barely get by now.”

Reynosa was turned in by Louise Solloway, who discovered Cobbledick’s bank account had been drained.

Authorities said Reynosa is cooperating with efforts to return the $30,000, which was used as a down payment for a Lake Forest condominium. But the rest of the senior citizen’s life savings vanished during the 18 months Reynosa was handling her finances, Froeberg said.

Even Reynosa’s attorney, Thomas Goethals of Laguna Hills, said chances were slim Cobbledick will see a dime past the $30,000 condominium equity.

“She doesn’t have any money,” he said of his client. “I don’t know where it went.”

Goethals said Reynosa told him that she “was weak and made a horrible mistake. Why this happened, she can’t explain, other than to say she is sorry and will come out of prison a better person. It’s a very sad thing for everyone concerned.”

Reynosa’s three children will be cared for by relatives. Cobbledick has moved out of Leisure World and is living off her benefits in a retirement home.

Reynosa was the fourth person convicted in a highly publicized crackdown on crimes against senior citizens by police authorities and the district attorney’s office. The others include:

* Luseane Maikale Fuka, 32, a live-in caretaker who last Friday was given two years in state prison for embezzling $69,000 from the checking account of a blind, 92-year-old Costa Mesa woman.

* Max Madayag, 45, last month was sentenced to spend the next two years in state prison for siphoning $169,000 from the bank account of a blind, wheelchair-bound man. Court officials call it the largest theft from a senior citizen in Orange County history.

* Leonard Dale Keeney, 54, of San Clemente received two years in state prison last January for stealing $14,000 from an 86-year-old woman, who was temporarily blind. Keeney used the Leisure World resident’s bank ATM card to withdraw money 48 times in just over two months last year.