SCENE OF THE CRIME : Sentinel for Seniors

Detective Chayo Reyes has a reputation for never giving up. Just ask Sally Guy, who married an octogenarian of diminished capacity and went through $182,000 of his estate in 35 days. Thanks to Reyes, she’s now on five years’ felony probation and has repaid $100,000 to her victim.

Reyes created the LAPD’s Crimes Against Elderly Persons Estate unit in 1987 after seven years working in bunco-forgery. He had taken a case in which a man conned an elderly woman into letting him move into her home, and later kidnaped her in a bid to gain control of her $2-million estate. Reyes busted him, but when he discovered that these cases were usually treated as civil matters, he pressed for formation of the special unit. Investigators from around the country now seek his advice.

Reyes figures that he and his partner, Dave Harned, have recouped at least $18 million in money, homes and vehicles bilked from elderly victims by their families, friends, neighbors, fellow church members and outsiders. In a typical scam, an elderly person, usually a woman who lives alone without any close family, is befriended by a stranger who persuades the victim to grant him power of attorney or to add his name to the victim’s bank account. Million-dollar estates have vanished this way.

“We know what is at risk for these older folks, their homes, their life savings. We feel the anxiety,” says Reyes.

“I admire him very much,” says Phyllis Gedge, 92, who recently moved from Hancock Park to San Diego. “He is very wonderful at his job.” Reyes recovered $45,000 for Gedge that had been stolen by a student caretaker who forged $10,000 in checks and stole another $35,000 via fraudulent wire transfers.

There are about 500 of these cases a year in L.A. County, but there are only four people specializing in them in Los Angeles: Reyes, Harned and two prosecutors. “We feel like the Lone Rangers out here,” Reyes says.