A former Chicago banking executive has pleaded guilty to swindling her elderly clients out of nearly $1.5 million by using her influence to get them to invest in her private side deals producing slasher movies.
Helen Grace Caldwell, 58, a wealth adviser who until 2021 was a vice president in the South Michigan Avenue offices of Citibank, agreed in a plea deal Tuesday to pay back all of the money she bilked from her clients.
She was released on bail after pleading guilty to wire fraud, which carries a maximum prison sentence of up to 20 years, according to federal court records filed in Chicago.
An Injustice Watch series published by the Chicago Sun-Times in August detailed Caldwell’s actions in described holes in the Illinois’ safety net that was established in the face of a skyrocketing number of fraud cases that target the old and frail.
Under her plea agreement, signed by acting U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual, Caldwell acknowledged that she persuaded her elderly Citi clients to invest in movies produced and promoted by her film company, Canal Productions LLC. She told clients they would share in the profits even though she “knew that those representations were false,” according to her plea deal.
On her personal website, Helen Caldwell described herself as a financial services professional, philanthropist and award-winning filmmaker.
In the agreement, Caldwell acknowledges she transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars of her victims’ film investments from the Canal Productions bank accounts to her personal bank accounts, then used that money for “construction work and painting” on her home, refurbishing her classic car, paying her parking tickets and paying for liquor, entertainment, home goods and décor and clothes.
Neither the victims nor Citi were named in the plea, which referred to them only as victims A, B, and C and bank A.
In separate federal actions late last year, Caldwell was barred from working in the securities industry by the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and from working for banks by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Retired nurse Priscilla Eddings, who was a wealth-management client of Helen Caldwell, wrote 13 checks totaling $400,500 to Caldwell’s film ventures between 2018 and 2020, court records show.
Provided
Also, Caldwell and Citi are being sued by Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, who said the Fortune 500 company failed to adequately police Caldwell’s conflicts of interest. Golbert’s office wants the banking giant to repay the savings lost by retired nurse Priscilla Eddings, who was one of Caldwell’s clients, is now living in a nursing home and has dementia.
“I am pleased there will be justice in the criminal forum, and I am looking forward to justice in the civil forum and Citi returning the money its vice president stole,” Golbert said. “The restitution is fantastic, but it will be difficult to collect from Caldwell.
Charles Golbert, Cook County’s public guardian: “Citi remains liable, and we are still aggressively pursuing Citi.”
Ashlee Rezin / Sun-Times
Citibank and Citi Global — the banking and investment arms of Citi for which Caldwell worked as a so-called dual-hat employee — didn’t respond to requests for comment Thursday.
In court filings, Citi lawyers have said the bank shouldn’t be held financially liable for Caldwell’s actions.
According to internal government documents, Citi first reported Caldwell to the Illinois Department on Aging’s Adult Protective Services division in March 2022 — four months after Caldwell left her job there.
Illinois officials didn’t take any action because the client “was not being exploited by a family member, roommate or caregiver,” Citi said in Cook County probate court documents.
Since the Injustice Watch investigation was published last summer, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a new law that exempts the Department on Aging from investigating cases of frauds and criminal activity by strangers. The law, which took effect Jan. 1, shifts the burden of investigating such frauds to the Illinois attorney general’s office.
Several experts said Illinois’ new law is a step backward in fighting the growing problem of elder financial exploitation.
The law was written “to help certain people in the bureaucracy to do less work, to the detriment of the public,” McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally said. “I don’t see it furthers the interests of any single person that might be victimized by this crime.”
Fraud against older Americans in investment schemes accounted for nearly one-third of the estimated $3.1 billion in elder financial exploitation nationwide last year, up from less than 10% just three years ago, according to Injustice Watch’s analysis of FBI data.
Reported losses from investment scams against older Americans have increased tenfold in the past three years to nearly $1 billion in 2022.
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