Couple loses inheritance, gets jail time after bilking elderly father

Clyde Motts willed his only son nearly half of the $1 million he had put aside.

But John Motts wanted it all.

Now he won't get a penny.

DuPage County Judge Mark Dwyer today sentenced the son and his wife to 180 days in jail and revoked the man's claim to a $400,000 inheritance after the former Schaumburg couple pleaded guilty to financial exploitation of an elderly person.

"To me this is an instance of impatience, greed and stupidity," Dwyer said while handing down the sentence. "You had to have known you your father was going to take care of you, but it appears in the final two or three years of his life you abandoned him."

Prosecutor Mary Cronin had sought a 12-year prison sentence. She detailed the couple's lavish spending once the son took over finances of his elderly father. The 56-year-old man and his 66-year-old wife, Jacqueline, moved from an Itasca condo into a Schaumburg house. They sold that house for $323,000 three years ago when they bought a $920,000 house in Glendale, Calif.

Meanwhile, Clyde Motts' Indiana bank account had been emptied, and his Elgin nursing home bills were going unpaid.

Cronin presented a letter from the Motts' attorney to the nursing home telling them the elderly man's money was gone and they should sign him up for government assistance if they wanted to be paid.

Illinois State Police financial crimes investigator Al Lindsey said after he was contacted and his office began investigating, they found 32 accounts in eight separate banks the Motts couple had created. Eventually, state police tracked down $875,000 in a mutual fund account in California and froze it once they arrested the duo.

The 99-year-old Clyde Motts died in February, two weeks after being stood up by his son and daughter-in-law who had scheduled a rare visit with him.

In a videotaped interview from 2006, Lindsey told Clyde Motts that his life savings was gone.

"Every cent," the frail old man responded.

Clyde Motts was once a teacher, but he made his money rehabbing houses and selling them for a profit, investigators said.

John Motts testified he used some of the money to help purchase an SUV to shuttle his father around and he used another $200,000 for the California home. The rest he put in a mutual fund account. He said he wanted his father to move to California with him and even set up a bedroom for him in the house, but his father refused to move.

John Motts also admitted he spent his father's money even after he'd had his power of attorney privileges revoked.

The attorney handling Clyde Motts' estate said charities and a cousin will receive larger inheritances since the son is no longer entitled.

The couple was immediately taken into custody. John Motts already has been in jail for 45 days, and his wife has spent 50 days behind bars. They will likely be out in six weeks because of time-served and other sentencing guidelines.