Deatsville man pleads guilty to securities fraud involving his mother
A Deatsville man has pleaded guilty to securities fraud for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from his mother, prosecutors say.
Elmore County District Attorney CJ Robinson and Amanda Senn, the director of the Alabama Securities Commission, say 44-year-old Chad Svenby tried to defraud his elderly mother through the use of a power of attorney.
Robinson and Senn say Svenby had already been under a protective order to have no contact with his mother because of harassing behavior.
They say once he got the power of attorney by claiming to be caring for her, Svenby had access to all of his mother’s accounts.
From March 2017 to February 2018, they say Svenby withdrew approximately $400,000 of his mother’s savings. While he represented the withdrawals were for the victim’s benefit, most of it was spent at a casino and for the benefit of Svenby himself, Robinson and Senn say.
They say his crime was only discovered when he attempted to change her will and legal authorities contacted law enforcement because they became suspicious of his conduct toward his mother. She died in September of 2019.
Svenby will be sentenced on May 1 by Circuit Judge Amanda Baxley. Securities fraud is a Class B felony with a range of punishment from two to 20 years’ incarceration and up to a $30,000 fine.
