Money Taken From Elderly Woman Allegedly Used To Pay For Jail Commissary

By Mike Perleberg Holly C. Fields and Robert A. Dunlap. Photos by Dearborn County Sheriff's Department. (Aurora, Ind.) – A woman is accused of swindling her elderly mother out of Social Security and pension payments. Holly C. Fields, 46, and Robert A. Dunlap, 48, are each charged with Fraud on a Financial Institution (level 5 felony), Theft (level 6 felony), Forgery (level 6 felony), Money Laundering (level 6 felony) and Exploitation of an Endangered Adult At Least 60 Years of Age (level 6 felony). According to an affidavit filed in Dearborn County Circuit Court, the Dearborn County Special Crimes Unit began investigating the alleged theft in April after a business manager at Woodland Hills Care Center in Lawrenceburg contacted them about funds that were being withdrawn from a resident’s account in a suspicious manner – namely ATM withdrawals and debit payments. The resident’s account sometimes had a negative balance of over $1,900. The resident told investigators that her daughter, Holly Fields, was the person withdrawing the money without permission. The victim said that she wanted Holly to cease taking money from the account. At the time of the investigation, Fields was incarcerated on unrelated charges at the Dearborn County Law Enforcement Center. Detectives searched Fields’ property bin from when she was booked into jail, allegedly finding several bank statements for her mother’s bank account and ATM withdrawal receipts. During an interview with detectives, Fields said that taking care of her mother at home had become her job since her mother moved in last year. However, the withdrawals continued as Fields was in jail and her mother was in the nursing home. Investigators used bank records and recordings of phone calls Fields made from jail to assemble their case. In one call made from jail in May, Fields posed as her mother in an effort to get the bank to release funds from the account. Fields had also made 176 calls from jail to Robert Dunlap. Investigators reviewed the call recordings, finding multiple conversations about withdrawing and using the victim’s money. Investigators could not find record of any calls made from jail by Fields to her mother. Dunlap allegedly admitted to investigators that he had made withdrawals from the victim’s account to make deposits on Fields’ jail commissary account, pay his employees’ wages, loan money to a friend, and some cash he still possessed. A judge has ordered Fields held on a $50,000 surety and $2,500 cash only bond. A pre-trial conference for both Fields and Dunlap is scheduled for August 4.