Elder Scammer Gets the Slammer

Time wounds all heels. Even Michael B. Woodward.

A decade ago, WW twice named Vancouver, Wash., insurance salesman Woodward our Rogue of the Week for targeting octogenarians with scams.

He worked both sides of the Columbia River from 2002 to 2004 with a signature ploy. He sold "prepaid home service agreements,” with the elderly paying him thousands up front to guarantee he’d provide cleaning, cooking and bathing if their health failed.

Those agreements fell outside the regulatory scope of the Oregon Insurance Division—which was good news for Woodward, since the regulators had pulled his license for "a pattern of false representation, manipulation, and dishonesty."

Here's how Woodward worked, as described by the Rogue desk in 2004:

Investigated by the Oregon Department of Justice, Woodward fled to Las Vegas, where he shilled the same deal to seniors across the West—but especially in southern California.

And that's where he finally got caught.

As WW reported in this week's Murmurs, a San Diego judge in August sentenced Woodward to 11 years in prison for bilking more than 400 people and ordered him to pay $3 million.

He confessed in June to scamming 238 elderly people in San Diego County. He had promised to provide in-home services from his company—but he and his wife Melissa were the only employees, and when his victims tried to collect, he didn't call them back.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the local district attorney's office had seized Woodward's property—including an art collection and a home on a golf course—to pay back victims, all of whom are over 80 years old.

"Authorities said Michael and Melissa Woodward ran their scam for nearly 10 years across six states," wrote the Union-Tribune, "targeting seniors while amassing a $6 million fortune that they spent on homes, art, cars, jewelry and other luxuries."

One of those states? Oregon.

We send Woodward off to the clink with the words of Carol Husted of Lebanon, Ore., who was 82 years old in 2002, when she received just two weeks of in-home services after her husband went to the hospital with liver cancer. She described Woodward succinctly.

"I think he's a stinker," Husted said.

WWeek 2015