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Caretakers of a retired Monticello municipal judge were arrested Friday for allegedly scamming the 86-year-old man out of more than $40,000 over the last couple of months.

Maurice Everette Evans, 51, and Angela Rena Evans, 46, both of Monticello, are being held on $50,000 bond each for theft by deception, forgery and theft of property in connection with the alleged theft of more than $40,000 from retired Monticello Municipal Judge and former Monticello City Alderman Clifton Bond, according to Drew County Sheriff Mark Gober.

Gober said the couple threatened to have Bond placed in a nursing home if he did not sign checks. The couple is also believed to have stolen and forged Bond’s name on numerous checks.

For example, Maurice Evans charged Bond $3,000 to paint his house. However, there were three $3,000 checks written for painting the same house, according to Gober.

Clifton Bond

Bond said he also paid $20,000 for what Angela Evans told him was life-saving dental services. He said Angela Evans told him that she would die unless she received the dental work.

The couple had previously cared for Bond’s late wife Marjorie with no trouble whatsoever. “There was no sign of aggression, there was no sign of fraud and there was no sign of sham that might be practiced,” he said.

Knowing that he was a wealthy man and alone, Bond said the couple approached him about providing care-taking services, cooking, and maintaining his home and lawn.

“They said ‘We’re doing this not for particular compensation. We’re doing it because we like you. We’re doing this because we think you need to be protected,'” Bond said.

As an elderly person, Bond said he had reached a point in which he could no longer write a check so he would have Evans write the check and he would sign it. “That’s the way we operated until I figured out that he was using that money for something else,” Bond said. “He was getting money that he didn’t need, and didn’t deserve, and wasn’t supposed to get.”

Initially, the couple simply charged him too much for the services but it progressed to forgery, stealing and threatening, according to Bond.

When he protested the amount they were charging him, Bond said they threatened him.

“They’d say ‘If you want to be that way, we’ll just leave,'” Bond said. “Well, you don’t want them to leave because you’re dependent upon them. And they try to brow-beat you and threaten you. My fear is that I’ll be consigned to a rest home. They would say, ‘Now, if you don’t do what we tell you to do we’re going to put you in a nursing home.'”

Bond said Maurice Evans represented himself as a church-going man of high moral standards but he was everything but that.

“He attended every church meeting in town and he gave the appearance of absolute honesty and integrity and morality when he was exactly the opposite,” Bond said.

Bond, who served 27 years as Monticello Municipal Court Judge and a decade on the Monticello City Council, is calling for society to provide more protection for the elderly who are verbally and mentally overpowered by scam artists.

“The only thing society can do with this situation is to protect the elderly by legislation and by personal intervention,” Bond said. “Most of society is unwilling to put out funds to provide protection for the elderly. The elderly have to do it for themselves, if they are protected.”