R.I. high court upholds ruling against Warwick woman accused of being ‘elder predator’

Providence Journal (RI)

March 16--PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The long courtroom saga involving a Warwick woman repeatedly accused of exploiting elderly men is finally over after a decade of legal wrangling.

The state Supreme Court this week dismissed an appeal brought by Carel Callahan Bainum challenging a judge's order that she pay $179,207 to the family of a now-deceased man whom she persuaded to loan her $120,000 in 2002. The high court found that Bainum, who represented herself, failed to raise valid legal arguments.

"This is the end," said David J. Strachman, who represented Sona Stevens, the daughter and lead caretaker for the late Vartan Baligian. "My clients have endured this woman's delays and machinations ... for a decade. They're relieved."

Strachman said he will move to institute post-judgment collection proceedings against Bainum, a 2014 Democratic mayoral candidate and onetime animal-control supervisor in Warwick.

"She's refused to make a single payment in 10 years," Strachman said.

Stevens and her father sued Bainum more than a decade ago over Bainum's financial dealings with and failure to repay Baligian. They alleged fraud, breach of contract and wrongful conversion.

According to court documents, Baligian loaned Bainum $120,000 in 2002, at age 92. The loan was unsecured and had an interest rate of 8 percent.

In 2007, the year that loan was due, Stevens directed Bainum not to engage in any legal discussions with Baligian while she traveled to Florida. Bainum, however, visited Baligian "purportedly for an outing for an ice cream, but drove to her attorney's office," where they executed a loan modification agreement. The loan was rewritten to become an 11-year, interest-free note, meaning Baligian would not have collected the money until he was 107.

Bainum undertook the loan modification knowing that Stevens was displeased with the outstanding debt and was working with her father to collect it, the court wrote. "In fact, Stevens was not notified that Bainum would even be seeing Vartan, let alone that she would ask him to refinance the loan."

Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Lanphear in 2008 barred Bainum from contacting Baligian and ordered her not to spend or transfer any assets outside of her normal personal expenses until the civil-fraud case was resolved. He found that Bainum had "hoodwinked" Baligian, who died in July 2008 at 98, into signing the new loan documents.

As the case moved forward, Bainum failed to appear for court dates and depositions. At a hearing before Superior Court Judge Allen P. Rubine in 2016, Bainum objected to the addition of pre-judgment in the case and argued that Strachman was responsible for delaying the case. The judge ordered Bainum to pay $179,207 ($98,338 in damages, $82,338 in prejudgment interest, plus $38 in costs).

It's that order that Bainum appealed to the high court. "She proceeds to simply recite facts without any legal support," the Supreme Court wrote this week in affirming Rubine's ruling.

Bainum, whose phone number at Sunnyside Drive was disconnected, could not be reached for comment. She has been the subject of much litigation in Rhode Island courts.

The high court last year upheld a Superior Court ruling dismissing a suit that Bainum had brought against the Coventry police. Bainum had accused the police of maliciously prosecuting her for trespassing when she visited an elderly man with dementia at the Coventry Health and Rehabilitation Center while donning a blond wig to disguise herself.

That case involved Bainum's relationship with Michael Koczan, a World War II Army Air Corps veteran who died in 2013 at age 96. Bainum was visiting Koczan in the center's secure dementia ward on Oct. 16, 2009, when a Coventry officer asked her to leave at the center's request. She was told, too, that Koczan's daughter was seeking to halt all Bainum's visits to her father.

Bainum continued to visit Koczan, wearing the wig. Staff eventually recognized her, leading Coventry police to charge her with willful trespass.

A trial was held in Superior Court in 2010 in which Bainum represented herself. A jury convicted her of the misdemeanor count. She received a one-year suspended sentence with probation and was ordered not to contact Koczan. Bainum then filed suit.

She told The Providence Journal prior to her trespass trial that Koczan, who suffered severe cognitive impairment and a host of physical problems, was being kept "a prisoner" in the Coventry nursing center. She claimed to be Koczan's friend and said she wanted to call attention to his plight.

Koczan told nursing home staff that he wanted to leave, marry Bainum and "live happily ever after."

Bainum has vehemently denied that she is an elder predator.

Strachman differs.

"She's always targeting vulnerable senior citizens. She has taken [Baligian's] money and she hasn't paid it back," he said. "There's a whole slew of these cases involving isolated, lonely elderly people."

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