Chicago Daily Herald - March 4, 2005

Tona Kunz reported in the Chicago Daily Herald that a Bartlett man who prosecutors say volunteered at a senior center was charged with bilking an elderly man out of $170,000. South Elgin police had been searching for Charles Landwer of 27W165 Schick Road for nearly two weeks when he walked into a Kane County courtroom Thursday. Landwer asked for an impromptu bond hearing, likely in an attempt to get his case heard quickly so he could avoid a public arrest and overnight stay in jail.

But things didn’t go so smoothly for the accused man. The owner of Accurate Financial Group in Bloomingdale ended up being hauled out of the courtroom in handcuffs after a Kane County judge decided his prior convictions and alleged deception of an elderly man warranted a $500,000 bond.

South Elgin police investigated Landwer for nearly a month after a tip in late January from a South Elgin bank that he had ripped off one of its clients. Landwer is charged with two counts of exploiting an elderly person and two counts of theft by deception. Originally, police said Landwer posed as a lawyer, but he has yet to be charged with that.

According to police and prosecutors, Landwer befriended a 77-year-old man at the Wayne Township Senior Center. Eventually, the man gave Landwer power of attorney to sell his home on Cove Court in Elgin while he was living in Florida. The home sold for $170,000, but the man and American Eagle Bank in South Elgin, which holds the mortgage, never saw a dime, prosecutors said.

It isn’t Landwer’s first brush with the law. In 1997, he was convicted of unlawful possession of a stolen vehicle in DuPage County. He also was convicted of attempted solicitation of murder against the witnesses in the car theft case. He served 7¨ years in prison.

Thursday in court, Landwer’s attorney said the Bartlett man had limited resources, but prosecutors pointed out in a more than half-hour hearing that the twice-convicted felon has a bank account in the Cayman Islands, several local bank accounts, development property, land in Wisconsin and Michigan, and five or six cars.

Update on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 at 09:43AM by The Editor - Ian Shuter

On April 22, 2005 The Daily Herald reported that all charges against Charles Landwer in relation to this matter had been dropped.

Prosecutor Scott Larson said that the charges were appropriate in March. But since then, the $170,000 from the sale of the Elgin man’s home on Cove Court has been returned and the elderly man’s story has changed slightly, reducing its credibility.

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