A Minnesota man wanted on charges of abusing and neglecting his elderly mother, who he took to a bank in a wheelchair to withdraw cash hours before reporting her death, was arrested Thursday in Pomona, police said.
David John Vanzo, 57, was taken into custody in the 1400 block of Cleveland Street by officers serving a $500,000 warrant for his arrest, according to the Pomona Police Department, which received a tip of his whereabouts from the Plymouth Police Department in Minnesota.
A criminal complaint filed against him in Minnesota cites financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult, felony deprivation by a caregiver and attempted theft by swindle.
In an interview posted by Fox 9 in Minnesota on Jan. 20, he told a reporter, "I love my mother very, very, very much. I gave my life to keep my mother alive."
Police said Vanzo financially exploited his mother in the amount of about $260,000. He was provided with power of attorney over his mother in 2012, according to the complaint.
The case took a strange twist in the hours leading up to Vanzo's report of her death.
According to a the complaint filed in Hennepin County, officers investigating the woman's death discovered that Vanzo had visited a Wells Fargo Bank branch Jan. 5, 2015 with his mother and made an $850 withdrawal from her account — six hours before he reported her death. Bank employees told authorities that the woman appeared unresponsive and slumped over in a wheelchair with her feet dragging on the floor.
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Vanzo and his mother were driven to and from the bank by the same cabdriver, who said the woman appeared to be sleeping, according to the complaint. Vanzo took his mother into the house, then had the driver drop him off at a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in the suburb about 15 miles west of downtown Minneapolis.
Plymouth police were making arrangements to extradite Vanzo back to Minnesota.
"His actions were outright despicable," Plymouth Police Chief Mike Goldstein said in a statement.
