A 41-year-old man accused of swindling elderly, vulnerable Wichitans out of thousands of dollars for yard work that wasn’t performed, completed or fairly priced has been convicted by a jury of mistreating and stealing from them.
This isn’t the first time Brandon Dean Guffey has carried out this sort of fraud. He was tried in Sedgwick County District Court this week in a case similar to others police investigated a decade ago.
All of the victims were in their 80s or 90s and at least some struggled with diminished cognitive states because of advanced age or health conditions like dementia. In each instance, prosecutors say, Guffey tricked the victims out of a substantial amount of money by convincing them they hadn’t already paid for services, by overcharging them or by altering or filling out blank checks for the wrong dollar amount.
At his trial involving the most recent victims, Guffey and his lawyer contended he wasn’t guilty of two counts of mistreating a dependent adult — a form of elder abuse — and two counts of theft, all felonies. Jurors decided otherwise, though, and convicted him Thursday on all counts after about four hours of deliberations, the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office said by email.