President of Oakhurst senior center accused of swindling money from volunteer

OAKHUST, Calif. (KFSN) -- The president of an Oakhurst senior center is accused of swindling one of the seniors out of tens of thousands of dollars.

Katie Davis was arrested on a charge of felony elder abuse.

At 90 years of age, Bill Youngs is still a spry guy.

But decades after helping to build the linear accelerator -- Stanford's scientific marvel -- Youngs is starting to show signs of dementia.

And even though he led a frugal life, stretching his retirement income for more than 30 years, his nest egg suddenly disappeared late last year.

Embarrassment and confusion kept him from telling anyone for a couple months until things got desperate.

"He was about out of money and he needed his family to buck up and help him get past things because he didn't have money enough to live on," said son-in-law Chuck Nugent.

Youngs didn't know exactly what happened, but sheriff's deputies believe they found out.

In a search warrant Action News uncovered, they describe a $50,000 transfer from the 90-year-old's bank account to one belonging to Katie Davis.

She's the president of the Sierra Senior Center in Oakhurst, where Youngs is also a volunteer.

Sheriff's deputies arrested Davis at the senior center, in the middle of a game of bingo. They booked her into the Madera County jail, but within a few hours, she bailed out.

Nobody answered the door at her home when an Action News reporter went looking for an explanation.

Youngs has no memory of ever being at the bank where the transfer happened and told detectives he never would've given anyone $50,000.

His family thinks there's more money missing and detectives aren't convinced Youngs is the only victim.

"The investigation is still ongoing and we are looking into, you know, other avenues other venues that are not necessarily related to the identified victim," said Cmdr. Bill Ward of the Madera County sheriff's office.

Youngs still has a family to make sure he has food and shelter, but he's never felt as vulnerable as he does now, especially since the suspect is someone he told us he thought of as a friend.

"It is gutwrenching to see that somebody would take his money from him," Nugent said. "I would've never imagined in a million years somebody would've been able to do that."

Youngs and his family aren't expecting to ever get the money back, but they're hoping his story helps stop anyone else from becoming a victim.