BRONX CO-OP BOARD PRESIDENT INDICTED FOR STEALING OVER $120,000 FROM 93-YEAR-OLD WOMAN, DEPLETING HER SAVINGS

 

Defendant Allegedly Wrote Checks from Account of Victim, Who Does Not Speak English

Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a Bronx co-op board president has been indicted on Grand Larceny and other charges for defrauding an elderly tenant out of her life savings by forging checks on the victim’s account and depositing them for cashing in an accomplice’s account. 

District Attorney Clark said, “We must remain vigilant in protecting the elderly who so often become targets for financial fraud. In this case, a 93-year-old woman, who couldn’t read or write English, trusted the president of her co-op board to help her write checks for maintenance payments. When she became ill and hospitalized, the defendant allegedly wrote more than $120,000 worth of checks from the victim’s checkbook which were cashed. This alleged crime is the definition of depredation.” 

District Attorney Clark said the defendant, Majia-Leena Frayer, 74, of Saint Petersburg Florida, was arraigned on January 17, 2025, on second-degree Grand Larceny, second-degree Criminal Possession of Stolen Property, and 72 counts of second-degree Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument before Bronx Supreme Court Justice George Villegas. Frayer was placed on supervised release, and she was ordered to surrender her passport and remain in New York City pending the duration of this case. She is due back in court on January 28, 2025. 

According to the investigation, the defendant, acting in concert with Rudolf Drauch, 61, who was indicted in the case in 2023, allegedly stole $120,263 from the victim, a tenant at Varma Cooperative home at 828 Gerard Avenue, where the defendant also lived and was co-op board president. The victim, who did not speak English, relied on Frayer to help her write a maintenance check to the co-op each month and entrusted her checkbook to Frayer. In February 2021, when the victim needed hospital care, the defendant started writing checks against the victim’s account, and when the victim went to a nursing home, while Frayer allegedly wrote 72 checks made out to cash ranging from $500 to $3,000 over the next seven months.

Frayer allegedly deposited the checks in Drauch’s account, and he allegedly cashed them and pocketed some of the money. Frayer had moved to Florida after co-defendant, Rudolf Drauch, was indicted for his alleged role in the scheme in 2023.

District Attorney Clark thanked NYPD Detectives Daniel Angen, Sandy Nunez, and Christopher Persaud of the Bronx DA Squad for their work on the case.

An indictment is an accusatory instrument and not proof of a defendant’s guilt.