Author: Scott Spallina, Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney

  • Please, Make the Time to Visit

    When my father-in-law “Gramps” had a stroke, he spent time at the hospital, rehab, and then a nursing home, before finally being able to return to his house. During those months of recovery away from home, my family made every effort to visit him daily. Between my wife, brother-in-law, mother-in-law and myself, we were pretty…

  • Lottery/Sweepstakes: An Overview

    If I were to open a crime college, a place to learn the fine art of thievery, one class that would assuredly be on the curriculum would be Advance Fee Frauds, commonly known as sweepstakes and lottery frauds. This con involves the victim being told the lie that money is coming their way (usually from…

  • ‘What’s My Line?’ Elder Abuse-style

    “What does a con artist look like?” The answers I receive are oftentimes humorous. Descriptions of used car salesmen and politicians are shouted out, with visuals of “shifty eyes,” bad toupees, rapid speech, and loud aloha shirts added in for effect.

  • Adding up Elder Abuse Numbers

    I have been with the Prosecutor’s Office now for over 22 years, and 10 years ago created the Elder Abuse Unit. This unit was the first (and still is the only) team in Hawai‘i dedicated to prosecuting felony offenses where the victims were 60 years of age or older.

  • Don’t Give Wrongdoers a Free Pass

    Recently, I took my youngest daughter to the Punahou Carnival, where waiting in line for the adult rides she has now graduated to is sometimes 40 minutes. As we were getting close to the front, I noticed four young adults walk several feet in front of us and stand in line. It took me a…

  • Making the Call for Help

    On average, I get one to three calls a day from the public seeking advice about elder abuse. Fortunately, only about 20 percent of the calls involve matters needing my office’s involvement. The rest are from people that see “elder abuse” in our name and hope we can help with their situation. 

  • Part II: Zero Chance of A Lottery Win

    In the October/November issue of Generations Magazine, I explained that it is better to make a logical and legal argument against someone being a winner of a lottery, as opposed to showing them they are a victim of a lottery scam. The following facts prove that you have a zero percent chance of winning a…

  • Zero Chance of Winning the Lottery

    Over the years, I have spoken to countless people who believed they had won the lottery. They told me on the phone that they knew it was the real thing or they stopped by my office to show me letters, emails, credit cards or business checks proving they had struck it rich and beat the…

  • Part III: Sounds Too Good to Be True?

    By Scott Spallina, Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney In the last two issues of the magazine, I shared the lessons about elder abuse that I learned from the experiences of my mother-in-law, “Mary.” As I have mentioned before, tragedies are the fuel for many a con and when my father-in-law had his stroke, my family nearly…

  • Part II: Beware of Pretty Packages

    In the last issue, I covered the lessons my mother-in-law, “Mary,” taught me through her encounters with various scam artists she has met over the years. Unfortunately, those incidents were only the tip of the iceberg.