By  KHI News Service

TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback has signed into law a bill that supporters said would boost efforts to protect seniors from financial exploitation.

“This new measure significantly strengthens the ability of law enforcement and prosecutors to protect Kansas senior citizens from fraud and financial abuse,” Kansas Attorney General Schmidt said in a prepared statement Monday. “It has tougher penalties, better investigative tools and clearer boundaries to protect seniors from having their life savings stolen or wrongfully misused.”

The new law, approved as Senate Bill 256, clarifies that it is a crime for someone in a position of trust to “wrongfully” take a dependent senior’s personal property or raid their estates.

An elder is defined as anyone age 70 or older.

“Percentage-wise, the fastest growing increase in crimes against seniors is financial exploitation, whether it be ‘stranger fraud’ or family members or friends taking advantage of a someone who’s come to trust them,” said Mitzi McFatrich, executive director of Kansas Advocates for Better Care, a group that represents the interests of nursing home residents and their families.

The new law, she said, could have been stronger and more focused.

“Right now, we have fairly coordinated systems in place for dealing with child abuse and domestic violence,” McFatrich said. “They may not be adequately funded, but they’re there. But with elder abuse, that level of coordination isn’t there. It is in some of the larger counties, but it’s not across the state.”

McFatrich called the new law a good but “small step.”

Brownback signed the bill into law April 17.