An elderly Las Vegas couple was sentenced by Judge Stefany Miley to eight to 20 years in prison for theft and elderly exploitation.
District Judge Stefany Miley sentenced former Clark County School District workers Craig Ballew, 70, and his wife, Ivy Rasmussen, 63, each to serve eight to 20 years in prison. They were found guilty of more than a dozen conspiracy, theft and elderly exploitation charges.
The elderly couple was found guilty of exploiting long-time friend Elliott Smith’s struggles with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease while “helping” the friend care for his dying wife, who was hospitalized. They were charged with and found guilty of using their friend’s money to pay for minor purchases, such as Starbucks coffees, as well as spending on major big-ticket items, such as foreign cars. The expenses exceeded $150,000.
But Smith’s relatives were sure that the couple took even more than that. They said that least $100,000 in cash that Smith kept in a safe was missing; however, the jury acquitted the couple of taking that money.
Smith apparently thought he was set up well to enter the twilight years of his life, with about $600,000 in savings and $300,000 reserved for medical bills to help care for his wife. But Smith died, broke, at age 84 in 2010 and only learned of the draining of his financial resources until the final few months of his life.
Ballew, a teacher, and Rasmussen, a guidance counselor, spent their careers working in the Clark County School District, and by all accounts, built a very comfortable life for themselves in the Las Vegas valley.
The couple’s defense tried to play the sympathy card, saying that they had been dedicated to the school district for decades and had blemish-free records.
But Smith’s family had other ideas. Smith’s stepdaughter, Sue Sweikert, asked for the maximum sentence that Judge Miley could hand down. “They were so arrogant they felt they were entitled to what they stole,” Sweikert was quoted as saying in a Las Vegas Review Journal article. “They acted maliciously and callously to exploit my parents. Nothing but greed and manipulation. They’re narcissistic predators who were only concerned with what they wanted — my parents’ wealth.”
The couple was taken into custody, and after about a year in prison they were able to get $20,000 bail after the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that Ballew and Rasmussen should be given a bail hearing while their conviction was on appeal.
Judge Miley ordered that the couple also pay $1,000 each per month and remain on house arrest while awaiting appeal. She indicated that the monthly payments also would go toward restitution for Smith’s family and their financial losses.
In October 2021 the couple filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.