Woman Pays $200K She Stole From Grandfather, Gets Probation

ANAHEIM, CA — An Anaheim woman who claims she borrowed over $200-thousand from her grandfather to help a friend was sentenced to time served, Tuesday, court records show. She has already spent 84 days in jail for stealing more than $215,000 from her 94-year-old grandfather over 14 months.

She "borrowed" the $200 thousand from her grandfather to help a friend she met online who said he was "sick" and needed help with medical expenses, investigators said.

She sold her home to pay over $120,000 to her grandfather, Frank Centeno, in restitution owed, to stay out of jail. As part of her plea deal, she will now spend five years on formal probation.

In February, Michele Marie Bilbao, 50, admitted 15 felony counts of theft from an elder adult and sentencing enhancement allegations for aggravated white-collar crime exceeding $100,000.

The defendant only avoided prison by repaying her grandfather, according to former Senior Deputy District Attorney Marc Labreche. July 26 was the deadline for repayment, according to court records. She would have spent 20 years in prison if she didn't show up for sentencing.

After Bilbao's grandmother died in April 2012, she began helping her grandfather. She would pay his bills, according to a declaration prepared by an Orange County sheriff's investigator in connection with a request to increase the defendant's bail.

In the beginning, she would sit down with her grandfather, sort through the bills and provide him paper statements because he does not use a computer, the investigator said.

In early 2017, she started handling his credit union account, electronically, they wrote. She stopped providing him with paper statements, leaving Centeno unable to "monitor his money anymore," the investigator wrote.

In June 2017, when the victim's son visited from Iowa, he took Centeno to the bank, where they discovered his accounts had been "severely depleted," according to the investigator.

The victim's credit union account had $237,868.77 in it as of May 2017, but by July 31, 2017, it was down to $21,084.90, the investigator said.

The victim's son called a family meeting, where Bilbao agreed to pay back the money.

City News Service, with Patch editor Ashley Ludwig