Phoenixville man pleads guilty to locking an elderly woman in her basement, stealing her Social Security funds

Christina Diarcangelo stood before a Chester County Court judge on Monday and described how her nephew and his friend “systematically drained” her mother’s resources by holding her captive in the squalid, deteriorating basement of her home in Phoenixville while they siphoned her Social Security.

“My father’s dream was to ensure my mother lived debt-free in the home they had built together, a home that had been entirely paid off,” she told Judge Alita Rovito. “Yet, David Frame and Christopher Ruse’s heinous intentions were to rob my family of that dream.”

Frame, 38, pleaded guilty Monday to reckless endangerment and possession of an instrument of a crime more than a year after his arrest in the death of Paula Diarcangelo, Ruse’s 62-year-old grandmother. Afterward, Rovito sentenced Frame to up to 23 months in county jail, followed by three years of probation.

As a condition of his sentence, Frame is barred from contacting any of the victim’s family, including his codefendant.

Frame’s attorney, Michael Kotik, said after Monday’s hearing that he thought the sentence was fair, and he was hopeful “everyone can move past this.”

But Christina Diarcangelo said she will forever struggle with the thought of the conditions her mother was subjected to.

“Worse, she was related to one of the monsters who inflicted this on her,” she said. “These acts of betrayal struck at the very core of our family’s financial security and well-being.”

Ruse, 26, pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and conspiracy in July, and was scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday. However, prosecutors said Monday that he has violated the conditions of his bail in that case.

Diarcangelo said Ruse ran away from the drug-rehabilitation center where he had been living, and that his whereabouts were unknown Monday.

Investigators began their investigation into the case in March 2022 after receiving a call from Diarcangelo. Diarcangelo said her sister, Ruse’s mother, was speaking to him on the phone and heard Paula Diarcangelo screaming for help, according to the affidavit of probable cause for Ruse’s arrest.

On that same call, Ruse’s mother heard Frame cursing at Diarcangelo, and telling her to shut up, the affidavit said.

Diarcangelo later told police that Frame, a friend of her grandson’s, had moved into the house a few months earlier, the affidavit said. Frame had moved her from her upstairs bedroom into the basement, saying he needed her room because of an upcoming surgery, and would be converting the basement into an apartment for her.

The conditions in the basement, prosecutors said, were deplorable: A toilet and shower installed there didn’t work, and sewage was seeping up from the floor, within feet of where Diarcangelo was sleeping.

Frame locked her in the basement with no way out, the affidavit said. He and Ruse gave her water and pizza, but broke her cell phone so she couldn’t contact anyone. She was able to escape once, she said, but the two found her and put her back inside.

The two also often denied Diarcangelo her medication, her daughter said Monday. Frame took a debit card connected to her Social Security account and used it to rent more than $600 worth of couches, big-screen TVs, and other furnishings from Rent-A-Center.

At one point, he attempted to have Diarcangelo sign the deed to the house over to him, according to prosecutors.

Diarcangelo was taken to Phoenixville Hospital for evaluation after police visited the home. She never fully recovered, according to her daughter, and died in January 2023.

“As we look to the future, I pray that justice will be served,” Christina Diarcangelo said. “They will ask for a second chance — a second change my mother will never get.

“I implore the court to consider the magnitude of their actions, their remorseless savagery, the irreparable damage they have caused, and to ensure that their punishment is commensurate with the gravity of their crimes.”