Philadelphia man charged with theft from great-aunt

The nest egg of a 78-year-old Philadelphia woman who thought she had achieved financial security was pilfered by a relative to support a gambling habit, authorities said.

Upper Merion police took Kim Casey Lockley, 44, of the 6000 block of North 17th Street, Philadelphia, into custody yesterday. He is accused of stealing more than $184,000 from Nellie Blackwell, his great-aunt, from January 2005 through July 2008.

At Lockley's arraignment, Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Anthony Gil called the alleged theft "a mind-numbing violation of trust of someone's own flesh and blood."

Lockley, who recently moved to Philadelphia from King of Prussia, repeatedly shook his head as District Judge John Gallagher read the charges against him, including access-device fraud, forgery, and theft. At one point, Lockley suggested that the numbers on the complaint were "inflated," and he requested the procedure for challenging "a false police report."

Police said they received a complaint from Blackwell in October. She said that she inherited money from her sister in 2004, and that Lockley had contacted her, offering to set up a trust with the inheritance and other accounts to pay her expenses. The trust was worded so that Lockley could pay bills, but nothing else unless Blackwell directed him to do so, the complaint said.

Blackwell told officers that she discovered that her retirement accounts had been emptied. During an investigation, Upper Merion detectives said they determined that Lockley made numerous unauthorized bank and ATM withdrawals from the woman's retirement accounts.

Many of the ATM withdrawals were made in King of Prussia and at the Borgata and Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, detectives said.

A detective who visited Blackwell's home saw buckets in her dining room to catch water from a hole in her roof that she cannot afford to fix, court papers say. When detectives interviewed Lockley, he said he was the only one with access to Blackwell's accounts and admitted a gambling problem, the filing also says.

Yesterday, the judge accepted Gil's argument that Lockley's bail be commensurate with the amount of the alleged theft, and set it at $185,000. Lockley had not posted it as of yesterday evening.

Gallagher also asked Lockley if he had any addictions, and Lockley replied: "Not at this time."

According to court records, Lockley was sentenced to 10 days to two years in prison in 2005 for a third drunken-driving offense.

Gallagher scheduled a preliminary hearing for Aug. 3.