Room, board for benefits payments?

A man says Daphne Jones wanted him to sign over Social Security.

By JUSTIN GEORGE, Times Staff Writer
Published August 14, 2007

A resident waits for assistance in one of the 5 bedrooms in the boarding house.
	[Courtesy of Tampa Fire]

ADVERTISEMENT [Carrie Pratt | Times] John "Trader" Bell was homeless in March or April, and went to the bus station, where a church ministries served the homeless dinner. [Courtesy of Bay News 9] The manager of Daphne's Boarding House, Daphne Jones was arrested Thursday night. She was charged with 18 counts of elderly neglect.

TAMPA - Homeless, John Bell needed room and board.

But the spot in a West Tampa shelter that Daphne Jones offered him dried up when Bell refused to authorize the Social Security Administration to pay his benefits directly to Jones, the 61-year-old man said.

They parted ways after two days, but Bell said he was reminded of her when he saw Jones, 36, in the news last week, arrested on charges that she neglected 18 elderly and disabled people in the same boarding house he had stayed in.

Some relatives of those people said they thought they were placing their family members in an elegant, 6,165-square-foot Temple Terrace riverside home, only to learn they wound up in the cramped boarding house, sharing one bathroom and no air conditioning.

While Jones ran Daphne Jones Boarding Home in West Tampa, the state Agency for Health Care Administration licensed her to run an adult family care home for up to five in the mansion she lived in. On Monday, the state prohibited her from adding any more clients while officials investigate how her frail clients ended up in the boarding house.

None are in her care now.

'It was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'

Jones also ran a nonprofit homeless shelter known as Laurel Tree Wellness at 2347 W Beach St., the same address as her boarding house.

The Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County referred single men to her, and Bell said Jones drove him to her shelter in a Hummer in March or April.

She told him she was doing the Lord's work, said Bell, who had previously been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, aggravated assault and other infractions, according to state records.

But a different woman emerged the next day, Bell said, after he ditched a trip to the Social Security office that Jones had organized for new boarders.

"She was absolutely livid. Her demeanor was totally different," said Bell, who also goes by the name Trader Bell. "It was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

When he didn't let Jones become his Social Security representative payee, he said he was told to leave.

When Social Security beneficiaries are incapable of managing their payments, the administration finds payees for them. Usually, the federal agency seeks family. But if none can be found, officials consider friends and nonprofit agents such as Jones, spokeswoman Patti Patterson said.

Representative payees, who apply for the job, must report how they use the money each year to make sure Social Security beneficiaries are cared for.

"If we receive a complaint or an allegation of misuse," Patterson said, "we investigate that immediately."

Privacy laws prohibited her from commenting on Jones' role as a payee, Patterson said.

In 2003, U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. sentenced Jones to 24 months of probation and ordered her to pay $41,000 in restitution to the Social Security Administration after she become her son's payee.

In 1995, she applied for Social Security benefits for her son, Keith Jones, Jr., saying she had no income and was unemployed. Years later, she repeated the line, court records show.

But, Social Security officials learned, she ran a hair salon, bought an apartment building and rented out other properties, federal court records show. She was ordered to return the government help she had received.

Boarder claimed theft

In September, Karl Patrick Offermann, 57, told Tampa police that Jones stole $4,351 from him as his payee. He was homeless at the time, said his father, who has the same name.

Offermann signed over the management of his Social Security to Jones in June 2006 and lived in her boarding house until September, when he moved out.

He wanted money back from his last check since he wasn't living there anymore. He went to her house to get a refund, but Jones told him to leave before she called the police, a police report said.

Offermann summoned authorities, who investigated his claim.

Jones told police that Offermann left owing her rent, which his last check covered. There was $385 left over, and Jones told police that she was trying to refund the money but that her former tenant was uncooperative.

The police officer tried twice to get Offermann's side, but the telephone number he gave didn't work. Offermann had listed his new address as a Salvation Army shelter. The case was closed.

Offermann, who is currently at Brandon Regional Hospital for health problems, wasn't coherent enough Monday to comment about the case, his ex-wife Deborah Beladeau said.

Jones was also briefly Frank Lopez's payee when the 71-year-old man lived in her adult family care home in late 2005, his brother John, 74, said.

Doctors once diagnosed Frank Lopez with schizophrenia, and he had the mental abilities of a child, his brother said. A health care professional recommended that his family check him into Jones' home because Lopez's siblings were growing too old or sick to care for him.

"It was described as a beautiful place on the Hillsborough River," John Lopez said, "and there were only four or five people there."

While in Jones' care, John Lopez said, his brother was once forced to share a bed with a man who punched him in the stomach during a fight over sleeping space. Frank Lopez suffered from a double hernia, his brother said.

He was also given medication he was allergic to, John Lopez said. He said his brother got too much medication, causing him to lose his balance.

Frank Lopez fell twice, requiring ambulance trips to the hospital. No one accompanied him, John Lopez said.

"Please don't take me back to that place," John Lopez recalled his brother saying.

His siblings put him in a nursing home, where they said he recuperated. He died in December.

Justin George can be reached at jgeorge@sptimes.com or 813 226-3368.

[Last modified August 13, 2007, 23:28:36]