‘Cruel act': Man accused of defrauding wife's 89-year-old grandfather out of Bronx home

What to Know

• A man is facing charges for alleging defrauding his wife’s grandfather out of the deed to his Bronx house while the then 89-year-old was in a nursing home.
• Frank Blackshear, 45 and of Manhattan, was arraigned earlier this week on second-degree grand larceny, second-degree criminal possession of stolen property, first-degree falsifying business records, second-degree falsifying business records and first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, the Bronx District Attorney, Darcel Clark, said.
• According to the investigation cited by the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, Milton Roberts, who is currently 91-year-old, was the sole owner of a house in Soundview on Taylor Avenue valued at $698,000 in 2022 when he was checked into the nursing home Kings Harbor MultiCare Facility for health-related issues.

A man is facing charges for alleging defrauding his wife’s grandfather out of the deed to his Bronx house while the then 89-year-old was in a nursing home.

Frank Blackshear, 45 and of Manhattan, was arraigned earlier this week on second-degree grand larceny, second-degree criminal possession of stolen property, first-degree falsifying business records, second-degree falsifying business records and first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, the Bronx District Attorney, Darcel Clark, said. Blackshear is due back in court on Oct. 15.

According to the investigation cited by the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, Milton Roberts, who is currently 91-year-old, was the sole owner of a house in Soundview on Taylor Avenue valued at $698,000 in 2022 when he was checked into the nursing home Kings Harbor MultiCare Facility for health-related issues.

Allegedly between Feb. 14, 2023 and May 19, 2023, Blackshear transferred Roberts’s property with a dead bearing Frank Blackshear as a trustee of the Blackshear Living Trust which had as beneficiaries Blackshear’s wife (who is Roberts’s granddaughter), and their children — effectively depriving Roberts from leaving the home to his own children.

Blackshear allegedly also created legal documents that allowed him and his wife control over Roberts’ assets and health care, including a living will that denied Roberts life-prolonging procedures if necessary. Another document allegedly granted Power of Attorney to Blackshear’s wife to control Roberts’ assets.

“The defendant allegedly preyed upon a vulnerable member of our community, whom he was related to by marriage, by taking control of the man’s assets and health care,” Clark said. “When the elderly gentleman went into a nursing home, the defendant allegedly filed false documents to gain possession of his house. This selfish and cruel act will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Attorney information for Blackshear was not immediately known.