Trial begins for Lodi bookkeeper accused of bilking $890,000 from clients

The victims include a retired barber, a married couple who run a Lodi roofing business and a woman whose grandmother left her an inheritance.

Shelley Kenefick

Each one, San Joaquin County prosecutor Sherri Adams told a jury Wednesday, invested money with Lodi bookkeeper Shelley Kenefick — only to have it vanish. One juror mouthed the word "wow" as she heard the loss amounts: $275,000 for one elderly couple, $165,000 for a young Lodi business owner.

All told, the deputy district attorney said during opening statements of Kenefick's elder financial abuse and fraud trial, the victims lost a total of $890,000.

Whether it's that simple will be up to a jury of seven men and five women to decide, and Deputy Public Defender Eric Taylor said more is at play.

Taylor placed the blame on Shelley Kenefick's estranged husband, Geoff Kenefick. The two are divorcing.

Each alleged victim knew Shelley Kenefick, 43, through her bookkeeping business, and they agreed to invest money. The investments were paying roughly 10 percent, as opposed to 2 or 3 percent from a regular savings account, until fall 2005.

"The evidence will show that's the time Geoff and Shelley split up," Taylor told the jury. "Divorce will play a big part, and the evidence will show that Geoff played a big part."

Geoff Kenefick is expected to be called as a prosecution witness, and police said during the investigation that they found nothing to warrant arresting him.

The trial, which opened Wednesday after jury selection last week, will include testimony from victims who include a retired Lodi police officer, Adams said.

Dennis Cunningham spent 24 years on the police force before retiring as a sergeant in May 2005. He and his wife are both alleged victims of forgery. Cunningham's wife knew Kenefick because she baby-sat her son, and only later did they learn their names were signed on deeds of trust.

"These documents were phony, they were fake, they never existed," Adams said of the deeds, in which 69-year-old Don Howard, a former barber, agreed to invest $160,000.

A total of six victims, plus several spouses, invested money through Kenefick, who they knew through her Lodi-based business, Accounting Concepts.

The smallest loss was $40,000, when Caroline Valencia's husband died and she invested his estate so she could live on the money. The largest loss was $200,000, when Colleen Allen's grandmother died and left an inheritance to the granddaughter who had cared for her.

Others include Gabrielle Munoz, who, along with her husband, runs a Lodi roofing business. Kenefick handled their bookkeeping and noted that they had money in a business account that wasn't earning much money, so she suggested they invest $50,000 in a "start-up company," Adams said.

Some, like Kristina Brachna, said they only wanted to invest in real property because it would be safer, but she also wound up losing $165,000, Adams said.

Jurors raised their eyebrows several times at the high dollar amounts, but Taylor told them that lost money does not alone mean Kenefick is guilty. She is charged with 18 felony counts, but to prove grand theft and elder financial abuse, prosecutors must show intent.

"(Adams) needs to prove that at the time money changed hands, Ms. Kenefick intended to take the money and never give it back," Taylor said.

Kenefick, who has pleaded not guilty, remains out of custody on $400,000 bond; shortly after her January 2006 arrest, her mother cashed in part of her retirement to pay a bond agent. If convicted, she faces prison time.

It's not the only such case Adams has prosecuted. In October, a jury convicted Stockton resident Marietta Dabanian of taking roughly $400,000 from a 93-year-old woman in her care. She was sentenced to four years in state prison.

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.

First published: Thursday, January 18, 2007