MOUNT VERNON — A former Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputy is expected to spend 90 days in the county jail after pleading guilty of stealing over $500,000 from an elderly couple.
Danial Bobo, 51, of Gambier, pleaded guilty to theft, a first-degree felony; three counts of telecommunications fraud, third- and fourth-degree felonies; and two counts of misuse of credit cards, a second-degree felony. He was sentenced Dec. 29
Bobo is a former deputy sergeant with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office. He resigned on Sept. 3, 2021, more than a year before being indicted by a Knox County grand jury on charges related to the case.
Bobo’s wife Elisabeth Bobo was also indicted in the case and pleaded guilty on April 18 to one count of misuse of credit cards, a fourth-degree felony, and one count of telecommunication fraud, a fifth-degree felony.
She shares the same sentence, both with two years of parole, per part of the sentencing.
The Bobos befriended Kay and Richard Hoppe and helped the elderly couple move into a Mount Vernon nursing home.
After Richard Hoppe died in 2018, the Bobos used a power of attorney granted by the Hoppe’s to Danial Bobo to access credit cards in the Hoppe’s name and bank accounts that contained the Hoppe’s assets, according to a previous Knox Pages report.
The Bobos used more than $500,000 for their own personal expenses.
Suffering from dementia attributed to Alzheimer’s disease, Kay Hoppe passed away in 2020 at the age of 78 and Danial Bobo was named the executor of the estate, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
The attorney general’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) investigated the case, and the Special Prosecutions Section of Attorney General Dave Yost’s office prosecuted the case.
The Elder Justice Unit – a collaborative effort of the attorney general’s Crime Victim Services, Consumer Protection, Health Care Fraud and Social Prosecutions sections and BCI – works to educate Ohioans about the warning signs and risks of financial exploitation. Elderly people, especially, are vulnerable to such crime.