He ran a yard work scam targeting elderly, vulnerable Wichitans. Now he’s going to prison
A 41-year-old Wichita man who swindled elderly residents out of thousands of dollars — promising them yard work he charged too much for or never performed — has been sentenced to five years, one month in prison, the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office said Friday.
A jury in September found Brandon Dean Guffey guilty of two counts of mistreating a dependent adult and two counts of theft for tricking victims who were in their 80s or 90s and suffered from diminished cognitive states because of age or dementia. Prosecutors say he stole a substantial amount of money from at least two people between 2020 and 2022 by telling them they hadn’t paid for jobs, charging them more than his services were worth, and altering and filling out blank checks for the wrong dollar amount.
In one case, a check was filled out and cashed for $2,000 — 100 times the amount intended by a 90-year-old woman.
In another case, Guffey convinced a 92-year-old man to write more than $3,600 in checks by returning to his home several times and telling him he hadn’t paid for a job.
At trial, Guffey’s lawyer painted the deceptions as legitimate arrangements, gifts or mere mistakes and said no one but Guffey and his customers know exactly what was agreed upon because no one else was there for the discussions. Neither of the victims testified at the trial because one died more than a year ago and the other’s health is so poor now that it wouldn’t have been possible.
But Guffey, who pleaded not guilty, has a history of bilking vulnerable and elderly people with similar scams. Ten years ago, he pleaded guilty and served time in prison for convincing an 86-year-old woman to pay $8,800 for a tree removal job that should have cost around $400 and for filling out an 84-year-old woman’s $10 check for $1,000.
After Guffey is finished serving the prison portion of his sentence, he will spend a year on post-release supervision, Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, said Friday by email. He must also pay $1,980 in restitution to one of the victims, Dillon said.
Sedgwick County District Judge Eric Williams handed down the 61-month sentence Friday, court records show. Guffey was booked into the Sedgwick County Jail after jurors convicted him in September.
