Personal Assistant Loots $10 Million from Elderly Mar-a-Lago Member and His Widow

Catalina Corona, 62, admitted in federal court Wednesday to running a seven-year fraud scheme that drained nearly $10 million from Richard and Priscilla Schmeelk — and she kept stealing even after Richard died in 2022.

Corona worked as a personal assistant to the Schmeelks starting in 2017. Over the next seven years, she wrote hundreds of fraudulent checks to herself, transferred funds directly from their accounts to her own, and even impersonated her employers to authorize transactions, according to Brooklyn federal prosecutors.

The stolen money funded a spending spree that would make a reality TV villain blush: more than $1 million at Louis Vuitton, hundreds of thousands at Cartier and Gucci, $305,000 on Apple products, and cash to pay off her credit card debt. All while her employers — one of them a 97-year-old widower, the other his elderly wife — trusted her with access to their finances.

Richard Schmeelk was no ordinary retiree. The World War II veteran spent 40 years at Salomon Brothers, rising to the bank's executive committee before co-founding merchant banking firm CAI Managers. He was knighted by Pope Benedict XVI for his work on behalf of the Catholic Church. He was also a member of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida — a detail that underscores the pay-to-play world where wealth and access intersect.

When Schmeelk died in May 2022 at age 97, Corona did not stop. She continued looting his widow's accounts for another two years until a bank representative flagged a suspicious $1,500 check in April 2024. That single alert unraveled the entire scheme.

Here is where the story gets darker: this was not the first time Richard Schmeelk was victimized by a trusted employee. In the 1990s, his personal executive secretary, Bebe Fazia Laljie, was convicted of mail and bank fraud for diverting checks he had signed to pay her own expenses. She was sentenced to nearly four years in prison and ordered to pay more than $500,000 in restitution. That case was presided over by then-federal judge Sonia Sotomayor, now a Supreme Court justice.

Two separate employees. Two massive frauds. Same victim. It raises uncomfortable questions about how the wealthy manage their finances — and who they trust to do it.

Elder fraud is an epidemic. The FBI reported nearly $5 billion in losses from more than 147,000 complaints in 2024 alone. And those numbers are likely underestimates, as many victims never report the crime or do not realize they have been scammed.

Corona now faces up to 30 years in federal prison. U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr. said the case should serve as a warning: "Our Office will continue to pursue those who exploit positions of trust for personal gain and ensure they face the consequences for their deception and fraud."

But the real lesson here is not just about one bad actor. It is about systemic vulnerability. The same circles that grant access to Mar-a-Lago memberships and papal knighthoods often operate with minimal oversight when it comes to personal finances. Wealth does not immunize anyone from exploitation — and in some cases, it makes people bigger targets.

Richard Schmeelk survived World War II and built a fortune on Wall Street. But twice, people he trusted with his money betrayed him. The second time, he was not even alive to know it was happening.