St. Louis County man pleads guilty to financially exploiting 2 elderly victims

By Kalie Strain

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    ST. LOUIS, Missouri (KMOV) — A St. Louis County man pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court Monday to elder fraud.

Gino Rives, 36, of Edmundson, pleaded guilty to one count of access device fraud and one count of fraudulently effecting transactions. Rives admitted to exploiting the two elderly victims, including stealing a house from one of them, between January 2017 and October 2023.

One of Rives’ victims was an 87-year-old widow, and the other was 80 years old.

Prosecutors said that Rives pretended to be a home repairman and gained the victim’s trust.

“In this sense, we had an individual that pretended to be a home repair person, a licensed contractor and pretended to do work, but he instead induced his victims and deceived his victims into trusting him,” Tracy Berry, Assistant U.S. Attorney with the Eastern District of Missouri, said.

Rives is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from his victims and obtaining four vehicles purchased by one of his victims.

In his plea agreement, Rives has agreed to the forfeiture of the four vehicles bought by one of the victims and the home and two vehicles from the other victim.

The 80-year-old victim died in April of this year, and the 87-year-old victim was moved into a nursing home in January by Rives.

Rives faces up to 10 years for each charge, a $250,000 fine or both. Rives has also been ordered to repay the money.

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