Caretaker Is Arrested in Embezzlement

COSTA MESA —  The live-in caretaker of a 92-year-old Costa Mesa woman has been arrested after allegedly embezzling more than $50,000 from the woman’s savings account, police said.

Over the past six months, Luseane Maikale Fuka, 32, of Costa Mesa allegedly forged checks and deposited them into her personal savings account, police investigators said.

Fuka was arrested without incident Tuesday at the home of Grace Maupin, where Fuka had worked for the last four years, Police Sgt. Ron Smith said.

She was arrested on suspicion of elderly abuse by embezzlement and grand theft and was being held in County Jail in Santa Ana in lieu of $100,000 bail, Smith said.

Authorities increased her bail from $10,000 because they thought that she might try to flee to her home in Samoa, Smith said. He said Fuka was working in the United States on a temporary work visa.

Fuka had access to Maupin’s checking account because she handled some of Maupin’s bills as part of her duties, Smith said.

He said investigators with the Costa Mesa Police Department’s economics crime unit are examining other bank accounts to which Fuka had access to see if more money might be missing.

Maupin, who is partially blind and deaf, “may have been aware that she was being taken advantage of, but she didn’t know what to do or felt she had no way out of it,” Smith said.

He said police were tipped off to the alleged embezzlement by the adult protection services division of the Orange County Social Services Agency.