Former IRS agent found guilty in Ponzi scheme targeting elderly Santa Rosa woman
A Southern California woman was found guilty Thursday of defrauding an elderly Santa Rosa woman of more than $1.5 million in an elaborate Ponzi scheme, authorities said.
Elana Cohen-Roth, 80, a former Internal Revenue Service field agent who worked as a tax professional in the Los Angeles area, was charged with money laundering and financial elder abuse in Sonoma County Superior Court.
A 73-year-old Santa Rosa woman first alerted police in December 2020, saying she had believed she was investing in "lucrative high-yielding investment opportunities," making 24 transfers to Cohen-Roth between 2013 and 2019 totaling over $1.5 million.
The victim took out a reverse mortgage on her home to keep investing with Cohen-Roth and eventually wound up more than $270,000 in debt, according to Santa Rosa police.
The victim asked for her investments to be liquidated, but Cohen-Roth's "demeanor and communications" raised suspicions, and police were notified.
In January 2021, detectives found evidence of the financial abuse after serving several search warrants at Cohen-Roth's home and place of business in Southern California.
At the time, Cohen-Roth, a former IRS field agent and IRS tax auditor, was working as an enrolled agent and tax return practitioner in Los Angeles.
Over the next year, Santa Rosa police detectives served more search warrants, audited financial records, and combed through mountains of evidence to uncover the Santa Rosa victim's financial loss.
The investigation revealed other suspected victims, living in other cities. It's suspected that Cohen-Roth took in over $4.8 million from numerous victims over the course of the scheme, according to Santa Rosa police.
Cohen-Roth was arrested by Santa Rosa detectives, with help from the Los Angeles Police Department, on Jan. 18, 2022, at her home in Marina del Rey.
Cohen-Roth was booked Jan. 24, 2022 at the Sonoma County Jail, but was released on bail three days later.
She remained out of custody until the end of her 2025 jury trial. Following her guilty verdict, Cohen-Roth was immediately remanded into custody, on charges of 20 counts of felony financial elder abuse, three counts of felony money laundering and one count of felony aggravated white-collar crime.
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