Music store manager charged after allowing an alzheimer victim to buy 11 organs

May 29 2005

The manager of a music store has been charged with the exploitation of the elderly, after allowing a woman with Alzheimer's disease to buy 11 organs from him over 18 months and that included four on one single day.

Pasco County sheriff's detectives say that beginning in 2003, Scott L. Heyder, 36, sold the 79-year-old woman a progressively more expensive string of the instruments, even after her family pleaded with him to stop.

Sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll, said the woman finally spent about $25,000 on organs and ended up with one worth only about half that. He said she has not received any money back from the music store, Fletcher Music Center at Gulfview Square Mall.

Doll said says the sales were 'unconscionable', especially after the family confronted the salesperson and told him their mother had mental failings due to Alzheimer's, and doesn't know what she's doing.

Heyder and officials at Fletcher's Music have not commented.

Detectives requested that the woman not be publicly identified, fearing she might become the victim of another financial scam.

Heyder has been charged with the exploitation of the elderly and held on $10,000 bail at the Pasco County Jail.