They met when he was working as an exterminator at her home in Tennessee.
But for years, Karl Hampton convinced the octogenarian widow with dementia that he had her best interests at heart, introducing himself as her “personal assistant” and listing himself as her “son” on her personal records as he stole some $1.2 million from her, according to the criminal complaint filed in the Middle District of Tennessee District Court and obtained by PEOPLE.
The woman, identified in court documents only by her initials B.W., did not have any children.
Earlier this week, Hampton, now 65, was sentenced to 60 months in prison on a 12 felony count conviction on multiple counts of conspiracy and money laundering, as well as eight counts of wire fraud, the Middle District of Tennessee’s U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release. A judge ordered Hampton to pay back the more than $1.2 million in restitution.
In February 2023, his wife, Deborah Hampton, who had also been indicted in June 2021 for the scheme, pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and was sentenced to time served, with three years of supervised release. She was ordered to pay $21,000 in restitution.
We reached out to Peter J. Strianse, who represented Hampton, and David M. Hopkins, who represented his wife, for a comment on the cases. Neither immediately responded.
The scheme — which was perpetrated between 2018 and 2020 — involved Hampton convincing the elderly woman “that he would care for her personally and financially,” prosecutors said in the complaint.
In April 2019, he successfully urged her to sign over her power of attorney and name him in her will, as well as her Revocable Living Trust, per the criminal complaint. The next month, he quit his job.
With access to her accounts, he “methodically drained” the woman’s bank accounts “to fund his lavish lifestyle,” per the complaint, stealing over $1 million from the woman, through bank transfers, cash withdrawals, checks written to himself, cashier’s checks and credit card charges.
He also controlled a bank account named “Falcon Company” in which he transferred much of the funds, per the complaint.
Prosecutors say in the complaint that he “took out a $500,000 line of credit in her name using her securities as collateral, and amassed huge charges on her credit cards for his own personal expenses.”
Among his purchases, per the complaint: a luxury Lexus GX460 SUV in his wife’s name, a 4.3-karat diamond ring which he bought with his wife, a $170,000 interest in a pest control business. The complaint also says he regularly spent between $1,000 and $1,500 in cash per day for lottery tickets.
Mark Wildasin of the Department of Justice tells PEOPLE that Hampton testified that he had previously filed for bankruptcy.
Hampton, who is currently on release, per Wildasin, is slated to report back to serve his sentence in federal prison on Dec. 6.
