Justice was served as 80-year-old Elana Cohen-Roth was convicted of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded a Santa Rosa senior and possibly others. The Santa Rosa Police announced her conviction on 24 felony charges, including elder financial abuse and money laundering, after a three-week trial in Sonoma County Superior Court.
According to the Santa Rosa Police, the accused orchestrated a sophisticated ruse targeting an elderly community member from 2013 to 2019, tricking the vulnerable senior into making transfers totaling over $1.5 million, which led the victim down a dire path lined with debt that piled up to over $270,000.
Persistent work by Santa Rosa Police detectives, led by Detective Jeff Woods, exposed Cohen-Roth’s fraud. Their investigation uncovered evidence from her home and business in Southern California, revealing not only the scam targeting a Santa Rosa resident but also a larger $4.8 million scheme defrauding others.
Cohen-Roth, a former IRS agent and tax practitioner in Los Angeles, was arrested in January 2022 and released on bail until her trial ended in 2025. The jury’s guilty verdict was welcomed by law enforcement and the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office, recognizing their hard work in securing the conviction.
