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A social worker, lawyer and two others who conspired to take advantage of an 89-year-old Montreal woman and took her life savings have been ordered to pay her succession more than $500,000.

“This case is about elder abuse,” Quebec Superior Court Judge Gary D.D. Morrison wrote in his recent ruling, later describing the “outrage” anyone would feel upon learning what was done.

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After a lengthy civil trial, social worker Alissa Kerner, her husband, lawyer Charles Gelber, Anita Obodzinski and her husband, Arthur Trzciakowski, have all been ordered to pay punitive and moral damages.

Their conduct was so egregious and intertwined, Morrison wrote, that it’s hard to separate who’s to blame for what.

In order to take control of Veronika Piela’s life against her will, they falsified medical documents, broke into her home to access her personal information, then misled the court to have a protection mandate put in place — a legal document that gave Obodzinski, who lied about being Piela’s niece, control of her well-being and finances.