Virel Maxwell worked for my parents as a home attendant in Brooklyn, NY, first caring for my mother, then for my father after my mother passed away.

My father passed away in October, 2007, at the age of 93. Virel told me and my wife that my father had asked her to repay investments he had made in a nursing home that she owns in Jamaica (Avondale Nursing Home, 28 Avondale Road, Spanish Town, Jamaica). I asked how much this would be and Virel said she would find out when she got a chance to go thru her records.

I was a little surprised to hear about these investments since my wife and I had met with the woman who originally referred Virel to my parents (in her role as leader of an Alzheimer's and aging resources center) in 2000 (and paid $100 for the meeting) and we thought she would tell them to stop the financial dealings. Later, when I asked her about what she told them, she didn't remember the meeting at all.

A week after the funeral, Virel returned to Jamaica to take care of a sick relative, and was delayed in returning to the US due to the Jamaican government wanting "DNA information about her granddaughter".

She told me she would meet with me when she got back to NY, and that would be "soon". It's been over two years and there has been no meeting and I have only rarely been able to reach her by phone. My father's lawyer recently wrote to me: "the only thing I know about the investment is that your dad told me about it being a mistake and he wished he never did it".


On February 3, 2010, I called her in Jamaica. The phone connection was very noisy but she made it clear that she did not want to meet with me. She said something about lawyers but no indication of when or how we would arrange anything.

In March, 2010, my lawyer called her in Jamaica to at least get her lawyer's contact information. She told him she would be back in NY in a month, she would "sit down with her lawyer" and they would show me the receipts or cancelled checks showing how much she paid back.