Violet Alberts, 96, owned a multi-million-dollar home in Southern California's exclusive enclave of Montecito.
In the breathtaking bluffs of Montecito in Southern California, 96-year-old widow Violet Alberts owned a multi-million-dollar home where neighbors included Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and Ariana Grande.
After two years of investigation, the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office has now detailed an allegedly elaborate scheme that they say began with a mortgage scam to defraud Alberts and ended with a murder-for-hire plot that killed her in 2022.
“She was a vibrant 96-year-old widow. A cherished figure in the Montecito community,” said Sheriff Bill Brown at a Thursday news conference. “Despite her age, she remained active and engaged and was known for her warm demeanor and social nature.”
Alberts' body was found in her bed in May 2022, where the coroner later determined she was killed by asphyxiation, most like from being smothered in her sleep. In the kitchen, deputies found all the ingredients necessary to make cookies, apparently to celebrate her upcoming 97th birthday, Brown said.
Investigators later discovered that Alberts was being swindled out of her home, valued at between $4 million and $11 million, authorities said. It was "a tangled, evil web of financial exploitation against the victim," Brown said.
Alberts had been offered a reverse mortgage by Pauline Lisa Macareno, a Los Angeles woman who instead planned to steal ownership of the widow's exclusive home, Brown said.
Authorities say she ultimately orchestrated a "murder-for-hire" scheme, and enlisted three men: Ricardo MartinDelCampo, 41, of Los Angeles, Harry Basmadjian, 58, of Van Nuys, and Henry Rostomyan, 33, of Tujunga.
"Let me put it this way: in the eyes of Ms. Macareno, Miss Alberts was living too long," Brown said.
Macareno was charged in 2022 with multiple counts including elder abuse and fraud. She pleaded no contest and was sentenced to six years in prison, according to court records. She faces an additional charge of solicitation of murder that was filed on March 1, court records show.
She has not entered a plea on that last count and has no attorney of record for that charge, according to online court records.
Inside Edition Digital has reached out to her attorney in the earlier case for comment.
Basmadjian was arrested in January, Rostomyan was arrested in February and MartinDelCampo was arrested last week, Brown said. They are charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Basmadjian, who was in federal jail in an unrelated case, suffered a health emergency while in custody and is now "essentially brain dead with a grim prognosis," Brown said.
Rostomyan and MartinDelCampo have not entered pleas, according to court records. Inside Edition Digital has reached out to Rostomyan's attorney for comment. MartinDelCampo has no attorney of record.
Both men are being held at the Santa Barbara County Jail without bail, online records show.
The widow had no nearby family, but had many friends in the community, the sheriff said. She sometimes forgot things and had difficulty understanding what was going on around her, but was physically active, Brown said.
“Despite facing challenges with her memory and cognition, Violet’s spirit remained undaunted,” Brown said. “This was evident in her plans to celebrate her upcoming birthday by baking fresh cookies.”
The sheriff said Alberts was also having financial difficulty and had met with Macareno in 2020 to arrange a reverse mortgage, a loan available to senior homeowners. A reverse mortgage allows owners aged 62 and older to borrow money against their home's equity.
Macareno "capitalized on Alberts' vulnerability, engaging in financial elder abuse that led to the fraudulent acquisition of her property," Brown said.
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