BELINGTON, W.Va. (WBOY) — A man has been charged after he allegedly took more than $10k from an elderly woman in Belington to gamble at “hotspots.”

On Jan. 3, troopers with the Barbour County detachment of the West Virginia State Police were informed that someone was exploiting an elderly individual for money, according to a criminal complaint.

Troopers said they learned that Chad Bolyard, 46, of Belington, had “taken the debit card” or an elderly woman and “refused to give it back to her while using the card to make charges [she] did not know about.”

On Jan. 4, troopers made contact with an employee from the victim’s bank and learned that Bolyard had gone to the Belington branch with the victim and that employees had disclosed to the victim that the “checking account was overdrawn due to some gambling charges,” according to the complaint.

At that point, Bolyard informed the victim that “he made the charges but didn’t tell [the victim] about them,” and the victim attempted to move money into the checking account, but “the bank declined the transfer due to the current influence” of Bolyard telling the victim “to ‘shut up’ when [she] stated ‘I don’t even know why I am here’,” troopers said.

During that time, Bolyard “became agitated and became verbally aggressive” with the bank’s employees “demanding that they move the money on [the victim’s] behalf”; troopers also learned that Bolyard “has overdrafted [the victim’s] account making it so she could not get her utilities hooked up,” according to the complaint.

Once troopers obtained a search warrant for the victim’s account, they learned that Bolyard made multiple transactions at multiple “hotspots” beginning on June 2023 and that the victim “did not give [Bolyard] permission to make cash withdraws from her account for any reason” and “was unaware of him using her card” at the hotspots, troopers said.

According to the victim, she was “not aware that [Bolyard] had been using her debit card to chard any transactions other than to Shop-N-Save for groceries and the occasional gas for her vehicle,” according to the complaint.

When the criminal complaint was filed, Bolyard had taken a total of $10,031.19 “in financial extortion” from the victim, troopers said.

Bolyard has been charged with financial exploitation of the elderly. He is being held in Tygart Valley Regional Jail.

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