MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio
by Laura Yuen, Minnesota Public Radio
November 15, 2013
The Maplewood Police Department recently closed an investigation into the Rev. Rodger Bauman, an Oakdale priest who accepted a $120,000 check from a 99-year-old former parishioner. Bauman has maintained all along that the money was a gift. He eventually returned it.
No charges were ever filed. But the circumstances surrounding the money raised concerns among the man’s caregivers, the woman serving as his power of attorney and a police detective, who investigated Bauman on suspicion of swindling a vulnerable adult.
The man who wrote the check, Lou Dziengel, lived in an assisted living home in Maplewood. He got around with a walker, wore two hearing aids and, by at least one account, was rough around the edges.
“Very stubborn. He wanted things his way,” said the woman who served as his power of attorney. Her name has been redacted from police reports, and MPR News has agreed not to identify her. “There was a certain way to do things, and a certain way you didn’t do things.”
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