Mary Mason's grandson pleads guilty to looting the Philly radio icon's life savings

The grandson of Philadelphia radio legend Mary Mason pleaded guilty Friday to two counts of felony theft related to his looting of her life savings.

Calvin Steven Turner IV, 34, entered his plea at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown. Under terms of the deal, he will repay $331,000, perform 100 hours of community service work with the elderly, and be on probation for 10 years.

Turner, Mason's only grandchild, was accused of stealing from her bank accounts and spending it on real estate, gambling, travel, and food. Last October, Turner was set to plead guilty but backed out of the deal at the last minute.

His theft from his elderly and ailing grandmother was so prodigious that it resulted in Mason's having to be moved to a less-expensive nursing home, the Inquirer and Daily News reported last year.

Mason was on the city's airwaves for more than 50 years, a significant voice in civic and political circles and in the African American community.

On Friday, when Judge Wendy Rothstein asked Turner whether he wanted to address the court, he responded that he had thought he was spending his dead father's money, not Mason's.

"I didn't understand commingling" of funds, Turner said in a soft voice.

Turner, who was accompanied to court by his mother, Carla James, became the executor of his father's estate upon his 2012 death, and the same year became legal guardian over Mason's financial affairs, as she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Assistant District Attorney Christopher Daniels said the decade-long probation period is intended to give Turner enough time to pay the ordered restitution to Mason, who will be 88 in July.

"You're going to have 10 years. If anything happens, you're going to come back in front of me," Rothstein warned Turner.

If Mason should die during the probation period, the required paperwork will be filed to free Turner from having to complete probation or pay restitution, his attorney, Martin P. Mullaney, said in court.

"I would say that when the day comes that Mary unfortunately passes and leaves this world, I think restitution would terminate and I think his probation would terminate at that time," Mullaney said after leaving the courtroom.

"When his grandmother dies, he's the sole beneficiary in her estate, so we have then come full circle where he would be paying restitution to himself," Mullaney said.

Daniels told the judge he did not think Turner would reoffend, and did not dispute Mullaney's take on Turner's legal prospects in the event of Mason's demise.

Initially, Turner was accused by prosecutors of stealing upward of $1.2 million from his grandmother, but that sum dropped to the restitution amount after deducting what he spent on her taxes, the services of two caregivers, and housing at the Sunrise Senior Living facility in Lafayette Hill, Montgomery County, Mullaney said.

The money Turner misappropriated was mostly spent on a failed real estate company startup and on paying himself a biweekly salary of $2,500, the attorney said.

"He was a very poor record-keeper," Mullaney said of Turner. "The bottom line here is he meant no ill will. He thought he was doing a good thing, and he just failed."

Before leaving the courthouse, Turner repeated that he thought he had been spending his late father's money and insisted that he had spent Mason's money on her.

"I didn't steal anything," he said.