Mentally challenged man learns that not everyone is his friend

Derek Bernath is mentally challenged. Though he’s 36, he comes across as far younger. Innocent.

What happened to him two weeks ago at the condominium complex where he lives makes your blood boil.

It shows what can happen when a man with obvious cognitive deficits runs into young people who are neither empathetic nor understanding, who see only someone who’s been dealt a tough hand in life as an easy mark.

“I thought those boys playing Marco Polo with me in the pool were nice,” Derek told me after his iPhone 6 Plus was stolen. “I wanted them to be my friends. But they were mean. It’s not right to take my phone.”

Whenever this happens — people taking advantage of their son — Wayne and Peggy Bernath get sick to their stomachs.

“Most people are nice,” said Wayne Bernath, a semiretired publicist who contacted me after his son’s phone was stolen. “But some people find ways to get things from him. One guy acted like his friend and Derek’s money started (going) missing.”

That Derek was victimized upset Michael Gaughan, the South Point owner who hired Derek as a part-time porter two years ago. He hated to hear that “the young man who thinks everybody is his friend” has to experience people who see him as someone to be fleeced.

“He’s pretty safe working here,” Gaughan said. “He does his job. Everybody looks out for him. We look out for our employees with challenges. It’s sad, but they have to learn a stranger can be danger. Everybody’s not your friend.”

On March 15, Derek learned again that everybody is not his friend.

That afternoon, before he went in the pool at the condos near South Point, he placed his phone on a table and draped it with a towel. He and two teenagers, who got in and out of the pool at different times, were the only ones there.

When Derek decided to leave, his phone was gone. The two teens said they’d help him look for it. When it wasn’t found, they said somebody must have reached through the fence and taken it.

After Derek used another phone to tell his mother what happened, she decided she had to buy a new phone; she regards the phone as a lifeline to her son.

Derek’s largely lives independently — a caretaker checks on him during the week. But because of his innocence, she wants him to call her before making decisions.

“One ‘friend’ took Derek’s TV to make it better,” she said. “He gave Derek an old one and he never saw his good TV again.”

Within days of the phone theft, Derek’s mother used her Find My iPhone app to track the phone to a building near Derek’s. She reported the theft to the police.

Though authorities say it’s unwise for theft victims to confront a possible thief because of potential violence, Derek went to the building the app located.

He figured out how to get his phone back.

He told the mother of the older boy who was at the pool with him about the app and that he believed her son had stolen his phone. Derek asked her to please talk with his parents.

“I was on the phone with the boy’s mother and heard her call her son a liar and threaten that she was going to call the police and he’d be homeless if he didn’t give back the phone,” Peggy Bernath said. “That night, she brought the phone to Derek.”

On Monday, Peggy Bernath didn’t know whether to press charges against the 17-year-old boy. But she did know she was proud of how Derek helped get his phone back.

Paul Harasim’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday in the Nevada section and Monday in the Health section. Contact him at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273. Follow @paulharasim on Twitter.