South Carolina Nursing Home Blog : South Carolina Nursing Home Lawyer & Attorney : Poliakoff & Associates Law Firm : Elderly Care, Senior Care

Seattle PI reported the arrest of Gloria Corpuz Hall who was the operator of a Federal Way home for the elderly.  She is facing felony theft charges on allegations that she stole thousands of dollars from a deceased resident.  Prosecutors contend Gloria Corpuz Hall stole $21,775 from the accounts of an elderly woman who had been living at Hall's adult family home, Liberty Adult Care.

According to charging documents, Hall -- a 54-year-old Federal Way resident also known as Gloria Castillo Corpuz -- began drawing money from the woman's accounts months after her death on Jan. 21.  A review of the woman's bank statements, the detective continued, showed Hall had transferred money or forged checks on the woman's accounts at least 20 times.

Hall is alleged to have admitted to the thefts when confronted by police. Writing the court, the Federal Way detective said Hall complained that "she was behind on her mortgage and needed the money."  Charged with only one count of first-degree theft, Hall has not been jailed in the case
 

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The Jackson Sun News had an incredible story about a nursing home who hired a woman with a long history of fraud and forgery.  Sheila Watson was arrested and charged with one count of identity theft, four counts of criminal simulation, four counts of forgery, one count of criminal impersonation and one count of theft over $1,000.  Watson was the social services director at Bells Nursing Home.  Watson is also an ex-convict who has used at least half a dozen different names in a long history of state and federal fraud, forgery and theft convictions.

The investigation into Watson — who has worked at the nursing home since July — began when the nursing home received a call from a state agency.  The investigation is still ongoing but "They said she did a great job and was a good employee," Klyce said. "We've looked at her computer and couldn't find any evidence at this point."

When the Sheriff's Department began investigating, authorities soon discovered Watson's job application was only the tip of the iceberg, he said:

She had borrowed money from the Bank of Crockett County using false documents. She was wanted in Iowa on charges of theft over $10,000. She was on probation but was using a different name and job description to report to her probation officer.

Watson was arrested as Sheila F. Hayes in November 2002 on federal charges of forgery, theft of property and identity theft, according to The Jackson Sun's archives.

She was accused of stealing mail from 135 victims in West and Middle Tennessee for the purpose of stealing identities and embezzling money. She later pleaded guilty to one count of mail theft and was sentenced to five years in prison and three years' probation.

At the time, the judge said Hayes had the highest criminal history score of any woman he had seen in his 20 years as a judge. The bulk of her prior convictions were for theft and fraud, but she was also convicted of escape from a Metro Nashville jail. Watson had charges stretching back to 1989, most of them in Middle and West Tennessee. She reported to a probation officer in Jackson under the name Sheila Hayes and told them she worked for a construction company.

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WLWT out of Indiana had an article about nursing home employees named Gale Willman and Jody Holton accused of taking prescription pills from their patients and selling them.  Police investigators said Gale Willman, a licensed practical nurse, and Jody Holton, the assistant director of nursing at Woodland Hills Care Center, worked together to steal hydrocodone and oxycodone.  Willman and Holton have both been released on bond and have already found other nursing jobs.

A similar situation occurred at Woodland Hills previously, with nurse Heather White sentenced to a year in jail for stealing ocycodone from a patient.  Prosecutors said 87-year-old Anna Jordan slipped into coma and later died after White stole her pain medication.  The pain and torment included profuse sweating, excruciating headaches and having to be held down as she tried to jump off her bed, all because of withdrawal from oxycodone. White served only six months of her sentence.

The family members are shocked at the latest incident.

"I'm disgusted by it. It makes me question how many more people must be seriously injured or die before something is done at this facility," Jordan said.

Albright and Jordan said they believe monitoring at nursing homes should be stricter and random drug testing should be used. They said there should be investigations if someone suspects prescription drugs are being stolen or misused..

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News4Jax had an article about a nursing home Administrator indicted for embezzlement, money laundering, credit card fraud and identity theft, accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Riverview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.  Mary Burroughs stole the money over a one-year period from the center, a nonprofit organization that received millions of dollars in federal funding.

"The U.S. Attorney's Office is committed to investigating and prosecuting financial fraud and regaining what victims of these crimes have lost," U.S. attorney Edward Tarver said in a news release.

According to the indictment, between May 1, 2009, and April 30, Burroughs used her position as administrator to cause Riverview to issue multiple checks from its Wachovia money market account to cash, which she then used to purchase cashier's checks made payable to Burrough's Heating & Air and others.  Burroughs embezzled more than $235,000 from the Riverview money market account.  In addition, the indictment says that Burroughs used a Riverview credit card in the name of an employee she had terminated to make thousands of dollars of unauthorized and personal charges.

The indictment also says that Burroughs, without permission or authority, had others rip out copper piping and other metal objects from a Riverview building to be sold as scrap metal.

The indictment charges Burroughs with five counts of stealing from a program receiving federal funds and one count of credit card fraud.  Finally, the indictment charges Burroughs with one count of aggravated identity theft, which requires a two-year consecutive prison sentence to any other sentence imposed.

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Mid-Hudson News Network ran an article about the arrest of William Brownlee for identity theft in the first degree, a felony, after an investigation into the theft of money from an elderly resident at the Bethel Nursing Home in the Town of Cortlandt.

Police said Brownlee worked at the nursing home in the laundry/maintenance department.  He allegedly stole the resident’s debit card and fraudulently removed over $2,000 from various banks.

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Duluth Tribune News had an article about another nursing home employee stealing from the resident sin her care.  Patti Marie Peterson pleaded guilty to check forgery, and admitted to stealing five blank checks from a nursing home resident and wrote them out to herself.  Peterson was convicted of transferring stolen property in 1996.   She was sentenced to only three years probation.

Peterson was employed at the Bayshore Health Center, an adult assisted living facility on Park Point. A 78-year-old man reported to another Bayshore employee in October that he was missing some checks. Peterson allegedly took a check from the man’s checkbook, wrote it out to herself in the amount of $700 and had the man sign it over as a loan to her. Peterson then wrote five more checks to herself totaling $3,050, forging the man’s signature.

As conditions of probation, Peterson must pay $3,750 in restitution to her victim, obtain a General Educational Development certificate, find employment or be enrolled in school and write an apology to her victim.

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The Buffalo News had an article about nursing home employees embezzling money that should have gone to the resident's care.   Mary Blenker is the second employee of the Absolut nursing and rehabilitation complex in Orchard Park to plead guilty to corporate embezzlement.

Blenker admitted to stealing $13,402 from the disbursement funds she managed for the company’s adult living community and its nursing home from January 2007 until 13 months ago.  Blenker pleaded guilty to felony grand larceny and misdemeanor attempted grand larceny for the thefts before a grand jury reviewed her case.

Blenker, a former administrative assistant for financial affairs at the nursing home complex, was forced to sign confessions of judgment and must make complete restitution.

Rhonda Skiver, Absolut’s former chief financial officer, faces sentencing on her Feb. 19 guilty plea to embezzling more than $163,000 between December 2005 and April 2009.

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The Facts had a story about Bree Ann Gallardo who faces first-degree felony charges of stealing about $227,000 from Lake Jackson Healthcare Center.  Gallardo was indicted by a grand jury on charges of misapplication of fiduciary property and aggregated theft.  If convicted of the misapplication charge, she could face up to life in prison.

Gallardo is accused of signing checks to herself and making checks to cash from a resident’s trust fund between May 2007 and August 2009, according to a probable cause affidavit.  Gallardo, who also has used the last names Quisenberry and Finch, worked as the business office manager for the nursing home. Her responsibilities including “replenishing” the resident’s trust fund, court documents state.  The nursing home’s administrators discovered in September that Gallardo cashed a $6,960 check that was meant for a resident’s funeral expenses at Palms Funeral Home, the probable cause affidavit states.

After learning about the incident, a certified public accountant researched the company’s books and discovered $227,402 that she endorsed for cash and wrote a check for cash when she was not authorized by the resident to do so, court documents state. The report also found there were about $1,531 worth of checks, all less than $30, that had no signature or receipt of funds, the document states.

Brazoria County District Attorney Jeri Yenne said misapplication of fiduciary property cases are common in the medical field. Alvin Community Health Endeavor Executive Director Nancy Benefield turned herself in on the same charge and is accused of taking money from the federally funded clinic.

“There will always be individuals that will find access to accounts in settings where people least expect it,” Yenne said. “A small-type setting that handles a lot of funds can be ripe for this type of theft.”

According to Brazoria County Sheriff’s online records, Gallardo has served probation on several unrelated charges including forgery, theft and theft by check that date back to 2002. She was on probation for a forgery charge at the time of her arrest.

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NBC News had a scary story about nursing home employees stealing morphine.  How could a health care provider take away pain medication from a vulnerable adult and replace it with water?

A 30 ml morphine bottle was emptied and replaced with water at a Fort Myers nursing home.  The executive director of Magnolia Court Nursing Home contacted deputies after she discovered the medicine was missing on April 1st.   Only eleven people had access to the cabinet since March 26th.   They should give each one of them a polygraph test and a drug test.

Medications especially narcotics should be kept under the lock and key.

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The San Francisco Chronicle ran a disturbing article about Concepcion "Connie" Pinco Giron.  She was an administrator at a Berkeley nursing home charged with kidnapping Carnell Williams, an 85-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease. 

Giron told a supervisor that Williams was being transferred to another care home. There were no such plans, however - instead, Williams moved into Giron's home and Giron started cashing Williams' pension and Social Security checks.  The victim was held for a year in the home of the administrator.  She stole more than $50,000 if you  five other elderly patients.  Giron opened bank accounts at Citibank for five other patients in 2008 and began transferring money from those accounts into her own bank account.

Giron wrote checks to herself from the patients' accounts, used their ATM cards, and stole cash from patients' trust accounts that the Berkeley nursing home maintained.

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