Elder Law

Woman Accused of Stealing at the Nursing Home

By Levin & Perconti

An employee at a nursing home was arrested and has been charged with stealing from the nursing home and several of its residents. According to the police department after the employee was arrested after the home?s chief long-term care officer reported the center had information showing an employee had been stealing. The woman was taken by the police where she was charged with theft by deception, theft by taking and financial exploitation of the elderly. The employee has been charged with stealing more than $4,000 from the elderly residents. She would take the money for the families and then not deposit them into the appropriate accounts. The police stated that the employee also stole from the facility be taking payment of services not provided to residents. The theft was not from the nursing home, but rather the individual residents. The nursing home stated that applicants go through criminal background checks and that nothing was found on the employee?s record. Criminal background checks are crucial to a nursing home?s process of hiring employees in order to guarantee that they are free from nursing home abuse. This case also highlights that financial exploitation has become one of the most common forms of elderly abuse in these troubling economic times. To read more about the financial exploitation, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on September 21, 2009 (boomark / email).