Ridgeland woman sentenced for exploiting senior citizens
By staff reports
January 12, 2009
A Ridgeland resident has pled guilty to three counts of a felony indictment for crimes against vulnerable adults, announced Attorney General Jim Hood.
Tamonica A. Scott, age 31, appeared before Judge Winston Kidd in Hinds County Circuit Court today and pleaded guilty to uttering a counterfeit instrument, exploitation of a vulnerable adult and fraudulent use of a credit card number to obtain a thing of value.
Judge Kidd sentenced Scott, on the State's recommendation, to a five year sentence in the custody of the Department of Corrections, one year of which will be served at the restitution center. The other four years of her sentence will be suspended as long as Scott does not violate any conditions. Scott also received two years of supervised probation during which time she is required to fully pay all restitution/fines/investigative costs/court costs.
Scott's case involved two victims, the first of which was a patient at St. Dominic's Hospital where Scott worked as a nurses aid. Scott, who provided help to the victim, took a check from the purse of the victim, made it out to herself in the amount of $310. She then used the account number from the face of the check to make approximately eight telephonic payments to HCBC Card Services and Capital One toward her account balances. Her actions resulted in overdrafts on the victims' bank account of approximately $132. In total, Scott's actions resulted in loss to the victim in the amount of approximately $2,030. In the second case, the victim was receiving home health services from Scott who took the victim's credit card and ran up charges of nearly $5,000.
"Ms. Scott was given the duty to care for these seniors and instead she took advantage of them and stole their money, said Attorney General Jim Hood. "Now it is her turn to pay."
Scott was ordered to pay full restitution in the amount of $7,303.82 in addition to a $5,000 fine, $500 to the Victim Compensation Fund, $500 for investigative costs, and court costs.
This case was investigated and prosecuted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Attorney General's Office.
No comments:
Post a Comment