WILLMAR — An Oklahoma man was sentenced Jan. 10 in Kandiyohi County District Court to three years of probation for stealing thousands of dollars from a woman for whom he makes health care and financial decisions.
Kevin Wayne Jelley, 57, of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, was charged with felony financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult — breach of fiduciary obligation by failing to provide care. He pleaded guilty Monday and was given a stay of adjudication by District Judge David Mennis.
A stay of adjudication means that the charge will eventually be dismissed if the terms of the stay are met.
As part of his unsupervised probation, Jelley will owe a Willmar care facility $33,130.30 for unpaid services and he cannot act as a fiduciary, guardian or serve in a conservatorship role during the probationary period.
According to the criminal complaint, Jelley holds the legal power of attorney for a woman who is a resident of a care facility in Willmar. An administrator there told a Kandiyohi County Health and Human Services employee who works in adult protection that about $29,000 is owed on the woman's account.
She receives Medical Assistance funds, which are supposed to be used to pay the facility for services.
Jelley has a joint bank account with her where the funds are supposed to be deposited.
Jelley allegedly told the administrator, and later law enforcement, that he and his wife lost their jobs during the pandemic and he used the money meant for the woman's care to pay bills and "live on."
Jelley stopped making payments to the care facility in August 2019.
After being confronted by a facility administrator about the lack of payment and being told that further lack of payment would lead to the woman being discharged from the facility, Jelley did make a one-month payment in February 2021.
A law enforcement review of the bank accounts held by Jelley and the woman showed a recurring monthly credit to a joint checking account of between $1,600 and $1,800, which appears to be the Medical Assistance payments.
From August 2019, when Jelley stopped making payments to the care facility, through March 2021, there are multiple purchase transactions from Target, Walmart and Starbucks, money transfers to an account in Jelley's name and ATM cash withdrawals from the joint checking account.
No comments:
Post a Comment