Dodge Center woman fails to appear at first financial exploitation hearing; arrest warrant issued

By KAALTV

(ABC 6 News) – A Dodge Center woman failed to appear in Dodge County Court Wednesday, Nov. 1, on a charge of felony financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult.

Michelle Renae Jefferson, 47, is accused of stealing money from a senior for whom she serves as power of attorney. 

Dodge County Court issued a warrant for Jefferson’s arrest Thursday, Nov. 2.

According to court documents, Dodge County law enforcement received a report from the MN Adult Abuse Report Center, in which the senior alleged that he was missing money from a settlement, and that checks he had not written or signed had been cashed.

According to the report, the man stated that he received monthly spending money, but Jefferson was in control of his debit card and knew the PIN number for it.

He also described the bill allocations between him and Jefferson.

According to the report, the man’s banking account indicated that the debit card had been used at Truckin America, Kwik Trip, the Dodge Center Kwik Trip ATM, and Austin’s Walmart.

The man reported that he had not used his debit card at an ATM, did not know what purchases had been made at the stores, and denied giving Jefferson permission to make online transfers.

In March, an Adult Protection social worker met with Jefferson, who allegedly said the senior was reimbursed in case for any bills he paid.

Jefferson also told the social worker that the senior had agreed to help her “when she was in a financial bind,” but did not say how much the man had loaned her, when the loan had taken place, or “the duration of payback,” according to court documents.

In April, Dodge County law enforcement received more information from the social worker, who said the senior said he remembered that Jefferson had asked to take money from his account, but did not say what it would be used for.

He did not recall her asking for money “due to a financial bind,” according to court documents. 

According to court documents, law enforcement identified roughly $40,200 in unaccounted transactions Jefferson had made from the senior’s bank account between 2014 and the beginning of 2023.

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Dodge Center woman fails to appear at first financial exploitation hearing; arrest warrant issued

Nurse’s aide accused of sexually assaulting 79-year-old patient at SW Houston facility

by Sabirah Rayford

HOUSTON – A certified nursing aide has been charged with injury to the elderly after Houston police said she sexually assaulted a patient at the Houston Transitional Care facility located in southwest Houston.

Police say in May of 2021, Natalia McDaniel forcefully held down a 79-year-old patient at the facility and sexually assaulted her.

Prior to this charge, McDaniel was convicted of delivering cocaine back in 1997.

“That employee should’ve been vetted a little more and also watched a little better,” Executive Director of Nixon Homecare Shay Tatum said.

Tatum said she isn’t affiliated with this case, but explained why criminal histories may not be flagged. She said it’s not uncommon for people with records to hold a CNA license because there’s a statute of limitations.

“As long as you have not committed any animal abuse, elderly abuse, and aggravated assault, or any assaults in nature, some things have a statute of limitations,” she explained. “This individual we’re talking about today had a cocaine charge from 20 years ago. Well, the state only requires a five-year clean record.”

She said there are ways to better protect your loved one.

”You need to make sure you come by [at] different times to visit, different times to check on her,” Tatum said. “See if their attitude has changed [or] their mental space has changed.”

KPRC 2 reached out to Houston Transitional Care. They provided the following statement:

“At Houston Transitional Care we are committed to providing high-quality care to our residents, and our staff’s exemplary efforts throughout the pandemic underscore that. While HIPAA privacy and personnel laws prevent us from commenting on many of the questions you raise, we can say that as a matter of public record, the state health oversight agency investigated the incident you reference and found no culpability with regard to HTC and our former employee,” said Spokesperson for Houston Transitional Care Dan Kramer.

KPRC 2 also reached out to Texas Health and Human Services to ask if they are aware of the charges against McDaniel.

They said, in part, “HHSC reviews and investigates allegations of abuse, neglect or misappropriation of resident property by nurse aides. If there’s a finding of an alleged act of abuse, neglect or misappropriation, the nurse aide may request both an informal reconsideration and a formal hearing before the finding is placed on the registry. Certified nursing aides must pass criminal background checks. Employers also are required to check the Nurse Aide Registry to ensure the CNA has not been barred from employment in Texas due to a confirmed allegation of abuse, neglect or exploitation.”

On their website, McDaniel’s is still listed as employable and has an active license.

HPD has a warrant out for her arrest.

“It’s very disheartening when something like this happens to an elderly,” Tatum said.

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Nurse’s aide accused of sexually assaulting 79-year-old patient at SW Houston facility

Judge issues warrant for caregiver accused of stealing thousands from elderly couple

TACOMA, Wash. - A Tacoma family, hoping to face the caregiver accused of stealing from their dying father and grieving mother, got their day in court on Tuesday.

No sign of the defendant, but they got something else.

"I'm so glad they came to this," said Tacoma's Jean Armand, crying into the palms of her hands outside a Pierce County Superior Courtroom. "We got some justice today."

After waiting an hour and a half for defendant Katherine Jenkins to show, the judge issued a warrant for her arrest.

"It is just is like this huge weight is lifted, it’s out, there is no hiding, the world knows," said Joanne Tollefson, Jean Longchamps' daughter.

Her three children, Joanne, Joyce and Roy sat close to their mother waiting for Jenkins to arrive.

Longchamps wasn't sure she'd have the strength to face Jenkins, but said she knew she had to.

"I just need some closure, you know, I need it," she said.

Thursday will mark one year since Longchamps lost her husband Armand of 65 years.

Last July, while Armand was slipping away, police said caregiver Katherine Jenkins helped herself to the couple's banking information.

The family believes an unlocked desk drawer in the couple's dining room was easy prey.

"Why would you do that when you know he was dying," said Longchamps.

Last summer, we found the caregiver in her Tacoma home, she said she had worked for the Longchamps but had no idea Mr. Longchamps died or that money was missing.

We showed her nearly $5,000 in charges and the name 'Katherine Jenkins' and 'Kathy Jenkins' all over the couple's bank statement.

"It wasn't me. So, no I don't know who that person is and I wouldn't do something like that," said Jenkins last summer outside her Tacoma home.

After months of waiting on credit card company records, last week the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office charged Jenkins with identity theft and theft in the second degree.

She was summoned to appear in court this morning.

Longchamps and her family haven't seen Jenkins since the two days she worked in their home in May of 2016.

"I knew she was a coward because she preyed on the elderly and I think she just cemented it by not showing up," said Tollefson. "It just cements she is the coward that we know she is."

Edmonds Police Sergeant Shane Hawley said the no-shows in cases like these are not uncommon.

"If you're in to fraud and conning people that's just what you do," said Sgt. Hawley.

Edmonds Police are still looking for an accused caregiver from Mountlake Terrace.

She was charged in December, but was also a no-show in court.

"She was basically using his credit card as if it were her own," said Sergeant Hawley.

Prosecutors allege Naomi Kihato racked up $20,000 in unauthorized charges while caring for a 'vulnerable adult' over a four-month period.

Police have checked and rechecked all Kihato's last known addresses and nothing.

"It can kind of go into the wind pretty easy," said Hawley.

The sergeant said detectives usually find suspects when they trip up; they get a traffic ticket, their warrant pops up on their record and they get busted.

"A lot of times is as simple is someone runs a stop sign, ends up in another jurisdiction and we end up finding them," said Hawley.

Which is why police stress catching and reporting fraud early, always securing financial documents stored in your home and doing what the Longchamps did, reporting all suspected fraud.

"We did it for us, and hopefully, everybody else," said Tollefson.

The family's bank has reimbursed them for all the unauthorized charges.

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Judge issues warrant for caregiver accused of stealing thousands from elderly couple

Attorney called Mr Conn who stole $600m worth of social security from the government VANISHES one month before his sentencing

• Eric Conn, the flamboyant Eastern Kentucky lawyer who pleaded guilty in March in a $600 million Social Security fraud scheme, has disappeared
• Conn removed his electronic monitoring device in violation of his bond and authorities don't know where is is 
• He pleaded guilty to stealing from the Social Security Administration and paying bribes to a judge to rubber-stamp disability claims for thousands of his clients
• Conn remained free on bond pending his sentencing next month, but a judge had ordered him to be on home detention with electronic monitoring
• Employees in Conn’s office had heard him say he would flee to Cuba or Ecuador to avoid criminal charges
• Conn is believed to have wired substantial sums of money out of the country

A Kentucky disability attorney who stole $600 million from the federal government has vanished, according to the FBI.

Eric C. Conn, a flamboyant Kentucky lawyer who billed himself as 'Mr. Social Security,' was indicted on allegations in March that he made millions by paying a doctor and a judge to rubber-stamp false disability claims using phony medical evidence.

He was ordered to pay back tens of millions of dollars and was due to be sentenced next month.

Bit now the FBI said has revealed that Conn violated the conditions of his bond by removing his electronic monitoring device prompting the U.S. District Court to issue a warrant for his arrest.

General counsel for the FBI's Louisville office, David Habich, said that Conn's 'whereabouts are currently unknown.'

Conn was charged with designing an intricate scheme and using his expertise and positions of authority, to fraudulently induce payment of $600 million in federal disability and healthcare benefits,' Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said at the time.

Incredibly, Conn had escaped legal consequence for years, even after the Social Security Administration last summer cut off disability payments to hundreds of his clients in the impoverished coalfields of eastern Kentucky and West Virginia.

Conn continued to practice law and remains in good standing with the Kentucky Bar Association.

In 2013, the U.S. Senate released a scathing report titled 'How Some Legal, Medical and Judicial Professionals Abused Social Security Disability Programs for the Country's Most Vulnerable: A Case Study of the Conn Law Firm.'

 For 161 pages, the report detailed the lengths to which investigators say they went to hide the alleged scheme.

It accused Conn of paying the doctors, whom he called his 'whore doctors,' to sign dubious medical reports showing his clients were disabled. The claims were then approved by another doctor,often without a hearing.

At the time of his arrest, the federal prosecutor, Trey Alford, argued against Conn's release, saying he poses a flight risk and has indicated he would flee, that he has transferred money overseas, including in others' names to make it harder to track, and that his home is for sale.

Such fears now appear to have been well founded.

Conn opened his practice in a trailer in 1993 in his hometown of Stanville, Kentucky, population 500, according to the Senate investigation.

 From there he built the third-most lucrative disability firm in the nation, bringing in more than $20 million in fees between 2001 and 2013.

He became a local celebrity for his over-the-top advertising campaigns. He dispatched crews of 'Conn Hotties' to events, hired Miss Kentucky to appear in commercials and had a 19-foot replica of the Lincoln Memorial erected in the parking lot of his office.

A senate investigation alleges Conn's firm shredded 26,000 pounds of documents, more than 2.5 million sheets of paper, and destroyed more in a bonfire behind his office that burned for four days.

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Attorney called Mr Conn who stole $600m worth of social security from the government VANISHES one month before his sentencing