Live-in aide convicted of drugging Alzheimer’s patient

Live-in aide convicted of drugging Alzheimer’s patient


Friday February 3, 2012, 5:03 PM

BY KIBRET MARKOS

STAFF WRITER

The Record

A Dumont home health-care worker has been convicted on charges that she drugged an elderly woman with sleeping pills to make her job easier.

Nina Powers, 59, was hired by a family in September 2010 to provide full-time care to a 74-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, said Jessica Gomperts, an assistant Bergen County prosecutor.

Shortly after Powers moved into the home and started working, the family noticed that the elderly woman, who often woke up in the morning and stayed active for most of the day, had begun a pattern of napping on the couch all day, Gomperts said.

The elderly woman’s son and daughter-in-law became more suspicious when the woman came out wandering out of her bedroom one day, carrying a receipt for over-the-counter sleeping pills, Gomperts said.

The daughter-in-law then searched Powers’ drawers and found sleeping pills, Gomperts said. The daughter-in-law began counting the pills almost every day when Powers was away and found that five to nine pills went missing per day, Gomperts said.

“She was drugging her with these sleeping pills to knock her out so that she doesn’t have to do her job,” Gomperts said.

After two weeks of counting the pills, the daughter-in-law took the elderly woman to a doctor and had a blood test done, Gomperts said. The elderly woman tested positive for the main ingredient in the sleeping pills, she said.

Powers maintained that she took about one sleeping pill a day, and told jurors during a trial in Superior Court in Hackensack that the elderly woman must have been taking the pills without her knowledge.

The family fired Powers in January 2011. Powers was later charged with neglect of an elderly person and reckless endangerment, and a jury convicted her of the charges Thursday after less than two hours of deliberations.

Powers is scheduled for sentencing on March 16. Neglect of an elderly person carries a maximum of five years in prison, but because Powers is a first-time offender, she is likely to receive a sentence with little or no jail time.

Please read complete article at link below:

http://www.northjersey.com/news/crime_courts/Live-in_aide_convicted_of_drugging_Alzheimers_patient.html

Editor's note: This Shark sees no difference between the actions of Ms. Powers and the nursing homes, care providers and case managers employed by the Probate Court of Cook County.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com